10 Longest-Running Video Game Franchises With The MOST Quality

Now I’m an enormous Elder Scrolls fan but there’s no such thing as an Elder Scrolls-vania. Which is my quick way of saying both ‘Metroid is a phenomenon’ and also ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t fit Castlevania on here’.

If for some reason you hadn’t heard it before, the genre Metroidvania was coined as a portmanteau combining Metroid and Castlevania. These games generally feature non-linear gated progression with core gameplay consisting of action and platforming.

That sounds not super exciting but again let's remember this is the only game on this list whose title literally named a video game genre. Metroid arrived in 1987 from Nintendo and pioneered an entire handful of video game features and mechanics; rewarding exploration, placing trust in players intelligence and skill, and even popularising female characters through its protagonist Samus.

If you haven’t had the pleasure, the easiest way I can put it is that 22 years later Metroid Prime Remastered came out, souping up the 2002 classic, and scored a huge handful of 10s across the board.

An epic power fantasy that lets you exponentially grow in abilities, learn mastery of the game’s systems, unveil its narrative secrets, take on the biggest of bads, and jam along to a stunning score beneath it all, Metroid more than earns its spot here and in the name of a gaming genre.