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“Next is a 3/4 RTS,” jokes director Alx Preston at a GDC 2025 interview.
Sometimes you just have to accept whatever verbiage is common.
Preston prefers a descriptive variant more common in Japan: search action.
It’s a silly term and Japan did it better."
What makes a Metroidvania - sorry, habit, a search action game - what it is?
“You gotta have an Alucard, apparently, and a Dracula,” Preston quips.
“It’s no different here.
Story or not, those are kind of the core mechanics that are true to the genre.
Heck, you could make a Metroidvania without any platforming at all.
That’s kind of the formula.
That non-linearity is what makes the genre so compelling to so many people for so long.
“Super missiles, that’s the short answer.”
Possessor(s) is quite big on its story - more so now than earlier in development.
The presentation here is visual novel-esque and more player-facing.
“Much more, certainly more than Solar Ash,” says narrative director Tyler Hutchison.
Compared to Solar Ash, that world was meant to feel desolate and barren and robbed of place.
“Slash, slash, slash.
Hollow Knight introduced pogoing into the genre.
I wanted to take the path on the mechanical side to say, I love Smash Bros.
So do a lot of people.
Because we really like doing combat stuff.
We don’t just want to do the standard slash, slash, slash.”
