If you are searching for games like hollow knight, you probably want more than another map full of icons. You want the quiet ruins, precise combat, strange little characters, and feeling that every shortcut was earned. I understand the craving. Hollow Knight is one of those games that can turn a Tuesday night into 2 a.m., then make you stare at the credits wondering what could possibly follow it.
The good news is that several games like hollow knight offer a similar mixture of exploration, atmosphere, and demanding action. The less exciting news is that not every dark metroidvania deserves your limited week. Here are the ones I would actually recommend, with a clear sense of what each game does differently and how much patience it asks from you.
What makes games like Hollow Knight worth playing?
The best games like hollow knight do not simply copy the side-scrolling structure. They understand the rhythm: enter an unfamiliar place, notice a path you cannot reach, gain a new ability, and return later with a little more confidence. That loop is satisfying because the progress feels personal rather than administrative.
I also look for atmosphere that survives outside the first hour. A grim color palette is not enough. The world needs a history you can sense through architecture, music, enemy behavior, and small environmental details. Combat should reward learning instead of turning every encounter into a health-bar exchange. Finally, the game needs enough fast travel, checkpoints, or reasonable save design to respect an adult player who might have only forty-five minutes after work.
That standard separates the memorable recommendations below from the many competent but forgettable metroidvanias on Steam.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps is the gentler entry point
Ori and the Will of the Wisps is the easiest recommendation for someone who wants games like hollow knight without starting with another wall of bleakness. Its world is bright, emotional, and beautifully animated, but the movement has real weight behind it. Once Ori gains additional abilities, crossing the map becomes almost musical. You bounce, dash, burrow, and glide through spaces that initially seemed impossible.
The combat is less austere than Hollow Knight’s. You have more tools, more visual feedback, and a stronger sense that the game wants you to succeed. That does not make it shallow. Several platforming sequences demand concentration, and the escape scenes can be genuinely tense. The story is direct and sentimental, sometimes more openly emotional than I prefer, but it earns much of that feeling through presentation.
Choose Ori if you want a polished adventure that can fit into evening sessions. It is also a good option for players who love exploration but do not want every mistake to feel like a small tax on their mood.
Ender Lilies turns sadness into a combat system
Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights is one of the more compelling games like hollow knight because it understands how loneliness can shape mechanics. You play a young priestess moving through a ruined kingdom while cleansing corrupted enemies. The story is not delivered through constant exposition. Instead, its tone comes from ruined halls, mournful music, and the grim nature of the spirits you collect.
The major difference is the combat system. Rather than relying on one basic attack, you equip several spirit abilities and build a loadout around your preferred distance and timing. One player might use a sword, projectile, and defensive skill; another might lean into aggressive close-range attacks. Experimentation matters, especially when bosses expose the limits of a comfortable setup.
Ender Lilies is not as large or surprising as Hollow Knight, and some areas feel more functional than inspired. Still, its roughly twenty-hour main path is a strength for busy players. It gives you a complete, atmospheric experience without demanding that the game become your second job. If you want games like hollow knight with a tighter commitment, start here.
Blasphemous is harsher, stranger, and more deliberate
Blasphemous is for the player who wants games like hollow knight with heavier combat and deeply unsettling religious imagery. Its world draws from Spanish Catholic visual language, penitence, relics, and grotesque body horror. The result is not comfortable, but it is distinctive. You remember the places because they feel like fragments from a nightmare that has its own rules.
The Penitent One moves with more deliberate weight than the Knight. Sword strikes feel broad and committed, while positioning matters more than rapid improvisation. Blasphemous also gives you a satisfying collection of relics, prayers, and upgrades, though its systems can feel less immediately elegant than Hollow Knight’s charms.
The first game has some rough edges, including uneven platforming and occasional backtracking that feels more tedious than mysterious. Blasphemous 2 smooths out much of that structure and expands the movement options, but the original remains worth playing if its visual identity appeals to you. This is not a relaxing recommendation. It is the game to choose when you want your metroidvania to leave a mark.
Nine Sols brings sharper combat and a stronger story
Nine Sols belongs on any serious list of games like hollow knight, although its biggest influence is Sekiro rather than Hollow Knight. The central mechanic is deflection. You are encouraged to meet attacks directly, read timing cues, and turn an enemy’s aggression against it. That makes combat feel more like a conversation than a standard slash-and-dodge routine.
The setting combines science fiction, mythology, and ruined civilization in a way that feels unusually confident. Characters have more dialogue than you might expect from a metroidvania, and the story takes its time building relationships. I appreciated that patience. The game is not simply asking you to admire a dead world; it is asking why anyone built it and who paid the price.
Nine Sols can be demanding, particularly if parry-heavy combat is not your natural language. However, its difficulty usually feels instructive rather than arbitrary. A boss that defeats you repeatedly is often showing you a pattern you have not accepted yet. For players seeking games like hollow knight with more expressive boss combat, this is my strongest modern recommendation.
Axiom Verge is for exploration before spectacle
Axiom Verge is one of the best games like hollow knight for a different reason: it remembers that discovery does not require an enormous world. Its pixel-art science-fiction setting is compact, strange, and packed with equipment that changes how you understand earlier rooms. The game feels like a lost cartridge from an alternate history of console adventures.
Combat is less graceful than Hollow Knight’s, and the story is more cryptic. You will encounter weapons and tools that are useful in unexpected ways, sometimes with only a vague clue about their purpose. That can be frustrating if you want a guided narrative, but it is rewarding when you solve a problem without a checklist or online walkthrough.
Axiom Verge is also a sensible backlog choice. It can be finished in a handful of focused sessions, and its compact design makes progress easy to remember after a busy week. It is not the prettiest game here, but it has a specific voice, which counts for more than visual polish once the novelty wears off.
How to choose your next metroidvania
Pick Ori and the Will of the Wisps if movement, beauty, and emotional clarity matter most. Choose Ender Lilies if you want a shorter, melancholy adventure with flexible combat builds. Go with Blasphemous when atmosphere and disturbing imagery are the priority. Select Nine Sols if you want bosses that demand active timing rather than patient pattern memorization. Try Axiom Verge when the appeal is old-school discovery and a compact map.
I would not buy all five at once. That is how a promising backlog becomes another source of guilt. Pick the game that matches your current energy, not the one with the most impressive trailer. Some games meet you where you are. Some just want your weekend. The best games like hollow knight know the difference.
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