Hollow Knight

Hollow Knight, released in 2017, is a Metroidvania action-adventure from Australian indie studio Team Cherry. You play as the Knight, a silent insectoid warrior exploring Hallownest, a once-great kingdom now overrun by a supernatural plague. The game’s hand-drawn art and atmospheric score set a somber tone as you traverse crumbling cities, fungal caverns, and ancient ruins. Combat is tight and challenging, with a focus on timing and pattern recognition. As you progress, you unlock new movement and combat abilities that open up previously inaccessible areas, encouraging deep exploration. The world is packed with secrets, lore fragments, and a memorable cast of bug characters, both friendly and hostile.

Team Cherry, founded by artist Ari Gibson and web designer William Pellen, conceived the project during a 2013 Ludum Dare game jam. They drew inspiration from classics like Faxanadu, Metroid, Zelda II, and Mega Man X, aiming to replicate the sense of discovery and interconnected level design. Development was crowdfunded, raising over A$57,000 by the end of 2014. The game launched for Windows, macOS, and Linux in February 2017, later reaching Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in 2018, and next-gen consoles in 2026. Four free expansions added substantial content, including new bosses, areas, and modes.

Critics praised Hollow Knight for its art, music, worldbuilding, and demanding difficulty, and it’s often cited among the greatest games ever made. Sales exceeded 15 million copies. A sequel, Hollow Knight: Silksong, featuring the character Hornet, arrived in 2025 to similar acclaim. [edit]

The core loop is exploration, combat, and progression. As a Metroidvania, the non-linear structure means new abilities like the Mothwing Cloak dash or Monarch Wings double jump unlock paths you couldn’t reach before, rewarding backtracking with hidden upgrades, charms, and lore. Combat demands precise timing and pattern recognition; enemies hit hard, and you manage a limited health pool that you restore by sitting on benches, which also act as save points. Unlike many soulslikes, there’s no stamina bar, so aggression is viable, but carelessness gets punished quickly.

Geo serves as currency, but you lose it upon death and must return to your shade to reclaim it, adding risk to exploration. Charms offer build variety, letting you tweak your playstyle with effects like faster healing or stronger nail arts. The game also features nail arts, charged attacks that add depth to combat. Exploration is aided by a map system: you buy maps from Cornifer, but you must find a bench to update them, and you only see explored areas. This encourages a sense of discovery and personal cartography. [edit]

Hallownest was a thriving bug kingdom under the rule of the Pale King, but a parasitic god called the Radiance infected its inhabitants with a plague that twisted their minds. The Pale King attempted to seal the Radiance by creating vessels, hollow beings immune to the infection, but his plan failed, and the kingdom fell into ruin. The Knight is one such vessel, cast out and forgotten, who returns to Hallownest drawn by a mysterious call.

As you explore, you piece together the kingdom’s tragic history through environmental storytelling, ancient tablets, and NPCs like the enigmatic Hornet and the whimsical Quirrel. The narrative culminates in choices: you can seal the Radiance within yourself, becoming the new vessel, or destroy the source entirely by defeating the Radiance in its purest form. The game’s ending varies based on your actions, including a secret true ending that requires completing the Godmaster expansion’s Pantheon of Hallownest. [edit]