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Railways and elevators will unlock permanently, opening shortcuts that loop back to earlier sections and easing the burden of backtracking. Hollow Knight’s world also undergoes more concrete changes as you progress. What could just be a jump between points instead becomes a quest in itself, and I almost always spoke to The Stag after unlocking a station not to travel, but to hear his gruff but optimistic take on whatever new stop I brought him to. Stag stations can be found and unlocked across Hallownest, allowing you to call The Last Stag to take you between them. Thankfully, there is also a flavor-filled quick-travel system called the Stagways. Like any Metroidvania, your path options are gated behind things like ledges too high to reach or gaps too far to jump until you find the necessary upgrades, but there are enough options that don’t result in dead ends to keep to you exploring for quite a while. After Greenpath, the second major area, you reach a point where there’s no clear “correct” direction anymore. That, coupled with fact that getting good at the combat takes practice, means I spent my first couple hours just trying to figure Hollow Knight out.īut once I picked up the rhythm of its combat and the pattern of exploring its initially restrictive cave systems, Hollow Knight clicked in a way that made me never want to put it down. You have to find a map seller named Cornifer in each area before you can start keeping track of where you’ve been, and even then you have to equip a specific charm to see where you are on it in real time.

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It’s an unashamedly challenging game that does a great job of silently teaching you how to play, but it still felt a little bit daunting to start - especially when death means having to fight your way back to your corpse to reclaim your money, called Geo. After my second playthrough, I have a fairly clear picture of Hallownest’s history, but it’s a picture I assembled myself.Īs much as I genuinely loved being pushed out of the boat and told to start kicking, Hollow Knights’ first few hours can be a predictably sink-or-swim experience as a result. Some of it through dialogue with the adorable and quirky characters who still reside in this decrepit kingdom, some through important story events, and some just by observing your surroundings and the clues strewn about it. The story (and your place in it) is picked up as you go.

It’s a world that manages to feel cohesive despite its citizens being adorable bug-people in a dying cave. And it’s easy to enjoy those moments, because Hollow Knight’s hand-drawn art is simply beautiful.

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It’s a tragic tale, one full of fallen heroes and terrible decisions, but it still manages to make time for beautiful, calm, and hopeful moments throughout. It’s told in a very subtle way, but teaches you so much about Hallownest in the process that I feel like I could practically write a book on it.

The aftermath of Hallownest’s troubled past is left for you to discover and comes through loud and clear, but only if you take the time to listen. In fact, Hollow Knight tells you very little about what’s going on, and instead sends you into a world full of monumental events that all happened long before you arrived: wars and heroes, love and culture, disease and destruction. The bubble-filled region of Fog Canyon isn’t technically underwater, but the muffled filter over all of its audio goes hand-in-hand with jellyfish enemies and a brighter blue tone. The lush environment of an area called Greenpath feels bustling and humid, a stark difference to the cold, dark caves of the Forgotten Crossroads. For example, walls on the border of the Fungal Wastes, even impassable ones in other areas, will be dotted with its telltale mushrooms. There are far more of these distinct biomes than I ever expected to discover, and the edges of each one blend together with the next in ways that help them make sense in the world. Art, music, color tone, sound, and a million other little details combine to give each area of the map a distinct sense of place, and those areas jigsaw together in a way that feels intentional and alive. But what’s truly captivating about the exploring this long-dead kingdom is its atmosphere. I could wander in basically any direction and find bosses to fight, upgrades to collect, and secrets to uncover. The deeper I went into Hollow Knight, the more I was surprised at just how much content and freedom it has to offer.

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