This ended up being a big week for Metroidvanias, as it turns out. Yesterday, one of the most highly-anticipated indie games of all-time in Hollow Knight: Silksong released after a surprise date announcement just last month. Steam and other storefronts entirely crashed from the rush of players and it’s already setting player count records. By all accounts, it’s great and lives up to the hype. But there’s another Metroidvania that came out the same day worth your attention from Atari called Adventure of Samsara.
The original Adventure back on the Atari 2600 is rightly regarded as one of the most influential games of all-time. Famously, it includes one of the first-ever Easter eggs in a video game when the programmer hid his name in a secret room, but it also owns the right to call itself one of the first-ever open-world adventure games. It also laid the foundation for games like The Legend of Zelda, as well as (you guessed it) Metroid and Castlevania.
In a roundabout way, you could argue there would be no Hollow Knight and no Silksong without Atari’s Adventure. Which is precisely why Adventure of Samsara, from developer Ilex Games, deserves more attention.
Adventure of Samsara—Atari’s Silksong Competitor
To be clear, Adventure of Samsara isn’t marketed as a sequel or continuation of the Atari 2600 original, but instead as more of a tribute. This is its own thing without any real ties other than the first word of the title and some of its design principles, but given how simplistic Adventure was, this sort of massive evolution is inevitable.
In Adventure of Samsara, players take control of the Solar Champion, a long-dead Plutonian who’s been resurrected by the light of the Sun itself. You’ll have to reactive an interdimensional fortress to restore balance to the multiverse as you explore a deeply interconnected world, woven together by a twisting narrative of death and rebirth.
“Adventure of Samsara is more than a tribute to the original 2600 title Adventure—it builds on Atari’s legacy, fusing it with modern Metroidvania storytelling to create something entirely on its own,” said Ethan Stearns, VP of Games at Atari in a press release statement. “Set in a rich fantasy world with striking pixel art and a layered narrative of memory and rebirth, we think players will return again and again to uncover the game’s deeper mysteries and easter egg-like references.”
There are ten different biomes in Adventure of Samsara, with gameplay inspirations from the likes of the original Pince of Persia, mixed with nods to the original Adventure in the form of Easter eggs. And of course lots and lots of collectibles and hidden upgrades.
A representative on behalf of Atari sent me a code for the Switch version of the game, but I haven’t had a chance to check it out just yet. So far, I love what I’ve seen and the pixel art aesthetic is absolutely my jam.
Adventure of Samsara is out now for $19.99 on Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, and PC via both Steam and GOG.
