Top 5 Most Anticipated Metroidvanias of 2026
Hollow Knight: Silksong didnt meet expectations. The good news is that it managed to somehow exceed them. The long awaited sequel is finally out and in our review we said “improved on the original in almost every facet including difficulty”.
However, the really good news is that we can now discuss upcoming metroidvanias and focus on other experiences other than Hornet’s journey through Pharloom. Having gone hands on with three of these metroidvanias, we can confidently say that these are the best metroidvania games coming in 2026 that you need to add to your wishlist staring with number 5.
METROIDVANIAS 2026
#5 - BLIGHTED
If Drinkbox Studios, the team behind Guacamelee and Nobody Saves the World are making a new game, it will immediately get my attention, but this is especially true if they are returning to the metroidvania genre with a new perspective and fresh ideas. The Toronto based studio is known for their quirky ideas and Blighted is no different.
The premise revolves around an ancient culture that would bury their dead with seeds in their brains because they had great knowledge, which would then grow into a tree that would bear fruit and the knowledge would be passed from generation to generation to those that eat the fruit from the tree. I haven’t even gotten to the weird part yet. The evil Sorcisto decided that he would cut out the middle man and just go straight to eating the brains of the living making him the most powerful and robbing everyone else of knowledge. To somehow make matters worse, Sorcisto has also infected the world with a deadly blight.
However, one of the most interesting aspects of Blighted is that you can either choose to embrace the blight, which makes you more powerful, but also increases the challenge. It also has this psychedelic, western aesthetic, but still rooted in a Drinkbox style. The game will be available in solo or co-op and I was fortunate enough to play with the devs at Summer Game Fest in local co-op and it was an absolute blast.
#4 - CROWSWORN
With Hollow Knight: Silksong finally out of the way, all of the attention shifts to what metroidvania will be the next big thing, which is a lot of pressure. Crowsworn is not trying to hide its inspirations. On their Kickstarter page the description read “Explore a grim fantasy world inhabited by men and monsters alike in this action-packed Metroidvania inspired by Hollow Knight, Bloodborne, and Devil May Cry! Crowsworn is a hand-drawn Metroidvania with a strong design emphasis on explorative platforming, immersive combat, and compelling storytelling”
Another reason Crowsworn sounds exciting is because two of their achieved stretch goals on Kickstarter were to add voice acting for the main character, some NPC’s and some bosses. The other stretch goal was to feature fully animated cinematic cutscenes, which were outsourced to a studio with expertise in the field and will be akin to the trailer cinematics. Both of these features are not only going to make Crowsworn feel much more like a premium game as opposed to the indie that it is, but it will also breathe life into the world and hopefully make it even more immersive.
We had the privilege of playing the media and backers demo, which feels clean and highly polished. Drawing from their Bloodborne inspiration, every single enemy is challenging. They react different every time and it’s just as easy to be overwhelmed very quickly from low level mobs. If you don’t know, everything in the demo was content that didn’t make the final game, which makes you wonder how good the game will be if this wasn't good enough.
What Mongoose Rodeo did to create the demo was take all of the cut content and create some newly designed areas to create something that felt like a more cohesive experience. The easier thing to do was just to stitch these rooms together and release it, but that wasn’t good enough. There are two things to take away from reading between the lines of the demo release. The first is that the standards of Mongoose Rodeo are extremely high as they didnt want to release a disjointed demo experience. Furthermore, the demo felt incredible and its easy to forget this is the level of quality that didn’t make the final product. Both of these bode very well for the full release of Crowsworn.
#3 - REWILDERS: THE LOST SPRING
Rewilders is from the studio behind the Bafta award winning Endling: Extinction is Forever. In Rewilders: The Lost Spring, you fight to bring back ecosystems by battling mother natures enemies. Rewilders might look very cozy on the surface with its open-world exploration, but bubbling below is action roguelite gameplay with souls-like combat and metroidvania progression. Sticking with studio values, Rewilders is built around telling an emotional narrative.
Your main goal is to reclaim the world and restore it through rewilding and putting it back to how it was in the first place. This is done in such a satisfying manner as the world is dark and barren, but with your help turns vibrant and beautiful. During your exploration, as you reclaim biomes, the inhabitants will return. You will be able to find creatures, collect them and even evolve them. These creatures are native to the lands and provide plenty of benefits to the character such as active abilities and passive bonuses.
You will also slowly discover the interconnected world with new skills that you will acquire during your quest such as gliders, wall runs and grapples. When you die, you will have the ability to improve your base by growing plants and fruits which will upgrade your abilities and unlock permanent buffs.
Herobeat Studios are dedicated to developing new IP’s that address meaningingful topics. Their main goal is to raise awareness about social impact issues through the power of video games.
#2 - THE ETERNAL LIFE OF GOLDMAN
The Eternal Life of Goldman was already pretty high on my list of most anticipated games, but after their last trailer titled “can fairy tales hurt?” was revealed, my anticipation has moved to another level. The trailer features a voice over of a mother talking to her child, and whether or not this will be part of or including in the final game, it features some sharp writing and incredible voice acting, which bodes extremely well for the final product. This provides a level of confidence that the game will have much more depth than just the stunning frame-by-frame hand drawn animation.
The Eternal Life of Goldman is being developed by Cyprus based Studio weappy, who are best known for their series “This is the Police” To create an uncompromising 2D, they went back to the roots of the genre to draw, color and animate every single frame using classic techniques. As a result, The Eternal Life of Goldman grabs your eye like few games have the power to do. You might not know whats different, but you are clearly aware that something is.
You play as Goldman, an explorer in the later stages of his life, not unlike Indiana Jones. With the help of his trusty and modifiable cane, Goldman needs to travel deep into the vast archipelago and defeat a mysterious deity.
Goldman also looks to avoid a lot of the trappings of the 2D platformer. There are metroidvania elements, but they don’t want you to be backtracking or lost after you get a new ability. There are precision platfomrer elements, but they don’t need to you become a well oiled machine, as improvisation and ingenuity should lead to success as well. It has a deep story with complex characters, but it doesn’t want to bog down the gameplay. The goal is to create an adventure that will not only take your breath away, but will also break your heart.
#1 - END OF ABYSS
End of Abyss is an atmospheric top down twin stick horror metroidvania that looks like it was created from the likes of playdead or Tarsier Studios, and there is good reason for that. End of Abyss is being developed by Section 9 Interactive, a small indie studio founded by the former founders of Tarsier Studios including tech leads, art leads and creative directors
End of Abyss is deeply inspired by the early NES classics The Legend of Zelda and Metroid, two games that strongly embrace the less is more approach. Worlds that were vast, full of mystery, danger and begged to be explored. The focus was on exploration, non linearity and atmosphere. There was something so intriguing about never knowing whats around the next corner and that is echoed in End of Abyss.
The list of inspiration for End of Abyss is long and extends far outside of gaming. Anime like Akira, Ghost in The Shell, as well as movies like The Thing, but most prominent inspiration is easily Ridley Scott’s 1979 horror film Alien. In End of Abyss you play as a female protagonist, but also just like the crew of the Nostromo who followed a distress signal in the deep reaches of space that fated most of the people aboard, End of Abyss follows a similar structure by investigating a distress signal that says “to the one that hears this, we are waiting for you”
Although investigating distress signals has become a sci fi trope, that’s because the device works perfectly as it taps into the core of humanity and our innate desire to help. The alien inspiration carries forward with an environmental design that feels very retro futuristic.
End of Abyss was easily the best thing I played at Summer Game Fest with its dark, atmospheric tone, paired with unique perspective and twin stick controls. End of Abyss felt as much like survival horror, as it did twin stick shooter as it did a metroidvania, which ultimately meant that it felt like nothing I have experienced before. As of writing this, End of Abyss is not only my most anticipated metroidvania of 2026, but also my most anticipated game of 2026 if you don’t include Grand Theft Auto 6
