7 Hardest Metroidvania Games

Highlights

• Hollow Knight, Salt & Sanctuary,
  and
  Environmental Station Alpha
  are challenging Metroidvania games with difficult boss fights and a lack of hand-holding.
• Grime
  and
  Death’s Gambit: Afterlife
  offer unique dark aesthetics and challenging gameplay, with brutal boss fights and tough parry systems.
• Cathedral
  and
  La-Mulana
  provide expansive worlds, old-school visuals, and a variety of challenging enemies, puzzles, and platforming challenges.

The Metroidvania genre combines elements of Castlevania and Metroid to create experiences that offer interesting, interconnected worlds to explore. These worlds are often packed with an abundance of challenging enemies, boss fights, and abilities to discover.

While Metroidvanias may not set out to be difficult as much as games in the Soulslike genre, for example, they can often be quite challenging. This can be for a variety of reasons, but the most common is the lack of hand-holding these games tend to have, as well as a high quantity of boss fights.

7 Hollow Knight – A Bug-Themed Indie Hit

Steam User Rating: 97%

There’s no mistaking that Hollow Knight is one of the most popular and successful Metroidvanias of all time, especially within the indie space. However, despite its accessibility in the form of its cutesy art-style and generosity with its maps, Hollow Knight can get quite difficult towards the end of the game.

Despite the game taking a little while to ramp up its challenge, many of Hollow Knight’s boss fights can be brutal and unforgiving. Furthermore, players that want to explore everything that Hollow Knight has to offer will have to complete areas such as the “White Palace,” made difficult through their ruthless platforming challenges.

Steam User Rating: 89%

This 2D side-scrolling Metroidvania features a grim-dark Gothic aesthetic with a stark color palette and creepy characters. While its aesthetic and 2D perspective help set it apart from its clear Dark Souls influences, Salt & Sanctuary’s gameplay is fairly familiar.

Salt & Sanctuary is, at its heart, an action RPG. The game follows an RPG-style progression system, and features brutal, unforgiving combat that Dark Souls fans will be familiar with, though arguably it’s not quite as hard.

5 Environmental Station Alpha – An Old-School Metroidvania

Steam User Rating: 84%

• Platforms: PC, macOS
• Released: April 22, 2015
• Developer: Arvi Telkari

Sporting well-crafted, low-resolution pixel art graphics and an old-school approach to its design, Environmental Station Alpha is a mysterious Metroidvania with a lot to offer. While its visuals may turn some players away, Environmental Station Alpha is a short but challenging experience from start to finish.

Much of Environmental Station Alpha’s difficulty comes down to its frequent and challenging boss fights, as well as a handful of difficult puzzles. However, even exploring the world of Environmental Station Alpha can be difficult, especially as the game never tries to hold the player’s hand.

4 Grime – A Parry-Focused Action Game In A Strange World

Steam User Rating: 86%

This difficult action platformer RPG features a truly distinctive, dark aesthetic and an abundance of strange character designs. While its visuals certainly help Grime to stand out among the crowd, its array of challenging boss fights and tough-to-master parry system make it a challenging experience.

As mentioned, Grime’s difficulty can be circumvented by mastering its parry system, though this is easier said than done. Grime’s boss fights can be brutal, and failing a parry is often unforgiving. However, despite its challenges, Grime is a consistently fun Metroidvania.

3 Death’s Gambit: Afterlife – An Action RPG With Some Brutal Bosses

Steam User Rating: 81%

This grim-dark combination of Dark Souls and Metroidvania may not be the most unique game on the market, but its unsettling aesthetic and challenging combat make it an experience worth having. Death’s Gambit is visually striking, with superb pixel art on display, but its difficult boss fights and end-game content are perhaps its greatest strength.

While some of the bosses in Death’s Gambit can sometimes be underwhelming, there is an abundance of ruthless bosses lurking in its dark environments. The game’s heroic bosses, in particular, are truly brutal, and will test players patience as much as their skill.

2 Cathedral – A Surprisingly Expansive Metroidvania With Great Pixel Art

Steam User Rating: 78%

• Platforms: PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, PC, macOS, Linux
• Released: October 31, 2019
• Developer: Decemberborn Interactive

This sprawling, expansive 2D platforming Metroidvania features an NES-inspired aesthetic that takes inspiration from the 8-bit and 16-bit eras of pixel art games. Cathedral features a distinct limited color palette and retro-atmosphere that blends well with its old-school difficulty.

In Cathedral, players explore a massive variety of rooms across several distinct environments, battling an ensemble cast of challenging enemies and difficult bosses. Furthermore, Cathedral’s excellent old-school visuals and soundtrack make battling through its variety of challenges and exploring its expansive areas consistently fun, despite the game’s difficulty.

1 La-Mulana – A Brutal Action Platformer

Steam User Rating: 80%

• Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo Switch, PC, macOS, Linux
• Released: May 27, 2005
• Developer: GR3 Project

This brutally difficult action platformer features a world packed with ruthless platforming challenges, brutal boss fights, and an ensemble cast of enemies. The game also features a variety of puzzles, and its focus on exploration creates a sense of wonder thanks to its lack of hand-holding, though this can sometimes increase the game’s difficulty and levels of frustration.

La-Mulana is heavily focused on exploration, and it’s easy to give up throughout its shockingly lengthy runtime. However, for those who manage to stick it out, La-Mulana is a deeply rewarding and satisfying Metroidvania experience.