How Hollow Knight (and All My Spectacular Deaths) Taught Me Resilience
When I first picked up the video game Hollow Knight, on the Nintendo switch back in 2019, I had no idea what I’d gotten myself into. Initially, what attracted me was the hand-drawn art. A tiny, pale figure with empty black ovals for eyes stands atop a rugged cliff edge. With a weapon in hand and his tattered cloak flowing behind him, he looks as if he’s about to leap off into the unknown. Which, with extreme naivety, is exactly what I did. Up until this point, most of my gaming experience had been on a bright pink Nintendo DS that I would play constantly as a child and, as I got older, a Nintendo Wii. I would either play Mario Kart, Tetris or cosy games like Animal Crossing, and the only platformers I took interest in were from the Super Mario universe. So when I came across Hollow Knight it didn’t even cross my mind that playing as this odd little fellow would be such a challenge.
“It’s a cartoon game” I told myself “it can’t be that hard.”
Which is the first and most obvious lesson I learned pretty early on in the game. Just because it’s animated, doesn’t mean it’s easy.I don’t remember how far I got on my first playthrough, but I had a rough time, eventually leading me to stop playing altogether. Yet, I couldn’t stop thinking about this incredible world that I’d spent hours in. So I did what any reasonable person would do and downloaded the game on my laptop and used a mod so I would be completely invincible and be able to explore and defeat bosses like it was nothing. Basically, I cheated. The problem was, the game felt boring when I could do pretty much anything I wanted without dying and I eventually lost interest. It wasn’t until I completed another platforming game twice, Ori and the Blind Forest, that prompted me to give Hollow Knight another shot.
With that in mind, let me take you into the game itself. Leaping off the cliff from King’s Pass, you find yourself in a little town - if you can call it that. Dirtmouth. A ghost town whose only inhabitant is a strange being named Elderbug. He instructs you to go down into the Forgotten Crossroads and explore Hallownest. He’d do it himself, but he’s too weary. You drop down into this strange place that’s crawling with bugs. They’re cute little things. Some of them even seem friendly as they squawk and fly towards you.The truth is, they’re anything but friends. Come into contact with them and you take damage, so therefore they must be slain. In fact, everything here is designed to kill you. Death is inevitable.
You will die. A lot. My first time fighting Hornet was a real struggle. She’s fast, agile, and shows no mercy. I remember spending weeks fighting her over and over again only to fail. When I finally beat her, I felt this incredible sense of achievement. The failure I experienced just propelled me to keep going, so much so it became addictive. To misquote Samuel Beckett, I died better. In fact, I learned to “die better” so much that I found myself choosing optional battles. Take the Mantis Lords. They’re probably one of my favourite bosses, yet I found them overwhelming at first. You’re fighting three swift, intelligent creatures with deadly attacks. Wouldn’t it be easier to just skip them? I was ready to throw in the towel after around five or six goes. Yet the Mantis Lords are one of the most rewarding bosses. As with all bosses, you have to learn their moves, focus on dodging their attacks whilst attacking them and generally be hyper-focused. But here’s the rewarding part. After defeating them, you gain their respect. Every single one bows to you as you make your way back through their home. You have proven yourself worthy in battle. It’s much easier said than done, but the struggle is worth it. I was at a low point mentally when I fought the Mantis Lords, so having that dopamine hit that I’d had to work for was something that made me feel better about myself. If I could get these animated bugs to bow to me, then maybe I wasn’t the awful person I thought I was.
The platforming side of Hollow Knight is something that really helped me overcome the anxiety and depression I was experiencing. Metroidvanias (a sub-genre of games that focus on interconnected worlds and non-linear progression) involve a lot of exploration, backtracking and getting lost. So when I wasn’t up for a boss fight, I could escape reality and soak up the atmosphere. And what an atmosphere it is. There’s so much attention to detail in this game, with each area having its own distinct character. Greenpath is, as the name suggests, full of lush greenery and plants (some of which might try and eat you), whilst places like Deepnest and The Abyss are absolutely terrifying. The Abyss feels particularly dark since it contains enemies known as Siblings - vessels that failed to contain a plague (known as the Infection) that spread through Hallownest. The Knight is a vessel that escaped the Abyss whilst his siblings were not so lucky. The Hollow Knight is the chosen vessel that is imprisoned in the Temple of the Black Egg to seal the Infection, and the final boss you go up against in one of the game's three endings. His shift from an enemy to a tragic figure halfway through the fight makes you realise you’re not going to get the heroic ending you were hoping for, even after all the work you put in to get there.
There is so much lore that I could easily write a whole book on it, which is what adds to the richness of the game. Even the NPCs (non-playable characters), have so much personality that you develop an emotional attachment to them. There’s Cornifer the cartographer, whose humming is always a sign he’s nearby and ready to sell you a map of the area. Iselda, his wife, is up in Dirtmouth selling various things to help you on your quest. Merchant Sly, who at first may appear only motivated by Geo (Hallownest’s currency), eventually realises you’re no ordinary traveller just passing through. The rage inducing Milibelle and the egotistical Zote the Mighty (who is anything but). Best of all are the Grubs, adorable little creatures that are dotted about the map and in need of rescuing. This is just a small fraction of the NPCs that you interact with, but they make the world of Hallownest all the more interesting.
Entering this intricate world and going up against formidable foes can seem daunting when the Knight is so small, and I often found myself wondering how I was ever going to finish the game. That was until I discovered the games studio behind Hollow Knight is only made up of three people: Ari Gibson, William Pellen and David Kazi. Plus I can’t leave out the games composer Christopher Larkin whose music I’ve had on repeat whilst writing this article. There’s something about Team Cherry and Hollow Knight absolutely wiping the floor with big league gaming companies like Nintendo and Activation Blizzard that's deliciously ironic. Everyone loves an underdog story, and Team Cherry is that underdog. Hollow Knight has sold over 15 million copies since its release in 2017. The sequel, Silksong, caused online game stores like Nintendo and PlayStation to crash upon its release date this September. Not bad for an indie game that took seven years to make.
It’s things like this that give me hope for the future of gaming, despite the bleak future the industry faces, with so many people being laid off and the presence of AI threatening to take their jobs, not to mention the extortionate prices for new games (Mario Kart World comes to mind) that mean fewer and fewer people can afford to play them. Silksong, by the way, only costs around £20, which is a huge bonus considering a lot of games are well over £40.
Team Cherry, much like the Knight, are small but mighty. As I play as the Knight - and now as Hornet in Silksong - no matter how difficult things get, I’ll keep coming back for the next adventure.
Written by Madeleine Atropa
