9 Years of Shadows on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information

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Fight to bring beautiful colors back to a hand-crafted world of darkness and discover the story of Europa, a young warrior, and her ghostly childhood companion, Apino.

9 Years of Shadows is a metroidvania, platformer and side scroller game developed by Halberd Studios and published by indie.io.
Released on March 27th 2023 is available only on Windows in 8 languages: English, Spanish - Latin America, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese - Brazil, Russian and Simplified Chinese.

It has received 2,588 reviews of which 1,985 were positive and 603 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.4 out of 10. 😊

The game is currently priced at 18.49€ on Steam, but you can find it for 0.95€ on Gamivo.

The Steam community has classified 9 Years of Shadows into these genres:

Metroidvania Platformer Side Scroller Fantasy Anime Action RPG Pixel Graphics Action-Adventure Exploration Action Adventure Action Roguelike Female Protagonist 2D Atmospheric Indie Story Rich Singleplayer Lore-Rich Magic

Media & Screenshots

Get an in-depth look at 9 Years of Shadows through various videos and screenshots.

9 Years of Shadows screenshot
9 Years of Shadows screenshot
9 Years of Shadows screenshot
9 Years of Shadows screenshot
9 Years of Shadows screenshot
9 Years of Shadows screenshot
9 Years of Shadows screenshot

System requirements

These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.

Windows
  • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  • OS: Windows 10
  • Processor: Intel Core i3-9100F
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: GT 730

User reviews & Ratings

Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.

Jan. 2025
9 Years of Shadows is a metroidvania style game where you play as a young woman named Europa who braves a castle to attempt to restore the color of the world after a 9 year curse that brought endless darkness. Find different magical armors and abillities along the way and befriend a Teddy Bear that you can hug to heal yourself... and throw projectiles to murder the hell out of your enemies! This is best played with a controller. Pros: Beautiful Musical Score Well Written Story A Mix of Retro Aesthetic with Modern Pixel Art No Framerate Lock Plenty of Secrets and Things To Find, Places To Explore Steam Deck/Linux Friendly: About An Hour's Worth Of Play On Battery Cloud Saves! Cons: In the beginning, when playing on my 4K Desktop, the camera would not follow the character properly. It wasn't until launching the game on my Steam Deck that I was able to play it fine across all computers. The game runs hotter than expected. When playing on Steam Deck it can get pretty warm. Long use on desktop also generates the kind of heat you would expect from playing newer FPS games. Some people have reported that the game crashes or freezes when getting to the end credits. I finished the game on Steam Deck without it doing that though. Overall, if you like platformers and metroidvanias, this is one worth looking at! When I saw a friend of mine playing it on their Linux system it was an immediate purchase! I give it 9 Melons out of 10!
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Dec. 2024
The Hi-Res Pixel Art Scenes and the Character Portraits are a treat to explore throughout the game and carry the intrigue of the story throughout the play through. This game has simple mechanics and is great for a light solo game session as it is pretty forgiving in most enemy encounters. you will see why with its unique health bar mechanic. However there is the odd highly creative boss or three that you will face, which will challenge you to use the mechanics more competently. The look and feel of the particle effects with the rumble as you slash through enemies is quite satisfying as well, like popping bubble wrap if I'm honest. As far as things I didn't like about the game, it really boils down to not having enough "things" that allow you to express "player skill" such as more moves or a point system but that's not what this game is trying to sell you. It sells you on the story which is pretty satisfying to playthrough, however I wish I could have learned more about the characters I came across in the story. A lot of the boss villains with dialogue have fleeting backstories that you'd want to know more about or are visually striking enough to want to explore more of that character but you fight them once and that's the end of them. my only real criticism of the game is that there isn't more of it to play which is not necessarily a bad thing in my eyes. All in all I would recommend everyone play this game whether you're seasoned or casual.
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Nov. 2024
For me, Ori is an S+, Hollow Knight is A+, so this is a SOLID B+. The art and cut scene animations are great, each characters portrait is really incredible and unique, the difficulty is moderate till the final boss where it jumps up quite a bit though still not super spicy, music stands out mainly in the theater and armor upgrade rooms, and movement is fluid and predictable. Improvements for me would be in diversity of enemies, more instances in bosses that utilize different armors/switching armors, clarity in armor interactions with enemies (colorblind folks be struggling), and more fleshed out/memorable music for entire areas. Overall a fun and enjoyable experience
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Nov. 2024
The game is good, it's an indie Metroidvania. The health system is a bit weird but you get used to it. You start with only 2 health, and mostly rely on a shield. The caveat is that shield refills as you hit and kill enemies. In addition when your shield is fully depleted you can charge it to about 90% in a few secs. This can be done in battle but requires timing. The level design and music are good quality. The only thing I didn't like was that the dash is backwards like some vampire style games. A directional dash would have been more fluid. There are a few particular enemies where this gets annoying and ends up making you get hit when you meant to dash away. Overall worth playing and supporting.
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Sept. 2024
It's a short but fun metroidvania game. My only complaints are: 1. Combat is simple. I wish there was more depth. 2. There are a lot of color-swap enemy types. 3. Final boss is such a huge difficulty spike compared to the other bosses.
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Frequently Asked Questions

9 Years of Shadows is currently priced at 18.49€ on Steam.

9 Years of Shadows is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 18.49€ on Steam.

9 Years of Shadows received 1,985 positive votes out of a total of 2,588 achieving a rating of 7.42.
😊

9 Years of Shadows was developed by Halberd Studios and published by indie.io.

9 Years of Shadows is playable and fully supported on Windows.

9 Years of Shadows is not playable on MacOS.

9 Years of Shadows is not playable on Linux.

9 Years of Shadows is a single-player game.

9 Years of Shadows does not currently offer any DLC.

9 Years of Shadows does not support mods via Steam Workshop.

9 Years of Shadows does not support Steam Remote Play.

9 Years of Shadows is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.

You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for 9 Years of Shadows.

Data sources

The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.

Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.

Last Updates
Steam data 12 June 2025 23:24
SteamSpy data 07 June 2025 01:38
Steam price 14 June 2025 20:37
Steam reviews 12 June 2025 08:06

If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about 9 Years of Shadows, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.

  • SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about 9 Years of Shadows
  • SteamCharts - Analysis of 9 Years of Shadows concurrent players on Steam
  • ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck 9 Years of Shadows compatibility
9 Years of Shadows
18.49€ -95% 18.49€ 0.95€
7.4
1,985
603
Game modes
Features
Online players
11
Developer
Halberd Studios
Publisher
indie.io
Release 27 Mar 2023
Platforms
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