Ink Tea Stone Leaf

I have a mad theory. Bear with me while I explain.

The recent release of Hollow Knight: Silksong, amid high expectations and rave reviews, made me realize that despite the iconic status of the original Hollow Knight, I actually knew very little about it. I learned more about the series reading profiles of the new game in Slate and The New York Times than I learned (or retained) in all these eight (8!) years since it came out. Until I downloaded it and began playing Hollow Knight (not Silksong, not yet anyway) last weekend, I had not fully realized that it was a straightforward Metroidvania game. Such games are very much my jam, so I certainly wish I’d gotten wise much earlier.

For those unfamiliar, “Metroidvania” is the conventional name of a certain video game genre, combining elements of action games, two-dimensional platform games, and puzzle games. A typical Metroidvania consists of several zones composed of multiple rooms, through which the player character can navigate in any direction, except that most of the pathways are initially blocked by impassable obstacles. The player unlocks new areas by exploring carefully, backtracking frequently, and battling enemies to discover equipment and abilities that allow the obstacles to be overcome. These may come in the form of upgraded weapons, enhanced jumping abilities, or alternative forms of movement (climbing, crawling, swimming, etc). The genre’s name is a combination of two popular series by different publishers that collectively established its highly durable parameters: Nintendo’s Metroid, and Konami’s Castlevania.

A few minutes into playing Hollow Knight, it was not only clear that I was playing a Metroidvania, but that much of the action would be taking place underground. This is unsurprising, as caves are a classic setting for the genre. Their sprawling, branching layouts with large chambers and hidden passageways are easily conceivable as Metroidvania maps. The Metroid series mostly takes place in a series of extensive underground cave systems on alien planets. The archetypal setting for a Castlevania game is a haunted castle (naturally), but in every game that castle has a basement zone, and this basement almost always connects to a series of catacombs and natural caverns. The affinity of Metroidvania games for such settings was driven home two decades ago by Cave Story, which not only helped expand the genre beyond the founding series, but broadened the general awareness that it could be considered a separate genre at all. And look— the word “cave” is right there in the title.

But you see, it’s not just Metroidvanias that love cave settings. Roleplaying games have a long love affair with the underground, where hidden treasures and monsters’ lairs are often found. Listing every RPG in which the player spends any significant amount of time below the surface of the Earth would be tedious (because it’s all of them), but one example that springs to mind is 2015’s Undertale. Like Hollow Knight, it was developed independently by a small team (just one person in the case of Undertale) and it takes place in a sprawling subterranean expanse, populated by various intriguing characters.

You know another game, representing a completely different genre, that is inextricably associated with underground spaces? 2011’s Minecraft, a sandbox game based around mining minerals and other resources for the purpose of construction—and a mine, after all, is nothing more than a artificially excavated cave. Minecraft is, incidentally, the best selling video game of all time, and like Hollow Knight and Undertale it is a product (at least in its initial form) of a small, independent development team, which I think demonstrates a very important insight. A successful video game does not require an army of staff and crew or a AAA budget; all it has to do is drop its players into a hole in the ground. Gamers yearn for the caves.

Indeed, when I thought about the vast array of video games that I have played in all my years, I struggle to think of any that don’t place the player character in a dimly lit underground chamber for at least part of the time. At this time I will ask you not to chime in and suggest any glaringly obvious exceptions like, say, Tetris. Tetris is an abstract puzzle game, it doesn’t really have a “setting” at all. If a video game revolves around a character being in or going to places, then one of those places is bound to be subterranean. It’s inevitable; video game developers cannot resist the caves, any more than they can resist the ice fields or the jungles.

Am I being overly inclusive by including basements, dungeons, sewers, and other such places where the sun does not shine as “caves?” Maybe, I don’t know. I’ve played hundreds of video games, but I haven’t done a survey or anything. My research for this post mostly consists of looking over the games on my shelves and going “yep, there’s caves in that one too.” I rely upon my memory of games that I haven’t actually played in decades, but I don’t think I’m too far off the mark in perceiving a preponderance of cave content.

Platformers love caves. Shooters love caves. Fighting games love caves. Even racing games love caves. Just about the only way for gamers to stay out of caves is to either stick to Puzzle games, or Simulations focused on strictly above-ground activities, like sports or city-building. Even that may not save you; anybody who has played Civilization knows you won’t get very far without building a mine or two.

Video games are the most high-tech art form available to the average person today, yet over and over they tease our imaginations with a return to that most primordial of human environments, and what we might find there. There are perils and promises in the cave. Secrets lurk in its darkness, scenes of beauty and horror, the home of Pluto the lord of mineral wealth and Pluto the god of the dead. Our ancestors painted figures on the walls of their caves. From Plato and Virgil to Jules Verne and J.R.R. Tolkien, our literary tradition hearkens back to the memory of the cave. In all of the history of art and creativity, people keep coming back to wondering what it would be like to hang out in a hole in the ground for a while.

Am I making too much of the cave as a video game staple? Almost certainly. Has the symbolism and significance of caves and the Earth been thoroughly explored already by writers since the dawn of writing? As thoroughly as I plan to explore the ancient pathways of Hallownest, at least. But the next time you’re playing a video game, and you find yourself in a cave, well, you just remember that I told you it was bound to happen. The only question is whether you’re trying to get out of the cave, or deeper down in it.