Rusted Moss is Hollow Knight with a bungee cord
In Metroidvanias, it’s often about the destination, not the journey.
You might find a new upgrade or a new area you haven’t explored before, and that’s exciting, but the path you took to get there just involved a lot of running and jumping, which isn’t terribly interesting. Newer examples, like the Ori games and Metroid Dread, have emphasized the importance of movement — that it needs to feel as satisfying to move around the world as it does to find a new, shiny piece of treasure.
Rusted Moss follows that same model, giving you unparalleled control over how you progress through its labyrinthian world with the help of a super fun (and sproingy!) grappling hook.
Developed by a core team of just three people, Rusted Moss offers a twist on fairy folklore, with a post-apocalyptic, grungy vibe. The gameplay both follows and dramatically departs from the many Metroidvanias that came before it. While it mostly focuses on 2D platforming – a long-held standard – it also introduces 360 aiming, a crucial element in combat as well as traversal. There’s constantly a reticle on the screen, letting you fire off rockets or charged railgun shots in any direction, even while you’re moving. But that reticle also controls the aiming of your grappling hook, which quickly becomes the signature feature of Rusted Moss.
Most video game grappling hooks are pretty predictable when it comes to getting you from one point to another. Either they act like the hookshot in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which sends you on a direct path to your target, or they act like the grappling beam in Super Metroid, which offers more of an Indiana Jones-style swing. Rusted Moss’s grappling hook is somewhere in the middle. It has true elasticity, which
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