Games Like Nine Sols — 8 Metroidvanias Worth the Punishment

Nine Sols came out in May 2024 and it's still the answer when someone asks for a Metroidvania with good boss fights. Red Candle Games built parry-first combat into a taopunk world full of secrets, and the result is one of the harder games in the genre. Here are eight to play next.

Hollow Knight

Team Cherry, 2017. The obvious comparison — dense underground world, inscrutable lore, punishing late-game bosses. Combat here is dodge-based rather than parry-based, so it's a different skill set, but the exploration density and the feeling of a world that rewards patience are the same. Path of Pain and the Pantheons provide Nine Sols-tier challenge if you want it. If you haven't been to Hollow Knight's true ending, save that for after you've cleared the main path; it's a different game at that point.

Dead Cells

Motion Twin, 2018. Roguelike Metroidvania — each run different, no persistent map. Faster than Nine Sols, less focused on boss memorization, but the combat responsiveness is as tight as the genre gets. You'll chain attacks, dodge-cancel, and use traps in ways that feel deliberate rather than accidental. A good choice if you want Nine Sols energy without the commitment to one long map.

Blasphemous

The Game Kitchen, 2019. Dark Catholic-iconography Soulslike Metroidvania. Vertical, punishing, heavy with lore told through item descriptions and environmental placement. Combat is slower than Nine Sols but shares the precision requirement — mistimed attacks cost you more than you think. The Wounds of Eventide DLC adds platforming challenges that approach Nine Sols difficulty. PC and console.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

Ubisoft Montpellier, 2024. Slept on. Fast, fluid, time-power-based Metroidvania — you slow time, create temporal echoes of yourself, and manipulate the timeline to solve puzzles and reach areas. The map-marking system, where you screenshot sections you can't access yet and pin them for later, is the best navigation aid any Metroidvania has shipped. Boss fights are tough and well-telegraphed. It sold poorly on release and got shelved shortly after, which makes it feel like it barely exists — but it's one of the better games in the genre from the last five years.

Ender Magnolia: Heir of Amnesia

Binary Haze Interactive, 2025. Slower and more atmospheric than Nine Sols, less demanding on bosses. A quiet Metroidvania with a melancholy tone, a smooth upgrade arc, and a story told through fragments you piece together over 15–20 hours. The combat is clean without being frantic. Worth playing after Nine Sols if you want the genre without the punishment — it's a different kind of dense.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps

Moon Studios, 2020. A different angle: emotional story, beautiful platforming, lower combat difficulty than anything else on this list. But the movement mastery ceiling and the sense of a world worth exploring are in the same register as Nine Sols. The Spirit Trials give you something to chase if you want speed-focused challenge. Good for players who want Nine Sols' exploratory density without the Sekiro-style precision requirement.

Hollow Knight: Silksong

Team Cherry, 2026. The sequel. Hornet is faster and more acrobatic than the Knight; boss patterns are quicker and assume you've internalized the first game's mechanics. If Nine Sols' boss design is what kept you playing — learning a pattern, dying to it fifteen times, then threading it cleanly — Silksong delivers that in a Hollow Knight world.

KUTO: The Lock of Time

Our game, so take that disclosure as given. An upcoming time-bending Metroidvania with five time abilities: Recall (rewind seconds), Dilation (slow-motion), Leap (time-dash), Fracture (break gravity and walk on walls), Stillness (stop time entirely). The combat doesn't use Nine Sols' parry system — it's faster and more run-based — but it sits in the same 2D action-Metroidvania space with a strong emphasis on boss encounters and a death-loop structure. You can read more about KUTO: The Lock of Time and how those five abilities interact with the map and the bosses. In development, PC.

---

Hollow Knight and Silksong are the most direct follow-ons. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is the most underplayed option on this list. KUTO is the one to follow if you want to see where the genre goes with time as the central mechanic.