The History of Metroidvania: Decade One–1980-1990

A chronological journey through gaming’s least linear format: the action RPG.

The metroidvania genre has become a staple of video gaming. From solo indie development operations to big-budget creations by the industry’s top studios, these exploratory action games with heavy role-playing influences are everywhere.

But where did they come from in the first place? Although the genre’s name might appear to hold the answer—a combination of Nintendo’s sci-fi adventure Metroid and Konami’s monster-movie action series Castlevania—the metroidvania draws from a far wider range of influences.

The History of Metroidvania: Decade One turns back the clock to trace the primal origins of one of the most popular and enduring video game formats. The story begins years before anyone had conceived of the name metroidvania—before the first Metroid and Castlevania games had even arrived on the scene.

In this exhaustively researched publication, you’ll see how gaming trends of the early 1980s came together to give us initial expressions of the metroidvania concept, and how the design language of the genre evolved over the course of the 8-bit hardware era. From text-based adventures to coin-op tests of pure dexterity, the metroidvania took its cues from early computer hits and best-selling console masterpieces, evolving alongside the medium itself. 

Like the genre itself, the early history of the metroidvania features plenty of surprises and dead ends along the way, but ultimately leads to a satisfying conclusion.