Metroidvania is a Dumb Genre Name

What more needs to be said? A whole lot, actually; that's the point of this article. "Metroidvania" is a term that describes a specific genre of video games, derived from combining the titles of the two most influential games in the genre, Metroid and Castlevania. So-called "Metroidvania" games have a handful of design elements in common, but the most prominent one is upgrade-based progression through a non-linear map. My problem with this term is that, depending on who you ask, its definition is either so broad that it becomes pointless or so vague that it doesn't do its job as a genre descriptor. My argument can be summed up with one simple example: Dark Souls. Some people would argue that it is technically a "Metroidvania," while others might consider that to be a stretch. In either case, this divide proves that the term is terrible; if Dark Souls is truly a "Metroidvania," it proves that the definition is too broad, but if it isn't, it proves that the term doesn't help categorize games properly.

To elaborate, Dark Souls is considered a "Metroidvania" because of how certain bosses can be defeated early on as a great challenge, or later on when the player has higher stats and better equipment. Defeating a boss opens up the world's map for further exploration. If this is all it takes to be considered a "Metroidvania," then Megaman would count as one. It's the same logic; bosses can be fought in any order, but if a player fights a boss after obtaining a certain weapon or item, that boss becomes significantly easier. Defeating all of the bosses opens up one last area to take on. By this logic, even A Link to the Past would be considered a "Metroidvania," and that is a game that inspires much different games than Metroid or Castlevania have. The 2017 shooter "Prey" is arguable a "Metroidvania" as well, despite how the game more closely resembles games like Dead Space and The Evil Within than it does Metroid or Castlevania.

The obvious defense to this near overuse of the term would be that it's not the only descriptor that these games have, but then begs the question, if the term applies to so many games, what purpose does it even serve? If Megaman, Prey, and A Link to the Past can all be called "Metroidvania" when they are all very distinct games, why even bother slapping on the label at all? The purpose of a genre title is to tell the player what they are getting into. Calling Mario and Sonic both "Platformers" makes sense because that's what you do in both games; you jump from one platform to another. Breath of the Wild contains jumping as an ability as well, but slapping on the "Platformer" label would be wrong because the game shares no other similarities to a real "Platformer" and would mislead anyone who's looking for a new Platformer to play.

Another commonly used defense for this broadness is that they're called "Metroidvania" because many of these games take inspiration from Metroid, Castlevania, or both. This defense is flimsy; just because a game is inspired by or shares minute elements with a game doesn't mean it should fall under some sort of umbrella term. Should The Binding of Isaac be called a Zeldarogue? Should Horizon: Zero Dawn be called an Assassincry? Obviously not, because the games that inspired them or paved the groundwork that they build off of don't hold much relevance. If that were the case, Bubsy wouldn't be a notoriously bad game because it was inspired by Sonic, which is a good game. Admittedly, the genre name "Rouguelike" follows similar logic to the "it was inspired by it" defense, but I argue that it's hardly the same case. Sure, a Roguelike can be boiled down to permanent death and random level generation, but games that have these mechanics very clearly belong in the "Roguelike" category. There's no questioning whether a game is a Rougelike; it either clearly is or clearly isn't.

Of course, the biggest and most valid defense against my argument thus far would be that none of the games I have mentioned are true "Metroidvania." My response to this defense is this: what even is the point of the term, then? If these games that share the same core elements don't fall into the same category, what is the point of that category? Again, Roguelikes are all in the same category because they clearly belong in the same group, so if Cave Story can be called a "Metroidvania" yet A Link to the Past can't, what's the point? A genre is meant to sort similar games into one category so that a person who liked one game of that kind can easily identify more. If a person likes Halo, thanks to the "First-Person Shooter" label, they can search for more games by that title and easily find games like Borderlands, Doom, and Wolfenstein. If the genre doesn't group similar games, it's not a real genre.

Now, I'm not saying that games under the same genre label need to be exactly the same. I'll be the first to admit that Borderlands, Doom, and Wolfenstein are not identical games. However, they are enjoyable for similar reasons; first-person gunplay. By no means are these games exact copies of each other, but when you look hard enough, there are indeed similarities. They're all games with gun-centric combat that use a first-person camera to both immerse the player in the action and make the gunplay feel more authentic. If these games deserve to share a label, so too do A Link to the Past and Dark Souls deserve to share the label of "Metroidvania." After all, they're both games with item-based progression through a non-linear map. They may not be identical games, but they both have the core elements that make a game a "Metroidvania." If they're not "Metroidvania," what makes it so that they aren't? They're as similar to Metroid as Borderlands and Doom are to each other, so you have to agree that they're both "Metroidvania" games, which proves my point that the term clumps together games that don't truly belong under the same label.

I know that my hatred for the term "Metroidvania" is pointless and silly, but I have my reasoning. Genres aren't meant to be end-all descriptors, but they do serve a purpose; to categorize games that play similarly into the group. "Metroidvania" may be useful enough to some people, but to me, it does very little to describe very little about the game it's applied to. The term doesn't do anything to explain a game's experience beyond exploration and upgrade-collecting, which are already implied by the "Action-Adventure" label. As far as I'm concerned, calling a game a "Metroidvania" is as descriptive as calling a Big Mac a piece of meat on a bun.