$29.99Aeterna Noctis A hand-drawn war of light and dark
Guide the King of Darkness through a vast, atmospheric world of brutal bosses and razor-thin platforming.
Is Aeterna Noctis worth it?
Aeterna Noctis is worth it if…
- you want a long, punishing metroidvania with tens of hours of exploration
- you love precision platforming and want the hardest version of it
- you care about hand-drawn art and a strong soundtrack
- you like dark, twisty stories with side quests to chase
- you enjoyed Hollow Knight and Celeste and want both in one map
Screenshots
A cursed war between two immortals
The game opens with you knocked back to earth, setting out to reclaim your lost powers. The story is huge and non-linear, full of side quests and twists, with voice-acted cutscenes in eight languages. It is a dark, serious tale, and the hand-drawn cutscenes give it real weight. You choose your own path and pacing through it: the plot has a defined shape, but the map lets you wander.
Combat that demands patience
Fights are deliberate and punishing. Enemies track your movement closely, and a wrong step near them costs health fast, so the winning approach is reading attack patterns and retreating at the right moment rather than rushing in. You earn blood from kills and spend it on healing or special abilities, which forces real decisions about when to strike and when to recover. As you grow stronger you unlock new techniques, a bow, and a compact skill tree with gems and weapons to build around. Bosses are the peak: long, multi-phase fights with varied movesets that can take many attempts.
Sixteen areas, one interconnected map
The world is a classic metroidvania map: 16 zones, connected and non-linear, and it is big. You explore, find secrets, take on side quests and gradually unlock routes that open the map further. The areas look wildly different from each other, all drawn by hand: an abyss with deformed statues, a tower pulsing with divine light, skies full of flying whales. Power-ups change how you move through old ground, so sections that once took careful work become quick crossings. The scale means tens of hours of exploration even before completionist goals.
Precision platforming as the main course
This is where the game earns its reputation. It is demanding, and the second half leans into it hard, so expect the balance to shift from combat toward pure platforming as you go. The controls are extremely responsive, which is what makes the hard parts fair rather than random. If the endgame platforming in other metroidvanias left you cold, this game goes much further.
Frequently asked questions?
Does the music matter to the experience?
Very much. There are more than 40 unique tracks, each written for its own theme, and the soundtrack is one of the things players single out most. It carries the game's somber, atmospheric tone through every zone, and the OST has been released with piano covers of the main songs.
Is the whole game as brutal as its reputation?
No, and the pacing is worth knowing. The opening hours mix combat, exploration and moderate platforming at a friendlier pace. The difficulty curve scales with progression, and the later game shifts heavily toward extreme precision platforming. If that sounds like too much, Aeterna mode softens it, though the game is challenging in both.
