Elderand

My first few hours with Elderand gave me that quiet, specific pleasure of a small studio swinging for something real. This is a pixel-art metroidvania born out of nearly a decade of development by Brazilian indie studio Mantra, and you can feel that sustained attention in the handcrafted level layouts, the gothic sprite work, and a soundtrack that reviewers kept singling out as one of the game's genuine strengths. There is craft here. The question is whether craft alone is enough when you are standing next to Hollow Knight on the shelf. The bones are solid. You play a nameless mercenary shipwrecked on a cursed land overrun by Lovecraftian horrors and a fanatical cult. Combat lets you mix and match across a wide weapon roster including swords, axes, daggers, whips, bows, and magic staves, and the four-stat RPG system covering Vitality, Wisdom, Dexterity, and Might means a strength-and-shield warrior plays noticeably differently from a ranged or magic build. Controls are tight and responsive across the board, something almost every reviewer agreed on. Bonfires serve as checkpoints, fast travel unlocks without too much friction, and the roughly six-to-ten-hour runtime keeps things from overstaying. There are also multiple endings, depending on how deep into the world you choose to go. Where Elderand stumbles is in the things it chose not to do. The map is compact to the point where exploration rarely produces that charged, lost-and-curious feeling that defines the best metroidvanias. Mid-game corridors can stretch on without meaningful shortcuts or surprises. The double jump arrives unusually early, which is a nice gesture, but the air dash is locked behind a late-game area in a way that feels more bureaucratic than intentional. Loot found in secret rooms is often just a stat orb, while the best gear sits openly in vendor menus. The stat system hints at deeper build variety than it actually delivers. A high Strength investment can tip the difficulty so far in the player's favor that some boss encounters lose their teeth. The atmosphere, though, is worth pausing on. The pixel artistry leans into a specific gothic-grotesque register, with environments ranging from a forest and a temple prison to floating islands and a cursed Cathedral. Enemy design is strong and varied, with over sixty types across the world. The OST carries a mood that the narrative, which relies almost entirely on environmental storytelling and scattered letters from dead NPCs, cannot always sustain on its own. If you are the kind of player who reads every found document and listens closely to the ambient soundscape, there is a quiet world here worth inhabiting for a weekend. Elderand sits comfortably in the honest middle of its genre. It does not push boundaries and does not pretend to. For a debut release from an indie team that spent years getting this thing made, the craft is genuine and the heart is obvious. Genre fans who have already cleared their Hollow Knights and Blasphemouses and want something that respects their time without demanding anything new from them will find a decent eight hours here. Everyone else should know exactly what they are walking into.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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