This dark new Metroidvania is already 2024's second best-reviewed game, making it a perfect tonic to ease my Hollow Knight Silksong blues
May. 9, 2024Animal Well hits all the right notes for gothic bug lovers
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Hollow Knight Silksongis still somewhere behind the shadowy gates of game development, but not to worry, this banger year for Metroidvanias continues with Animal Well, out today, which might just be a game of the year contender based on its critical reception.
Reviews have been gushing about Animal Well’s layered pixel art that doesn’t just rely on nostalgia, puzzles, and secrets that continually reward creative thinking, and a natural world that seems to tick on whether you’re there to witness it or not.
“Animal Well is stubbornly traditional in keeping you in the dark as you embark on your adventure, but that’s firmly to its credit as you unravel the mysteries sprinkled around its map,” GamesRadar’sAnimal Well reviewreads. “Puzzles involving animals, toys and mechanical devices demand creative thinking, while the sense that nothing is quite as it seems never lets up. This is an endlessly inventive Metroidvania with unfathomable depth.”
Animal Well is out now onSteam, Nintendo Switch, and PS5.
Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
Check out ourbest Metroidvania gameslist for more.
Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that’s vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he’ll soon forget.
As if The Outlast Trials couldn’t get any more deranged, the horror co-op game’s big new update adds more tooth guns and lady who lives in the walls
Dev behind new Doki Doki Literature Club-style psychological horror says it’s not “for those with weak hearts,” but with 98% positive Steam reviews, I’m not sure I can stay away
