The World Design of Hollow Knight | Boss Keys

Hey thanks for watching and for all your lovely comments! Just wanted to issue a few corrections and clarifications: [1] I said that Hornet was referring to the Resting Grounds when she said “seek the Grave in Ash”. She’s actually talking about the Cast-off Shell in the Kingdom’s Edge, where you fight her for the second time. [2] There’s a few extra routes through the game that I didn’t mention, namely a path to Deepnest through the Fungal Core, and a path to the Kingdom’s Edge through a secret tunnel in the King’s Station. [3] It’s true that you can get your shade back without travelling to where you last died by giving a rancid egg to Jiji in Dirtmouth. This is useful in some situations, but I don’t think it changes the underlying design of the shade mechanic in a substantial way. [4] Your soul amount drops by a third, not a half, when you die. [5] I could have worded the DLC stuff better. Mentioning that bosses are “exclusive” to free, auto-installed DLC packs is a bit weird. My intention was to help out people who played Hollow Knight's base game in 2017 and were confused about missing these bonus bosses.

“It prevents the player from becoming stuck.” You underestimate my stupidity.

I honestly just like hearing people say good things about Hollow Knight.

October 2019: "We're waiting on Breath of the Wild 2, Metroid Prime 4, and Silksong" May 2023: We got Tears of the Kingdom! April 2024: We're waiting on Metroid Prime 4, and Silksong

That alternate path into Deepnest is both infinitely cruel and absolutely amazing. What a masterful way to plunge the player into the "oh no. Oh no no no no no" mentality.

I'll never forget walking down in deepnest and seeing another me walking below me

The fact that 3 people managed to create such a masterpiece still amazes me.

“And cute bees in the hive” Me: what about the bee that turns into a firetrucking drill

One of my favorite world-building moments was finding Tiso, the bold and arrogant fighter, dropped dead at the Kingdom's Edge. It was sad to see him after all the talk of glory only to see him dead. Even sadder when you hit him with the dream nail and see his final thoughts.

‘Grave of ash’ actually refers to kingdoms edge, the grave refering to the previous incarnation of the pale king, and the ash being the ‘snow’ flying everywhere, almost like his ashes, plus hornet waits for you there.

Hollow knight is one of the most well designed games that I have ever played

I don't think I'll ever really get tired of watching people make video essays on how great a game Hollow knight is. If ever a game deserved it, this is it.

My favorite tricky little area of the game is where you get the Baldur Shell charm. Where Greenpath connects to the Howling Cliffs, there's a chest that yields 1 Geo when opened. By now, you'll have collected multiple chests (most notably the chest after the False Knight battle), and you'll know sometimes Geo gets stuck in the chest. So, you hop on, and boom! There are now two Elder Baldurs coming for your hide. This may not work on everyone, but it sure as hell worked on me

“The game begins in Dirtmouth” Sad King’s pass noises

"would launch several youtube channels" mossbag: hehe that me

When I first played through Hollow Knight, I remember hearing about how popular Hornet was as a character. After fully completing the game, I was surprised by how rarely Hornet actually appears, and how little she says, and yet I, like everybody else, found her be an absolutely awesome character. I think the reason for this is due to how she heightens the main aspects of the game; improvement, exploration and combat. When you first see Hornet, she is standing on a ledge that a first time player can't reach. She is literally above you, as you, unlike her, cannot jump high enough to reach that ledge. As you explore the area, you see her traverse almost effortlessly, guiding you along as if she knows the area like the back of her hand. She is basically what the game wants you to become; somebody with thorough knowledge of the world, and has the skills to travel places easily.

"it took me 20 hours to get to the credits the first time" * glances at my save file at 50 hours not even a half way through.. * - this game is HAAAARRRD!

Pretty sure the "grave in ash" is in the kingdoms edge where the king's corpse is and you fight Hornet the second time, not the Resting Grounds.

40 minutes of Hollow Knight world design commentary? YESSSSSS

I've actually done the grind for the lumafly lantern at the beginning of the game before (was seeing just how much of the game I could access before getting the soul blast ability), and it turns out Crystal Peak is very carefully designed with this in mind; without mantis claws in particular, the areas you can access are extremely limited. Basically the only major thing you can do is grab the dream nail as your first ability, which is very neat. From the resting grounds you're forced to return to the crossroads via the stag station, which incidentally is the only one in the game you don't have to pay for, except for technically Dirtmouth and the Stag Nest which are both designed to be accessed via stag anyways.