Steam week in review: metroidvanias are still coming thick and fast, but has the world moved on?
The gaming industry continues to see the release of metroidvanias, but their popularity may be waning. Recent titles like Clockwork Ambrosia and Shattered Divinities showcase high-quality design but struggle for attention amidst other major releases. The decline in buzz around the genre reflects the unpredictable nature of indie game development.
- ▪Clockwork Ambrosia features a detailed pixel art style and a substantial modding system for its weapons.
- ▪The last major metroidvania to gain significant attention was Animal Well, which debuted in May 2024.
- ▪The genre's popularity has declined since its peak in the late 2010s, with fewer titles making it to the top charts.
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| Original publisher | PC Gamer |
| Canonical URL | https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/steam-week-in-review-metroidvanias-are-still-coming-thick-and-fast-but-has-the-world-moved-on/ |
| Publication time | Mon, 18 May 2026 01:27:15 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-18T01:33:21.205Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-18T01:33:21.205Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | _9XiWieYnlpN |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
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Gaming Industry Steam week in review: metroidvanias are still coming thick and fast, but has the world moved on? Features By Shaun Prescott published 18 May 2026 All the interesting Steam facts for the week ending May 17. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Realmsoft) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Did Silksong kill the metroidvania? At least two high quality "search action" platformers released on Steam last week, but you might have struggled to learn about them amid the buzz around Subnautica 2, and the clamouring to find a new angle on…
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