If you were hoping to see Hollow Knight: Silksong at the August 7 Nintendo Indie World showcase, frankly you had the resulting disappointment coming. Here, have a Metroidvania salve for that sting: Well Dweller, a new "dark fairy-tale Metroidvania" from a dev who's quickly becoming one of the most accomplished creators of all things Metroid and Vania.
Well Dweller is the latest game from Kyle Thompson, creator of Islets and Crypt Custodian – both excellent Metroidvanias of their own. His first Steam release, Sheepo, is also a tiny Metroidvania, but I'm less familiar with it.
I'd recognize Thompson's signature style from 100 meters, and when Well Dweller first appeared in the Nintendo lineup, I was immediately hoping it would be another Metroidvania. When that map appeared, I shot up in my seat. A Silksong appearance would've been great too, but I'll take another hugely promising Metroidvania almost any day of the week.
Like Crypt Custodian, Well Dweller has the backing of publisher Top Hat Studios, which you may know from this year's Labyrinth of the Demon King, last year's Ova Magica, or unmissable anime FPS The Citadel. You play as a tiny little bird named Glimmer, wielding a matchstick and wandering a quietly grisly world.
The elevator pitch on Steam is pure, distilled Metroidvania-grade search action:
"Deep within the forest, at the bottom of a well, lives the only creature brave enough to kill the queen. Play as Glimmer – a tiny bird armed with a matchstick – who must burn the wicked queen to save his family. Explore a dark fairy-tale landscape and befriend the charming characters who reside in the kingdom's underbelly. Battle terrifying beasts and gain new abilities to expand your map. Solve puzzles, discover secrets, and unravel the mysteries that lie in this rotted kingdom."
Your matchstick weapon seems to bring a sense of physicality to the world; you can embed it in walls to make a platform, for instance, and then recall. One of the equipable trinkets shown – using a similar slot and point system seen in many modern Metroidvanias – expanded the window for "re-lighting your matchstick," which suggests there's some kind of perfect reload-style timing or perhaps follow-up attack for the match.
Metroidvanias can be a hard and competitive market for indies nowadays, so I wasn't sure if Thompson would immediately make another one even after making the genre work multiple times. But Well Dweller looks like exactly the sort of game I would've hoped for. It's coming to Switch and PC in 2026.
