The hardest part about finding games like Hollow Knight is knowing where to start. The overwhelming success of Team Cherry's award-winning 2017 game--and anticipation of its long-awaited sequel, Silksong--prompted a flood of similar games all looking to capture the magic of combining soulslike combat with deep exploration. Some are more inventive than others, building on Hollow Knight's foundations to push that style of game forward in new or unexpected ways. Others take a specific aspect, such as grueling boss fights, and run with it. We've combed through the lot and picked out 15 of the best games like Hollow Knight to get you started in this impressively varied sub-genre.If you're not as excited about combat and want puzzles and exploration instead, head over to our list of the best metroidvania games. Nine Sols Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5Release Date: May 29, 2024Developer: Red Candle GamesIf Hollow Knight is the Dark Souls of metroidvanias, then Nine Sols is the genre's Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Parrying is at the core of almost everything you do in Nine Sols, from dealing with standard enemies to wearing down some of its relentless bosses. Among games like Hollow Knight, it's also one of the most thematically and visually distinct. Developer Red Candle Games call Nine Sols a "Taopunk," a blend of sci-fi punk with traditional Taoist architecture and symbolism. Most protagonists in games like these are blank slates, but Nine Sols adds a personal touch by making the personality of its hero, Yi, an important part of the story. Yi starts out seeking revenge, and ends up on a journey to save the world and himself, becoming a reluctant hero in the process. See at Humble Animal Well Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5Release Date: May 9, 2024Developer: Billy Basso, Shared Memory LLCAnimal Well is a puzzle, or more accurately, a lot of puzzles. There's a bit of combat and some platforming, but mostly, it's about trying to unravel dozens of mysteries big and small as you delve ever further into a maze that wouldn't be out of place in Lewis Carrol's Wonderland stories. Explaining too much about what's going on would spoil what makes Animal Well special, but the most interesting and even subversive parts of it is that you have almost nothing to guide you and can make discoveries in any order. That freedom creates a sense of discovery and wonder that's often absent from the procedural methods inherent in these kinds of games.Read our Animal Well review. See at Steam Ultros Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5Release Date: February 13, 2024Developer: HadoqueOf all the games like Hollow Knight, Ultros takes the most organic approach to metroidvanias, and we mean that literally. You, an intergalactic explorer, arrive on a psychedelic space colony called The Sarcophagus and find it teeming with exotic life and mysterious spiritual energies. You use the life force and remains of enemies to nourish your mind and unlock new abilities, and there's a scoring system that ranks how efficiently you defeat your foes. That determines the quality of the loot they drop, so if you want to unlock and improve your skills, you have to plan each encounter carefully. Ultros is also absolutely beautiful, a dream-like blend of esoteric architecture and wild ecosystems with closer ties to the Sarcophagus' secrets than Ultros initially suggests. Read our Ultros review. See at Fanatical Blasphemous 2 Platforms: PlayStation 5, PC, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo SwitchRelease Date: August 24, 2023Developer: The Game KitchenBlasphemous 2's big addition over its predecessor--apart from even more ghoulish and gory moments--is the inclusion of more platforming. The first Blasphemous is a bit one-note, which is great if you're just here for the combat, but not so much if you want, well, anything else. Blasphemous 2 throws in some challenging and smartly-designed platforming as well, bringing it closer to the likes of Hollow Knight. Better still, developer The Game Kitchen was more ambitious with its environment design as well, with more complex layouts, better backgrounds and lighting, and even colors that aren't brown, grey, and blood.Read our Blasphemous 2 review. See at Fanatical Elden Ring Platforms: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PCRelease Date: February 25, 2022Developer: FromSoftwareOkay, so Elden Ring doesn't have the exploration style of Hollow Knight, but it does have the kind of grueling combat that inspired Team Cherry's spectacular boss fights, and lots of it. It's FromSoftware's first open-world game, one that follows a lone, nameless warrior in their bid to bring salvation to a shattered land--or make its ruin everlasting. Mostly, though, it's a giant playground for dozens of exceptionally well-designed and challenging bosses to stomp (you) around in, with enemies ranging from fire-spewing land dragons to the spirits of an ancient civilization and a gigantic, greatsword-wielding prince on his favorite little horsey. Read our Elden Ring review. See at Fanatical Cuphead Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PCRelease Date: September 29, 2017Developer: Studio MDHRIf you really like boss fights and are less bothered about exploration and all the other Hollow Knight-y bits, Cuphead is definitely worth checking out. Don't let Studio MDHR's retro cartoon style give you the wrong impression, either. Cuphead's cutesy bosses demand careful planning, precise execution, and a lot of patience. The battles aren't the only thing Cuphead has going for it, though. Studio MDHR's exquisite animation, the soundtrack, even period-specific cartoon-style sound effects--the entire game is a spectacle in the best way. Read our Cuphead review. See at Fanatical Castlevania Advance Collection Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PCRelease Date: September 23, 2021Developer: KonamiAny of the Castlevania bundles are strong picks, but the Castlevania Advance Collection should be your go-to choice for the kind of classic action that Hollow Knight builds on. The collection includes Circle of the Moon--low on our list of the best Castlevania games only on account of it not really doing anything that Symphony of the Night didn't--the excellent Harmony of Dissonance, and the even better Aria of Sorrow. Sorrow is the standout inclusion, one that radically shook up the Castlevania formula by removing the Belmonts from the equation, telling an entirely new story set in the distant (at the time) future, and giving the protagonist, Soma, an ability that absorbed enemy souls for use in combat. It helps that Sorrow, as well as Harmony, have an excellent selection of bosses and some fantastically moody settings, too. See at Humble Ori and the Blind Forest Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PCRelease Date: March 11, 2015Developer: Moon StudiosOri and the Blind Forest starts like the end of a Disney movie. A cute little creature finds a family in the middle of a dream-like forest, and that family gets taken away from them. Your job is to figure out why and find a way to save the woods. Ori takes Hollow Knight's demanding platforming even further with some segments that wouldn't feel out of place in something like Celeste, but the real stand-out feature is the map. In addition to being a well-designed metroidvania world, it's absolutely gorgeous and a delight to explore. Blind Forest is a modern classic, and its sequel, Ori and the Will of the Wisps manages to improve it even further.Read our Ori and the Blind Forest review and Ori and the Will of the Wisps review. See at Fanatical Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC, Nintendo SwitchRelease Date: March 25, 2024Developer: AdiglobeIn the onslaught of games like Hollow Knight that released following Team Cherry's success, developer Adiglobe decided to shake up the formula first with Ender Lilies and then with the more refined Ender Magnolia. You've got your standard elements, such as gigantic bosses that force you to learn their patterns and a puzzle-like map that unfolds as you gain more powers. Those powers, however, are the spirits of fallen friends who also aid you in combat. You find several, but can only recruit a handful at a time, which adds a layer of strategy to exploration and combat. There's also a strong sense of emotional attachment, since you and your ghostly allies have history and connection of a kind that's often missing in these games when you just play as an outside observer. See at Steam Metroid Dread Platforms: Nintendo SwitchRelease Date: October 8, 2021Developer: Nintendo EADAny Metroid game is going to have something of that Hollow Knight feel, since the sci-fi series is a big part of where the genre and Hollow Knight in particular came from. However, the easiest to get your hands on without having to pay for a subscription is Metroid Dread. It's the culmination of the 2D Metroid saga that started in 1986, but you can get by just fine if this is your first. Dread follows bounty hunter Samus Aran as she searches for evidence of a deadly parasite, only to find herself hunted by rogue robots--sometimes. The stealth segments that have you hiding from your metal hunters only take place in specific areas. The rest of Metroid Dread takes you across sprawling subterranean research labs, sunken testing stations, and extravagant dwellings, featuring the series' biggest map ever, stuffed with secrets and formidable bosses. If you really enjoy those bosses, Dread has a boss rush mode you can test yourself against as well.Read our Metroid Dread review. See at Amazon Lone Fungus Platforms: PCRelease Date: September 21, 2021Developer: Basti GamesThese types of games tend to lean more toward the edgy, dark, and broody side of things, which makes Lone Fungus a gem in the genre. You're the last mushroom on Earth, exploring a vast network of tunnels and temples in search of treasure and using magic skills that change form depending on how you swing your sword. A ball of energy is damaging to one enemy, for example, but you can smack it and shatter it into several projectiles to clear out lots of foes at once. Best of all, though, Lone Fungus has a robust Assist Mode that lets people of all skill levels enjoy the game and just makes it more relaxed in general, with features such as extra platforms, no costs for spells, slower platforms, and invincibility so your little fungus won't die. See at Humble Dead Cells Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PCRelease Date: May 10, 2027Developer: Motion TwinDead Cells throws roguelite randomness into the metroidvania mix and ratchets up the challenge as well. You're a spirit determined to figure out why you died, and in the absence of a tangible vessel for your ethereal self, you pilot shambling corpses in a bid to make it through streets, swamps, dungeons, and horrors untold. These corpses aren't the sturdiest, so when you fail, they fall apart and you start again. Eventually, you can unlock permanent upgrades, but with no checkpoints at any stage of the journey, you'll have to rely on your skill with weapons and knowledge of enemy behavior to make it through. If you enjoy Dead Cells, you can pick up DLC packs that add new locations, weapons, and enemies, and there's even a Castlevania-themed expansion as well. Read our Dead Cells review. See at Fanatical Monster Sanctuary Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series One, PCRelease Date: August 28, 2019Developer: DeveloperIf you like a bit of Pokemon with your Hollow Knight, Monster Sanctuary might be for you. You play as a fledgling monster tamer out to explore the vast world with just a single critter by your side. You'll find and tame more, training them into the best versions of themselves and using their abilities not just to deal with threats in the sanctuary, but to explore its secrets and hidden areas as well. Monster Sanctuary is lighter and breezier than some games on this list, but if something more intense is to your liking, there's a robust PvP element where you can challenge other players and their monster teams too. See at Fanatical Salt and Sanctuary Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo SwitchRelease Date: March 15, 2016Developer: Ska StudiosUpgrades and customization are usually rather limited in games like Hollow Knight, which makes Salt and Sanctuary, with its more in-depth RPG components, something special. You play as a sailor, washed up on some evil-looking, godforsaken island and foolish enough to go exploring the mysterious labyrinth underneath. What you find is a parade of nightmares and some spectacular, bone-crunchingly hard 2D boss fights that are among the best Soulslike challenges out there. Read our Salt and Sanctuary review. See at Humble Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo SwitchRelease Date: July 17, 2024Developer: Squid Shock StudiosMovement is often a means to an end in video games--a double jump that propels you higher, for example, or a dash that lets you avoid dangerous terrain. In Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus, it's no exaggeration to say movement is everything. Bouncing, flying, gliding, moving with magical speed, and navigating the hand-drawn world is just as important as battling the myths and monsters inspired by Japanese folklore. Path of the Teal Lotus is one of the most elegant platformers around, and it even has a reset system where you can pause or rewind a failed jump to try again, perfect for learning some of the more difficult segments. Read our Path of the Teal Lotus review. See at Fanatical

Godzilla vs. Biollante on 4K Blu-ray (The Criterion Collection) $25 (was $50) See at Amazon Monster movie fans can save big on films featuring the King of the Monsters for a limited time. The Criterion Collection's trio of Godzilla releases are on sale for 50% off, including the recently released Godzilla vs. Biollante on 4K Blu-ray and standard Blu-ray. Released in March, the 1989 film is just one of several notable Godzilla offers in the massive Criterion Collection half-off sales event at Amazon. Best Criterion Collection Deals at Amazon Continue Reading at GameSpot

Branding is not just about visual identity.

Café LeBlanc makes a return in Persona 5: The Phantom X from the original as part of a limited-time event called Take Your Heart. This mechanic is a great opportunity for our new protagonist, Wonder, to meet with the OG characters from the entry, including Ren Amamiya a.k.a. Joker. In addition to being a nostalgic place, you're also able to earn various rewards by completing objectives in Café LeBlanc. Here's how you can claim them all in P5X.

All Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine - Master Crafted Edition players on Steam can now get a refund for the game for a limited time, regardless of playtime. Many were left disappointed by Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine - Master Crafted Edition, and developer SneakyBox has acted fast to ensure unsatisfied players can get their money back.

Most of what happens within the video games we play is invisible to us. Even the elements we're looking straight at work because of what's happening behind the scenes. If you've ever watched a behind-the-scenes video about game development, you might've seen these versions of flat, gray game worlds filled with lines and icons pointing every which way, with multiple grids and layers. These are the visual representations of all the systems that make the game work.Assassin's Creed ShadowsThis is an especially weird dichotomy to consider when it comes to lighting in any game with a 3D perspective, but especially so in high-fidelity games. We don't see light so much as we see everything it touches; it's invisible, but it gives us most of our information about game worlds. And it's a lot more complex than "turn on lamp, room light up." Reflection, absorption, diffusion, subsurface scattering--the movement of light is a complex thing that has been explored by physicists in the real world for literally centuries, and will likely be studied for centuries more. In the middle of all of that are game designers, applying the science of light to video games in practical ways, balanced with the limitations of even today's powerful GPUs, just to show all us nerds a good time.If you've wondered why many games seem to be like static amusement parks waiting for you to interact with a few specific things, lighting is often the reason. But it's also the reason more and more game worlds look vibrant and lifelike. Game developers have gotten good at simulating static lighting, but making it move is harder. Dynamic lighting has long been computationally expensive, potentially tanking game performance, and we're finally starting to see that change.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Every week, hundreds of artists share their work on the Blender Artists forum. I'm putting some of the best work in the spotlight in a weekly post here on BlenderNation. Source

Death Stranding 2: On The Beach is fixated on revisiting past ideas, which limits its impact to being a good but not great sequel.

Save for Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock, no two wrestlers bring out the best in each other quite like John Cena and CM Punk.Read more...

AI is packing and shipping efficiency for the retail and consumer packaged goods (CPG) industries, with a majority of surveyed companies in the space reporting the technology is increasing revenue and reducing operational costs. Global brands are reimagining every facet of their businesses with AI, from how products are designed and manufactured to how they’re marketed, shipped and experienced in-store and online. At NVIDIA GTC Paris at VivaTech, industry leaders including L’Oréal, LVMH and Nestlé shared how they’re using tools like AI agents and physical AI — powered by NVIDIA AI and simulation technologies — across every step of the product lifecycle to enhance operations and experiences for partners, customers and employees. 3D Digital Twins and AI Transform Marketing, Advertising and Product Design The meeting of generative AI and 3D product digital twins results in unlimited creative potential. Nestlé, the world’s largest food and beverage company, today announced a collaboration with NVIDIA and Accenture to launch a new, AI-powered in-house service that will create high-quality product content at scale for e-commerce and digital media channels. The new content service, based on digital twins powered by the NVIDIA Omniverse platform, creates exact 3D virtual replicas of physical products. Product packaging can be adjusted or localized digitally, enabling seamless integration into various environments, such as seasonal campaigns or channel-specific formats. This means that new creative content can be generated without having to constantly reshoot from scratch. Image courtesy of Nestlé The service is developed in partnership with Accenture Song, using Accenture AI Refinery built on NVIDIA Omniverse for advanced digital twin creation. It uses NVIDIA AI Enterprise for generative AI, hosted on Microsoft Azure for robust cloud infrastructure. Nestlé already has a baseline of 4,000 3D digital products — mainly for global brands — with the ambition to convert a total of 10,000 products into digital twins in the next two years across global and local brands. LVMH, the world’s leading luxury goods company, home to 75 distinguished maisons, is bringing 3D digital twins to its content production processes through its wine and spirits division, Moët Hennessy. The group partnered with content configuration engine Grip to develop a solution using the NVIDIA Omniverse platform, which enables the creation of 3D digital twins that power content variation production. With Grip’s solution, Moët Hennessy teams can quickly generate digital marketing assets and experiences to promote luxury products at scale. The initiative, led by Capucine Lafarge and Chloé Fournier, has been recognized by LVMH as a leading approach to scaling content creation. Image courtesy of Grip L’Oréal Gives Marketing and Online Shopping an AI Makeover Innovation starts at the drawing board. Today, that board is digital — and it’s powered by AI. L’Oréal Groupe, the world’s leading beauty player, announced its collaboration with NVIDIA today. Through this collaboration, L’Oréal and its partner ecosystem will leverage the NVIDIA AI Enterprise platform to transform its consumer beauty experiences, marketing and advertising content pipelines. “AI doesn’t think with the same constraints as a human being. That opens new avenues for creativity,” said Anne Machet, global head of content and entertainment at L’Oréal. “Generative AI enables our teams and partner agencies to explore creative possibilities.” CreAItech, L’Oréal’s generative AI content platform, is augmenting the creativity of marketing and content teams. Combining a modular ecosystem of models, expertise, technologies and partners — including NVIDIA — CreAltech empowers marketers to generate thousands of unique, on-brand images, videos and lines of text for diverse platforms and global audiences. The solution empowers L’Oréal’s marketing teams to quickly iterate on campaigns that improve consumer engagement across social media, e-commerce content and influencer marketing — driving higher conversion rates. Noli.com, the first AI-powered multi-brand marketplace startup founded and backed by the  L’Oréal Groupe, is reinventing how people discover and shop for beauty products. Noli’s AI Beauty Matchmaker experience uses L’Oréal Groupe’s century-long expertise in beauty, including its extensive knowledge of beauty science, beauty tech and consumer insights, built from over 1 million skin data points and analysis of thousands of product formulations. It gives users a BeautyDNA profile with expert-level guidance and personalized product recommendations for skincare and haircare. “Beauty shoppers are often overwhelmed by choice and struggling to find the products that are right for them,” said Amos Susskind, founder and CEO of Noli. “By applying the latest AI models accelerated by NVIDIA and Accenture to the unparalleled knowledge base and expertise of the L’Oréal Groupe, we can provide hyper-personalized, explainable recommendations to our users.”  https://blogs.nvidia.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Noli_Demo.mp4 The Accenture AI Refinery, powered by NVIDIA AI Enterprise, will provide the platform for Noli to experiment and scale. Noli’s new agent models will use NVIDIA NIM and NVIDIA NeMo microservices, including NeMo Retriever, running on Microsoft Azure. Rapid Innovation With the NVIDIA Partner Ecosystem NVIDIA’s ecosystem of solution provider partners empowers retail and CPG companies to innovate faster, personalize customer experiences, and optimize operations with NVIDIA accelerated computing and AI. Global digital agency Monks is reshaping the landscape of AI-driven marketing, creative production and enterprise transformation. At the heart of their innovation lies the Monks.Flow platform that enhances both the speed and sophistication of creative workflows through NVIDIA Omniverse, NVIDIA NIM microservices and Triton Inference Server for lightning-fast inference. AI image solutions provider Bria is helping retail giants like Lidl and L’Oreal to enhance marketing asset creation. Bria AI transforms static product images into compelling, dynamic advertisements that can be quickly scaled for use across any marketing need. The company’s generative AI platform uses NVIDIA Triton Inference Server software and the NVIDIA TensorRT software development kit for accelerated inference, as well as NVIDIA NIM and NeMo microservices for quick image generation at scale. Physical AI Brings Acceleration to Supply Chain and Logistics AI’s impact extends far beyond the digital world. Physical AI-powered warehousing robots, for example, are helping maximize efficiency in retail supply chain operations. Four in five retail companies have reported that AI has helped reduce supply chain operational costs, with 25% reporting cost reductions of at least 10%. Technology providers Lyric, KoiReader Technologies and Exotec are tackling the challenges of integrating AI into complex warehouse environments. Lyric is using the NVIDIA cuOpt GPU-accelerated solver for warehouse network planning and route optimization, and is collaborating with NVIDIA to apply the technology to broader supply chain decision-making problems. KoiReader Technologies is tapping the NVIDIA Metropolis stack for its computer vision solutions within logistics, supply chain and manufacturing environments using the KoiVision Platform. And Exotec is using NVIDIA CUDA libraries and the NVIDIA JetPack software development kit for embedded robotic systems in warehouse and distribution centers. From real-time robotics orchestration to predictive maintenance, these solutions are delivering impact on uptime, throughput and cost savings for supply chain operations. Learn more by joining a follow-up discussion on digital twins and AI-powered creativity with Microsoft, Nestlé, Accenture and NVIDIA at Cannes Lions on Monday, June 16. Watch the NVIDIA GTC Paris keynote from NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang at VivaTech, and explore GTC Paris sessions.