Best Metroidvania Games Worth Buying in 2026
Six metroidvania games worth their price in 2026, covering exploration-driven action titles from $10 indie picks to full-price genre standouts.
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Metroidvanias reward patience — a slow-burn map that opens up as you gain new abilities, backtracking that turns into genuine “oh, I can get there now” moments rather than busywork. The genre has an unusually high hit rate among indie developers, which makes it one of the better places to spend a game budget. This guide covers six metroidvania games worth buying in 2026, from $10 indie picks to full-price genre standouts.
1. Hollow Knight — best genre-defining pick
Hollow Knight remains the game most other modern metroidvanias get measured against, with a hand-drawn world, tight combat, and a map large enough that most players won’t fully explore it on a first playthrough. Years after release it’s also one of the most frequently discounted games in the genre, making it an easy first buy for anyone new to metroidvanias.
Street price: $10-$15, often $5-$8 on sale.
2. Ori and the Will of the Wisps — best visual and audio presentation
The Ori series pairs metroidvania mechanics with some of the best art direction and score in the genre, and the Will of the Wisps sequel refines the combat and traversal from the first game into something more forgiving for players who found the original punishing. It’s a good pick for players who want the genre’s exploration hook without the extreme difficulty some metroidvanias lean into.
Street price: $20-$30, often $10-$15 on sale.
3. Metroid Dread — best pick for the genre’s namesake series
Metroid Dread is the first mainline 2D Metroid in nearly two decades and delivers exactly what the genre’s founding series is known for — tense exploration punctuated by genuinely intimidating pursuit sequences. It’s a Switch exclusive, so pricing holds steadier than most metroidvanias, but it rarely stays at full list price for long during major sales windows.
Street price: $40-$60, often $35-$45 on sale.
4. Blasphemous 2 — best for challenging combat-focused exploration
Blasphemous 2 leans harder into difficult, deliberate combat than the Ori or Hollow Knight picks, wrapped in a distinctive dark fantasy art style drawn from Spanish religious iconography. It’s a strong pick for players coming from Soulslike games who want that combat rhythm inside a metroidvania’s exploration structure.
Street price: $25-$35, often $15-$20 on sale.
5. Axiom Verge 2 — best sci-fi setting and puzzle-forward design
Axiom Verge 2 swaps the retro pixel-art of most metroidvanias for a moodier, more modern sci-fi aesthetic, and leans more heavily on environmental puzzles than combat compared to most of the genre. It’s a smaller-scope game than the others on this list, which keeps its price consistently lower even at launch.
Street price: $15-$20, often $8-$12 on sale.
6. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown — best big-budget genre entry
Ubisoft’s return to the Prince of Persia franchise turned out to be a full-scale, well-reviewed metroidvania rather than the linear action game the series was previously known for, with high production values that most indie entries in the genre can’t match. It launched at a lower price than most AAA releases specifically to compete with the indie-dominated genre, and discounts fairly quickly.
Street price: $40-$50, often $25-$35 on sale.
How to get the best price
- Wrap purchases around Steam and console seasonal sales (summer and winter sales, plus Black Friday), where metroidvanias — especially indie titles — routinely drop 40-60% off launch price.
- Set a price-tracking alert (via a tool like IsThereAnyDeal for PC, or a console price tracker) rather than checking manually, since indie metroidvania sales can be short and easy to miss.
- Buy digital when the discount gap is large, but check physical retailer pricing too — Best Buy and other retailers occasionally undercut digital storefront sale prices on Switch and PlayStation titles.
- Bundle purchases when a publisher offers a franchise bundle (like an Ori double pack), since buying two games together is often cheaper than either purchased separately later.
The metroidvania genre has enough quality indie output that patience is genuinely rewarded — nearly every game on this list eventually drops to half its launch price or lower during a major sales event, and playing a genre classic a year or two after release loses nothing since these games aren’t built around timely multiplayer content.