Everyone's talking about Hollow Knight Silksong, and that's understandable. It's one of the most obsessively anticipated sequels in recent memory, and it's a really fun metroidvania. It's also a brilliant excuse to re-open the reliably polarising difficulty in games debate.
I can't remember there ever being this much buzz for an exploration platformer before, but aside from the aforementioned difficulty, there's probably a few good reasons why you might bounce off Silksong. Perhaps you suffer entomophobia? Maybe you abhor protracted boss run backs? Or maybe you're just averse to hype and want to dive into Silksong once the buzz has quietened down and the post-launch updates have smoothed its roughest edges?
If you don't like Silksong but do love labyrinthine 2D platformers, we've put together a list of some great alternatives. Silksong belongs to a very crowded genre, one that has spawned countless games over the last decade. What's below isn't exhaustive, but all come highly recommended if you're after something like Silksong with a different flavor.
If you want pixel art and chiptunes: Astalon: Tears of the Earth
Shaun Prescott, Australian Editor: Though my brain tells me Hollow Knight is the superior game, my heart has an everlasting fondness for Astalon: Tears of the Earth, and it might just be my favourite modern metroidvania. Matt Kapp's 8-bit era pixel art is stunning, though overall quite subtle compared to more extravagant contemporaries like Blasphemous. Its level design, while labyrinthine and ridden with secrets, is also fairly retrograde, in the sense that its castle setting sprawls nonsensically: there's no effort to make this place feel like a "living, breathing world." It's a videogame and so, so very proud. And like Hollow Knight, it doesn't bring much that's new to the genre, except a pro understanding of what makes these games tick.
Honestly, though? Astalon is all about the music and pixel art for me. See also: Castle in the Darkness.
Astalon: Tears of the Earth on Steam
If Silksong is too dang hard: Islets
Kara Phillips, Evergreen Writer: Silksong is tough, there's no denying that. But if you want a game that still puts the skills you've learnt along the way to the test, then Islets might be a well-needed change of pace. You'll still get to experience the nail-biting tension of fighting a boss in some pretty epic sequences, just without the frustration of having to constantly go back and forth between your last checkpoint and the arena. Much like Silksong, each enemy you face has a unique moveset, but fights generally don't feel as punishing which makes the experience a lot more accessible than throwing yourself into Silksong's maw. Platforming is also still tricky, but less life or death.
Basically, if you just need to remind yourself that maybe your struggles with Silksong aren't down to your skill level, give Islets a go. See also: Crypt Custodian.
If Silksong is too dang easy: La-Mulana
Shaun: Think you're hot shit, do you? For the expert and overconfident alike, the La-Mulana games are essential tools for self-flagellation. Styled after 1980s MSX games (but with a whole lot more color and fluidity), La-Mulana re-imagines Montezuma's Revenge as a masocore Indiana Jones. While combat is simplistic compared to more recent highlights like Hollow Knight or Blasphemous, it's full of innocuous-seeming creatures whose movement patterns will throw you for a loop, and its bosses hit unutterably hard. Oh, and instadeath spike traps: there's a lot of those.
Still, combat and platforming aren't why La-Mulana has such a formidable reputation: you're absolutely going to need a pen and paper to complete this game. Its puzzles are extraordinarily demanding, and unless you've got a nigh supernaturally robust memory, I hope your notes are very, very detailed.
La-Mulana and La-Mulana 2 on Steam
If you want all-out puzzles: Animal Well
Shaun: For players who love exploring a cryptic, interconnected world but hate the relentless difficulty of most modern metroidvania bosses, Animal Well is for you. It's one of the best metroidvanias of the decade, and it's all puzzles and exploration. You literally cannot attack anything here, and while things attack you, it's always a practice of getting out of their way. The puzzles can be tricky at times, but they're quite self-contained, so you won't need to take notes like you would in other puzzle-centric outings like La-Mulana.
Or, perhaps you will? When you finish the main serving of Animal Well, there's another, more complex layer.
And then after that, an even more complex layer. It's the most atmospheric game I've played for years, with some of the most distinctive pixel art in the business.
If you want a game that holds your hand even less than Silksong: Rain World
Sean Martin, Senior Guides Writer: Imagine a version of Silksong where every region is filled with an array of post-apocalyptic predators who randomly spawn each time you rest. These creatures interact differently with each other, but also you, creating an unpredictable and ultimately hostile ecosystem you have to somehow travel through. You play as the Slugcat—a tiny creature who, guided by your smarts, acts as a rogue element in the food chain, using whatever you can get your hands on to stave off, escape, and sometimes turn the tables on the monsters hunting you—all before the rains come and wash it all away.
What makes Rain World special is that it tells you nothing: there's no dialogue, few tutorials, and basically no guidance as to where to go or what your goal even is. Everything you acquire is hard won through experience and that's what makes it even more satisfying as you uncover new mechanics, secrets, and ultimately learn to survive in the most horrifying ecosystem imaginable. Rain World came out within one month of Hollow Knight back in 2017 and has aged just as well, evolving since then with a huge expansion.
If you want more religious cynicism: Blasphemous 2
Elie Gould, News Writer: OK, so Blasphemous 2 offers more than just a spicy take on Roman Catholicism, but a backdrop of bloody penance certainly helps it form one of the most beautiful artistic motifs I've ever seen in a game. It's also a fantastic base for creating horrifically beautiful bosses that beat you into a pulp. For your sins.
Blasphemous 2 is great if you want to hit things more than you want to jump over them. Yes, there's some platforming, but it's nowhere near as finicky as Silksong, meaning you can focus more on fighting grunts than dealing with bouncing on those weird red flower things. Unfortunately this doesn't really make Blasphemous 2 any less infuriating on the whole, as the battles still make me want to snap my controller in two at times. But it's a different flavor of simmering rage.
If you want to be at one with nature: Ultros
Elie: Bugs and plants seem closely interlinked, but one thing's for sure: Ultros is a hell of a lot more peaceful than Hollow Knight. Instead of actively fighting against the environment every step of the way, navigating Ultros is more like solving a puzzle with a bit of platforming thrown in.
You can plant seeds, which will come in handy during later cycles as they will grow into plants that tear open new pathways or can be used as platforms to get to previously unreachable sections of the map. You can also use gardening tools to cut through thorny vines to explore the map more. Ultros is thoughtful, peaceful, and a beautiful experience that you can enjoy without the worry of bosses being too hard or parts of the map being too hostile to explore.
If you want best-in-class 2D combat and don't really care about the "metroidvania" part of metroidvanias very much: Dead Cells
Wes Fenlon, Senior Editor: Dead Cells carries the metroidvania tag on Steam, but in practice it's about as much of one as a Hollywood backlot is a real Wild West town square. With procedural generation and a roguelite's encouragement to start over again and again, the levels that resemble the interconnected maps of a Metroid or Castlevania are really more flat facades with nothing behind them—just a backdrop, in other words, to get into a shootout on Main Street. But that's not a criticism: I love a good western standoff, and I love any game that lets me stack bleed and poison on enemies until they're oozing red and green pixels from every gaping wound.
We rated it highly back in 2018, years before Dead Cells stacked on update after update including a wonderful Castlevania crossover. At this point its pools of weapons, power mutators and branching zones—just look at this map!—is so vast, it scratches much the same discovery itch as a traditional metroidvania, even if the map's thrown in a blender every time you restart.
If you want more Sekiro in your Silk: Nine Sols
Harvey Randall, Staff Writer: Holding me over during Silksong's long, hermetic development was Nine Sols—one of my favourite metroidvanias and Sekiro-likes ever, and I'm not the only one. Made by Red Candle games, who hard-pivoted from horror titles to this banger. Nine Sols has some of the best boss fights in both genres. Oh, you liked the Mantis Lords from Hollow Knight? We've got a Mantis Lords 2.0 bossfight in a cyber-psychosis dream realm. Enjoyed beating Sword Saint Isshin? Nine Sols has one of those, too.
We didn't just give Nine Sols a 92 for its peak parry-based combat, though—it's also lovely to look at, has an excellent soundtrack, and carries a surprisingly great story. Troubled edgelord Yi is more like Hornet than the Knight, carrying his own troubled past, opinions, and experiencing his own development independent of your choices.
The only real downside is that Nine Sols might be a weaker 'explore the map game' than Silksong. Exploration is fine, but rudimentary, and it's certainly far smaller in scope. Which isn't necessarily a knock against it—it's just real focused on satisfying combat, and it nails that.
As for difficulty, I wouldn't say Nine Sols is easier than Silksong, but I wouldn't say it's harder, either. Its fights can get more technically demanding, but the game is far fairer. And, most importantly, there are no real boss runbacks.
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