Hollow Knight Review: Should You Buy It?

What is Hollow Knight?

Hollow Knight is an action-adventure Metroidvania developed by the small, Adelaide-based studio Team Cherry. It first launched in 2017 to immediate critical acclaim.

The game casts you as a diminutive, silent knight venturing into the vast, ruined insect kingdom of Hallownest. A once-great civilisation lies in decay, its citizens infected by a mysterious, mind-controlling plague.

Your journey is to uncover the secrets of this downfall, piece together your own purpose, and confront the source of the corruption. It is defined by atmospheric world-building, challenging combat, and a profound sense of discovery.

Gameplay

The gameplay is a near-perfect synthesis of precise platforming, demanding combat, and non-linear exploration. At its core, it feels exceptionally tight and responsive.

Your knight moves with a satisfying weight, and the basic actions — jumping, attacking with your nail, and later dashing — are immediately intuitive. The learning curve is steep but fair.

Early areas teach you the fundamentals, but Hallownest quickly becomes a labyrinth of branching paths, locked gates, and perilous environmental hazards.

Ability-Gated Progression

Progression is gated by abilities, a hallmark of the genre. Discovering a new power, such as the Mantis Claw for wall-jumping or the Monarch Wings for a double jump, recontextualises the entire map.

Previously inaccessible ledges become reachable, opening up vast new zones. This loop of discovery is incredibly compelling.

Combat and Bosses

Combat evolves from simple slashes to a nuanced dance. You learn to incorporate spells, which consume Soul gathered from hitting enemies, and later, powerful charged attacks called Nail Arts.

Boss fights are a major highlight, serving as skill checks that are punishing but ultimately conquerable through pattern recognition and perseverance.

The game does not hold your hand. Mapping the world requires purchasing maps from a friendly cartographer, and even then, you must fill in the details yourself.

Who is Hollow Knight for?

Hollow Knight is for players who relish a challenge and the satisfaction of hard-won mastery. It is a hardcore, single-player experience that demands patience and observation.

While its charming art might suggest accessibility, its difficulty — particularly in optional late-game content — is formidable.

You will love it if:

• You enjoy interconnected worlds and ability-gated progression like Metroid or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
• You appreciate atmospheric storytelling and brutal difficulty akin to Dark Souls, translated into a 2D plane.
• You seek a rewarding adventure that demands mastery and rewards persistence.

You may want to skip it if:

• You prefer a straightforward, guided narrative with explicit objective markers.
• You get frustrated by retracing steps or dying repeatedly to tough bosses.
• You have a low tolerance for hands-off exploration and repeated failure.

Graphics and performance

Hollow Knight's visual style is a monumental achievement in hand-drawn 2D art. The world is rendered in a sombre palette of greys, blues, and earthy tones, punctuated by eerie luminescence in fungal groves and crystalline caverns.

The animation is fluid and full of character, from the knight's determined slashes to the quirky, often tragic movements of the bugs they encounter.

Each distinct region has a unique aesthetic — from the rainy, oppressive Forgotten Crossroads to the elegant, deadly City of Tears — that reinforces the lore and mood.

On a technical level, the game runs exceptionally well across platforms. On PC, it is remarkably undemanding, capable of running on modest hardware at a flawless 60 frames per second.

No notable bugs or performance hitches were encountered during playthrough. The art direction does the heavy lifting, proving that timeless, expressive design trumps raw graphical power.

Value for money

Hollow Knight is arguably one of the most generous offerings in gaming. A single, thorough playthrough to see the standard ending can easily take 25–35 hours.

That merely scratches the surface. The game is packed with substantial, free post-launch content, including new boss fights, entire new areas, additional story beats, and a brutally difficult bonus game mode.

For completionists aiming for 112% completion, defeating every optional boss and conquering the infamous Pantheons, well over 60 hours of gameplay is a realistic expectation.

Given its modest asking price, the density and quality of the experience are staggering. It offers more depth and playtime than many full-priced AAA titles.

Bottom line: Hollow Knight offers exceptional value — a vast, hand-crafted world with 60+ hours of meaningful content at a modest price.

Verdict

Hollow Knight is a modern classic and a pinnacle of the Metroidvania genre. Team Cherry has crafted a world as deep in lore as it is vast in scope, married to gameplay that is consistently challenging, precise, and rewarding.

Its stunning hand-drawn art and melancholic score create an atmosphere that is utterly absorbing.

We wholeheartedly recommend Hollow Knight to any player with a taste for exploration, challenge, and atmospheric world-building. It is a must-play for fans of Dark Souls, Ori and the Blind Forest, or Super Metroid.

However, its deliberate pace and high difficulty ceiling mean it may not resonate with those who prefer linear, narrative-driven experiences.

The verdict: An unforgettable descent into Hallownest and an absolute masterpiece of indie game development. Essential for challenge-seeking explorers.