{"id":45951,"date":"2025-03-22T11:11:58","date_gmt":"2025-03-22T02:11:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=45951"},"modified":"2025-03-22T11:12:01","modified_gmt":"2025-03-22T02:12:01","slug":"ender-lilies-had-strong-rivals-like-hollow-knight-in-the-metroidvania-genre-but-it-sought-to-distinguish-itself-with-its-anime-style-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/ender-lilies-had-strong-rivals-like-hollow-knight-in-the-metroidvania-genre-but-it-sought-to-distinguish-itself-with-its-anime-style-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Ender Lilies had strong rivals like Hollow Knight in the metroidvania genre, but it sought to distinguish itself with its anime-style art\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Binary Haze Interactive\u2019s acclaimed metroidvania <strong>Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights <\/strong>got an official sequel in January 2025. Titled <strong>Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist<\/strong>, the new entry in the series matched its predecessor\u2019s success, <a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/what-made-ender-magnolia-overwhelmingly-positive-a-balance-between-story-and-gameplay-rarely-seen-in-metroidvanias-was-one-factor-devs-say\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">earning an Overwhelmingly Positive rating on Steam<\/a>. But how did the Ender series seek to compete with other games in the popular Metroidvania genre? AUTOMATON asked director Keisuke Okabe and lead game designer Yasuhiro Yokoyama.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"ENDER MAGNOLIA: Bloom in the Mist Final Trailer\" width=\"1160\" height=\"653\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Q9wD4brP7nA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Ender Lilies came out in 2021. While the game was in development, Okabe and his dev team were aware that the Metroidvania genre was major in the indie scene at the time. They actively sought out games by other creators and played them as they released, but one title they were particularly aware of was Team Cherry\u2019s Hollow Knight. Hollow Knight was released in 2017 to glowing reviews, becoming a top pick among metroidvania fans.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Faced with such strong competition, the Ender series\u2019 devs looked for ways to stand out, and they found their answer in their art style. \u201cI considered one of our strengths to be our art team\u2019s proficiency in anime-like 2D art, and I wanted to fully take advantage of that,\u201d Okabe comments.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1391\" height=\"780\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1391px) 100vw, 1391px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/20250319-45783-header.jpg\" alt=\"Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist\" class=\"wp-image-45787\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/20250319-45783-header.jpg 1391w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/20250319-45783-header-380x213.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/20250319-45783-header-768x431.jpg 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Noticing that there were not many games out there offering such a look, the developers decided to fill the gap by creating a metroidvania that focused on appealing 2D anime visuals. Thus, Ender Lilies and its sequel Ender Magnolia were born.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist is available for Nintendo Switch, PS4\/PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC (<a href=\"https:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/app\/2725260\/ENDER_MAGNOLIA_Bloom_in_the_Mist\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Steam<\/a>).&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ender Lilies and Ender Magnolia director Keisuke Okabe on how Live Wire and Adglobe sought to stand out among other metroidvanias.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":45956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-45951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Ender Lilies had strong rivals like Hollow Knight in the metroidvania genre, but it sought to distinguish itself with its anime-style art\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ender Lilies and Ender Magnolia director Keisuke Okabe on how Live Wire and Adglobe sought to stand out among other metroidvanias.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/ender-lilies-had-strong-rivals-like-hollow-knight-in-the-metroidvania-genre-but-it-sought-to-distinguish-itself-with-its-anime-style-art\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ender Lilies had strong rivals like Hollow Knight in the metroidvania genre, but it sought to distinguish itself with its anime-style art\u00a0 - 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She grew up playing Duke Nukem and Wolfenstein with her dad, and is now enamored with obscure Japanese video games and internet culture. Currently devoted to growing Automaton West to the size of its Japanese sister-site, while making sure to keep news concise and developer stories deep and stimulating.","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/author\/amber-vjestica\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45951"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45958,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45951\/revisions\/45958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}