Player-Centric Data Visualization for Metroidvania Games: Insights and Use Cases: The Case of Hollow Knight

Description

Interest in data-informed play has accelerated in recent years across player communities, particularly within the competitive gaming scene. As such research on analytics tools for players has concentrated predominantly on popular esports games and genres. However, such tools could be of interest to players of other genres as well given a general tendency for self-tracking. In this work we focus on Metroidvania games, studying a multi-view dashboard for visualizing gameplay data from Hollow Knight. Using an insight-based evaluation methodology and interviews with 12 participants we study 1) insights players infer from the dashboard and 2) use cases such a tool can enable within the context of Metroidvania games. Our results reveal that in addition to common performance-related use cases, participants found personal satisfaction when viewing the visualizations and considered them to be an opportunity for social engagement. Participants mostly used the map and events view to infer insights but also relied on recalled data and their existing familiarity with the game. Based on our findings we further reflect on future research directions. Through this we contribute to developing a broader understanding of computational support tools for players.

Period	14 Oct 2025
Event title	CHI PLAY '25
Event type	Conference
Location	Pittsburgh, United StatesShow on map