Steam Page Tips for Metroidvanias
Metroidvania fans evaluate movement first — how the character controls, what abilities unlock, how the map opens up. It’s a connoisseur genre with high standards set by its classics, and pages get judged against those standards immediately.
The capsule
Character in motion against a striking environment silhouette. The genre’s buyers respond to art direction more than logos — let the world do the talking.
The short description hook
Name the ability-gated exploration loop and your twist on it. If your movement tech is the hook (dash, grapple, time-rewind), it belongs in sentence one.
Screenshots that convert
One map screen. Genre veterans read map density like a wine label — interconnection and secrets sell. Plus at least one traversal-ability shot mid-use.
The mistake to avoid
Calling a linear platformer a metroidvania. This community polices the label hard, and the mismatch shows up in reviews.
Common Steam tags for Metroidvanias
A starting set — cross-check against your closest comparables and keep the tags that describe what your game actually is.
Want an honest score for your page?
LaunchKit grades your Steam store page 0-100 — AI vision looks at your actual capsule and screenshots, checks your description and tags, and gives you a prioritized fix list. Paste your store URL, or grade a draft before you publish.
Grade my Steam pageCommon questions
Is showing the map in screenshots a spoiler?
No — it is the strongest proof of depth you have. Show a mid-game map with enough revealed to display interconnection, shortcuts, and unexplored edges; crop or leave dark the late-game regions. Veterans read map density the way they read a wine label, and a page with no map screen makes them assume the world is a corridor.
My game is ability-gated but mostly linear — is the Metroidvania tag safe?
Treat it as a claim you will be audited on. This community polices the label harder than any other, and reviews saying "not a real metroidvania" stick to the page permanently. If backtracking and sequence-flexibility are thin, lead with Action, Platformer, and Exploration instead — a linear game with great movement sells fine under honest tags.
Every metroidvania gets compared to Hollow Knight — how do I survive that?
Accept the comparison in tags — landing in Hollow Knight’s More Like This row is excellent traffic — but refuse it in art. A capsule that echoes its palette and creature design invites a direct quality comparison you lose by default. Lead your page with the one mechanic it does not have: your traversal twist, your structure, your combat identity.
Other genres
For the genre-agnostic fundamentals, start with the Steam store page checklist and the capsule size & design guide.