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[SlimeGooGoo]

Well, honestly, I don't want to sound like an ass, but I feel it's mostly just you who doesn't seem to understand what it means.

I'm still waiting for that definition though

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

Metroid games are more focused on movement and platforming than Souls with its terrible jumping mechanics which translates to more vertical level design.

Like Sekiro?

 

[Aldric]

Like Sekiro?

Sekiro doesn't have a single interconnected map, are you baiting now?

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

Sekiro doesn't have a single interconnected map, are you baiting now?

Oh? It needs a single interconnected map now? It doesn't even matter if it contains multiple interconnected maps?

See, this is why discussing "metroidvania" is pointless. It's a buzzword thrown around to make people sound smart.
From time to time, the "metroidvania police" comes around to beat anyone that doesn't abide to their beliefs.

 

[Captain Toad]

See, this is why discussing "metroidvania" is pointless. It's a buzzword thrown around to make people sound smart.

LMAO

 

[Miles708]

This one is amazing

I thought Control was more linear, is it more free exploration? Is there an interconnected world?

 

[GaviotaGrande]

I thought Control was more linear, is it more free exploration? Is there an interconnected world?

It's one interconnected building that unlocks as you get more abilities. It's pure metroidvania.

 

[SpongebobSquaredance]

Fun backtracking is hard to pull off in 3D and in many games, it is more of an annoyance. Soul Reaver 2 for example is worse than the first one because of this, as the backtracking in the 2nd game feels more like bullshit filler. Despite this, SR2 is also more linear. Still a decent game, but compared to the first it felt rushed.
Metroid Prime makes you feel like you keep doing progress while backtracking, because everything feels interconnected and as soon as you get a new item you remember there was this section where you couldn't get in but now you can. Backtracking in Metroid Prime isn't annoying, it's motivating.

The second reason is, while Metroid is a highly influential series and there are plenty of Indie devs making 2D-Metroidvania games, Metroid was never as huge of an IP as many make it out to be in terms of sales and popularity. Assassins Creed, on the other hand, was and is very successful, which means it makes sense for developers to make an open-world game using the Ubisoft formula instead of the Metroidvania formula.

 

[Tg89]

Oh? It needs a single interconnected map now? It doesn't even matter if it contains multiple interconnected maps?

See, this is why discussing "metroidvania" is pointless. It's a buzzword thrown around to make people sound smart.
From time to time, the "metroidvania police" comes around to beat anyone that doesn't abide to their beliefs.

It's a pretty straightforward definition really.

"Metroidvania games feature a large interconnected world map the player can explore, though access to parts of the world is often limited by doors or other obstacles that can only be passed once the player has acquired special items, tools, weapons or abilities within the game."

 

[sunnysideup]

 

[rofif]

I agree. But it is also too demanding for the common gamer.

It has a huge interconnected map, full of secret passages but no locked doors - you can pretty much enter anywhere, and immediately die. So it's really a locked door that will really only unlock once you have a "powerup": your equip and skills are finally up to the challenge. You waste a lot of time failing, dying and upgrading so it's easier to navigate the levels and unlock such areas.

Dark Souls is indeed a Metroidvania and also a rogue-lite.

Souls games are not casual but also millions of people supposedly love em, so not niche either.
The metroidvania aspect is as You describe. Areas are mostly skill locked yes. But plenty of times a key is hidden behing a boss... so it's a mix of both.
Maybe God of War is a more classic example of recent metroidvania

 

[Sticks]

It's one interconnected building that unlocks as you get more abilities. It's pure metroidvania.

It never felt like a metroidvania to me and its my favorite genre. I finished it with all its dlc.

 

[GaviotaGrande]

It never felt like a metroidvania to me and its my favorite genre. I finished it with all its dlc.

If you read definition of metroidvania on Wikipedia, Control fits it perfectly.

Another excellent 3d metroidvania. This one is pure genius:

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

large interconnected world map the player can explore, though access to parts of the world is often limited by doors or other obstacles that can only be passed once the player has acquired special items, tools, weapons or abilities within the game."

You have just described most AAA games in existence. With such a loose definition you can fit almost any game and call "Metroidvania" or not when it's convenient

LMAO

Still waiting the definition.

 

[Sticks]

If you read definition of metroidvania on Wikipedia, Control fits it perfectly.

Another excellent 3d metroidvania. This one is pure genius:

Nah, thats an immersive sim.

 

[GaviotaGrande]

Nah, thats an immersive sim.

It's one of the best immersive sims ever made. It's also a metroidvania.

Prey features a large interconnected space station the player can explore, though access to parts of it is limited by doors or other obstacles that can only be passed once the player has acquired special items, tools, weapons or abilities. Acquiring such improvements also aids the player in defeating more difficult enemies and locating shortcuts and secret areas, often retracing one's steps across the space station.

 

[Tg89]

You have just described most AAA games in existence. With such a loose definition you can fit almost any game and call "Metroidvania" or not when it's convenient


Still waiting the definition.

You really can't, but sure.

 

[namekuseijin]

Souls games are not casual but also millions of people supposedly love em, so not niche either.
The metroidvania aspect is as You describe. Areas are mostly skill locked yes. But plenty of times a key is hidden behing a boss... so it's a mix of both.
Maybe God of War is a more classic example of recent metroidvania

I played GoW and I wouldn't describe it a Metroidvania at all.

 

[GaviotaGrande]

I played GoW and I wouldn't describe it a Metroidvania at all.

It certainly checks a lot of boxes. I wish that the other GOW (God of War) would go the same metroidvania direction.

 

[V4skunk]

For me metroidvania basically just roughly means interconnected gameworld. Bunch of levels duct taped togethered which you can travel back and fourth.

Nope it's more like exploring to find new abilities to unlock new areas and rinse and repeat.

 

[CamHostage]

You don't see classical "Metroidvania" game structure in AAA 3D games too much for a number of reasons I could think of.

One is that backtracking was outwardly rejected in past generations, and little has come up since to challenge that. It wasn't everybody's favorite thing back in the Metroid/Castlevania 2 days either, but because these were created by the best game designers working at the time, the good ones stayed in memory despite this (and in some cases have even been championed because backtracking was done well) and the knock-offs were forgotten.

Another is, if you're going to tell a story, most stories (and especially classically-told heroic stories) go from A to B to Z; they tend not to go A to B to C back to B back to A over to D back to C up to E and around to A again. Sure, you may return to a common locale here or there, or the hero may have a lair (if it's an episodic story), but the big setpieces are all elsewhere in the world, and the journey is the adventure. Odysseus and Telemachus' saga isn't about leaving Ithaca every morning to go to war then coming back and checking the loot to see if there's anything to help them unlock the route to Sparta. Or, for a more modern example, Indiana Jones doesn't keep returning to his office at Marshall College every time he finds a clue to the location of the Ark of the Covenant to see if it unlocks the next path forward. Every piece he finds leads him to the next destination (and, in cinematic terms, to the next visually exotic locale for the next big action setpiece...)

So in a video game, if you're going to have a hero's journey through action-packed areas, it's more conducive to storytelling to always have the player moving forward. (It's also easier on game design, even if it is ultimately more expensive to have to build 12 different levels instead of 10 different levels which each have two different events inside them.) You can then hide stuff or add alternate play routes or even key-gated obstacles that can only be experienced on a second playthrough, and that's easy to add in and it gives you the same benefit of "Metroidvania" design without the complication of having to come up with some story hack for why the player keeps coming back to the same places. For a while (especially in the transition period of early 3D) game designers did make repeated levels a core part of their game concept, because creating levels and assets was incredibly hard and padding out the game was sometimes needed in order to make it worth the value. So, they HAD to make repeatable levels. These days, unless your story calls for repeating areas (a horror game can get good use out of circular storytelling, for example) or unless your game concept thrives on re-discovery (in which case, these days, you would probably use a "Roguelike" design concept instead of "Metroidvania", since that's popular and leverages leveling/crafting instead of pure stage design/re-design,) you're probably going to design your quest progression through all-new areas that the player moves forward through.

If a game designer were interested in giving players the freedom to revisit areas and continue to discover new things every time they return to a space, btw, they probably would do it as an open-world game. Instead of little sections that are designed to only work for the specific playloops that gamers come across as they repeat a stage, you can now create a full map and put your events and your lockable areas and everything you want in the spaces you create. We tend to describe something like an Assassin's Creed as "open-world", but it's a little more like a number of city maps (which of themselves are a lot of corridors and roads and dead ends and boss encounter spaces, kind of like a "Metroidvania" would be in layout) connected by passageways of mountain or desert roads. There are parts of the map that are designed to be played, and then parts of the map that are just there because, what are you going to do, fill the spaces up with lava or walls?

(BTW, probably the most traditionally "Metroidvania" 3D game I can think of outside recent Metroids would be Arkham Asylum, yet even there, it sort of loosely uses the hub-and-spoke approach. You return to the Batcave a handful of times to crack open routes, but you're generally not backtracking too many areas unless you're collecting little trinkets you missed [which you often do in linear 3D action games too], and then the one great section where you come back to memorable spots again is because of Poison Ivy's plant infestation, but then those areas are almost like wholly new levels when that goes down. Plus, while Arkham Asylum was in the 'vania vein, as was the side-scroller Blackgate spin-off, the Batman: Arkham sequels dropped some of that structure as the world opened up.)

"Metroidvania" lived on as a popular concept in 2D platformers, in part, because it's hard to conceive of/build an "open-world" game in side-scrolling 2D (side-on or top-down.) You have to plot out the world's pathways because it all needs to be traversable in order to get from beginning to end. Levels in 2D are either built to be linear or re-traceable, and if you're going to have players repeat back to areas, you're going to need something worthwhile there in order to get them to enjoy coming back. There's a strong template for that in 2D in "Metroidvanias" (although games like Mega Man or Bionic Commando used methods other than "interconnected world" to have stages you could return to or encounter out of linear order.) There's less of an established paragon for that in 3D.

 

[cartman414]

Like batman arkham assylum or metroid prime, soul reaver.

Essentially smaller more compact openworld games. Without the ubi-like openworld genres typical pitfalls,like emptyness, towers, by the numbers broad brush assets.

Arkham Assylum. With plenty of Nightwing in 3rd person. Would play.

 

[rkofan87]

Play this if you want a first person metroivania, it's basically Metroid Prime without the license

this game is real good.

 

[reforen]

Like batman arkham assylum or metroid prime, soul reaver.

Essentially smaller more compact openworld games. Without the ubi-like openworld genres typical pitfalls,like emptyness, towers, by the numbers broad brush assets.

You missed Control, is one of the best metroidvanias in 3D, well I think that concept is difficult to make it right in a 3D environment than in 2D or 2.5D

 

[Shadowstar39]

Like batman arkham assylum or metroid prime, soul reaver.

Essentially smaller more compact openworld games. Without the ubi-like openworld genres typical pitfalls,like emptyness, towers, by the numbers broad brush assets.

We got a bunch of them in the indies space. My favorite of the last few years was salt and sanctuary. A game terrible underrated. Fuesd sotn castlevania with darksouls. Blood stained as well.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

You don't see classical "Metroidvania" game structure in AAA 3D games too much for a number of reasons I could think of.

One is that backtracking was outwardly rejected in past generations, and little has come up since to challenge that. It wasn't everybody's favorite thing back in the Metroid/Castlevania 2 days either, but because these were created by the best game designers working at the time, the good ones stayed in memory despite this (and in some cases have even been championed because backtracking was done well) and the knock-offs were forgotten.

Another is, if you're going to tell a story, most stories (and especially classically-told heroic stories) go from A to B to Z; they tend not to go A to B to C back to B back to A over to D back to C up to E and around to A again. Sure, you may return to a common locale here or there, or the hero may have a lair (if it's an episodic story), but the big setpieces are all elsewhere in the world, and the journey is the adventure. Odysseus and Telemachus' saga isn't about leaving Ithaca every morning to go to war then coming back and checking the loot to see if there's anything to help them unlock the route to Sparta. Or, for a more modern example, Indiana Jones doesn't keep returning to his office at Marshall College every time he finds a clue to the location of the Ark of the Covenant to see if it unlocks the next path forward. Every piece he finds leads him to the next destination (and, in cinematic terms, to the next visually exotic locale for the next big action setpiece...)

So in a video game, if you're going to have a hero's journey through action-packed areas, it's more conducive to storytelling to always have the player moving forward. (It's also easier on game design, even if it is ultimately more expensive to have to build 12 different levels instead of 10 different levels which each have two different events inside them.) You can then hide stuff or add alternate play routes or even key-gated obstacles that can only be experienced on a second playthrough, and that's easy to add in and it gives you the same benefit of "Metroidvania" design without the complication of having to come up with some story hack for why the player keeps coming back to the same places. For a while (especially in the transition period of early 3D) game designers did make repeated levels a core part of their game concept, because creating levels and assets was incredibly hard and padding out the game was sometimes needed in order to make it worth the value. These days, unless your story calls for repeating areas (a horror game can get good use out of circular storytelling, for example) or unless your game concept thrives on re-discovery (in which case, these days, you would probably use a "Roguelike" design concept instead of "Metroidvania", since that's popular and leverages leveling/crafting instead of pure stage design/re-design,) you're probably going to design your quest progression through all-new areas that the player moves forward through.

If a game designer were interested in giving players the freedom to revisit areas and continue to discover new things every time they return to a space, btw, they probably would do it as an open-world game. Instead of little sections that are designed to only work for the specific playloops that gamers come across as they repeat a stage, you can now create a full map and put your events and your lockable areas and everything you want in the spaces you create. We tend to describe something like an Assassin's Creed as "open-world", but it's a little more like a number of city maps (which of themselves are a lot of corridors and roads and dead ends and boss encounter spaces, kind of like a "Metroidvania" would be in layout) connected by passageways of mountain or desert roads. There are parts of the map that are designed to be played, and then parts of the map that are just there because, what are you going to do, fill the spaces up with lava or walls?

(BTW, probably the most traditionally "Metroidvania" 3D game I can think of outside recent Metroids would be Arkham Asylum, yet even there, it sort of loosely uses the hub-and-spoke approach. You return to the Batcave a handful of times to crack open routes, but you're generally not backtracking too many areas unless you're collecting little trinkets you missed [which you often do in linear 3D action games too], and then the one great section where you come back to memorable spots again is because of Poison Ivy's plant infestation, but then those areas are almost like wholly new levels when that goes down. Plus, while Arkham Asylum was in the 'vania vein, as was the side-scroller Blackgate spin-off, the Batman: Arkham sequels dropped some of that structure as the world opened up.)

"Metroidvania" lived on as a popular concept in 2D platformers, in part, because it's hard to conceive of/build an "open-world" game in side-scrolling 2D (side-on or top-down.) You have to plot out the world's pathways because it all needs to be traversable in order to get from beginning to end. Levels in 2D are either built to be linear or re-traceable, and if you're going to have players repeat back to areas, you're going to need something worthwhile there in order to get them to enjoy coming back. There's a strong template for that in 2D in "Metroidvanias" (although games like Mega Man or Bionic Commando used methods other than "interconnected world" to have stages you could return to or encounter out of linear order.) There's less of an established paragon for that in 3D.

Thanks for posting this, it's a really nice write up.

 

[Pachi72]

Because its too frustrating and hard for a modern gamer.

Yet there is games being made like Souls style which are harder and they are popular.

 

[SpiceRacz]

No idea, but I wish they would make more of them.

I remember this was metroidvania-ish (and better than I think people gave it credit for).

 

[D.Final]

Like batman arkham assylum or metroid prime, soul reaver.

Essentially smaller more compact openworld games. Without the ubi-like openworld genres typical pitfalls,like emptyness, towers, by the numbers broad brush assets.

Because 2D are more classic and more easy to do

 

[Calverz]

Yet there is games being made like Souls style which are harder and they are popular.

Completely wrong. Souls games are hard from a enemy difficulty. The game is all about combat system, timing etc. Its a trial and error game. If u were to remove all the enemies, a player wouldnt have much difficulty navigating the world to reach the end.
For the types of games the op is talking about, its not only enemies but more importantly world traversal. For example in metroid prime, there are areas completely inaccessible unless you gain a certain ability that might allow you to jump higher, or a bigger bomb to blow open holes, or a weapon that allows u to freeze platforms etc. This requires the player to think what they need to do to get to new areas. Almost like a puzzle. Its not a case of moving from A to B.
Your argument and others earlier is oversimplified. You need to define what makes a game hard. Simply saying souls games are hard but popular isnt enough.

 

[D.Final]

No idea, but I wish they would make more of them.

I remember this was metroidvania-ish (and better than I think people gave it credit for).

Great art here

 

[justiceiro]

Because the flood of 2d metroidvanias is already bad enough.

 

[deriks]

Control is pretty much Metroid in third person

 

[D.Final]

Control is pretty much Metroid in third person

Well....
Not precisely I would say

 

[IbizaPocholo]