The Metroidvania Genre Owes Credit To Much More Than Castlevania And Metroid

The original Metroid and Castlevania both turn 40 years old this fall. As the two series most responsible for creating the "metroidvania," we're taking this occasion to take a comprehensive view of the popular genre. This is Metroidvania Week. Since their inception 40 years ago, fate has intertwined the extraterrestrial exploits of Samus Aran and the Belmont family’s fiend-fighting over multiple generations. Both the Metroid and Castlevania series would become synonymous with one of gaming’s defining genres, reducing many complex mechanics to a simple portmanteau: the metroidvania. However, even before the fateful years of 1994 and 1997--the release years of Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, respectively--several key mechanics integral to metroidvanias would first appear elsewhere, and not always where you’d expect. So in this brief history, we will look at these origins and how it has evolved not just in the late 1980s, but also more recent pivotal innovations that revolutionized the gaming industry. Let’s begin with what I would call "protovanias:" those that introduced one or two elements the metroidvania genre would later adopt. The earliest exploration pla…