Explore Why Hollow Knight Rewards Patient and Curious Players

Three hours into Hollow Knight, I had no map of the Forgotten Crossroads, 600 Geo sitting on my shade somewhere below a broken bridge, and a page in my notebook that simply read "where am I." I nearly put the game down that night. I am glad I did not, because that confused third hour turned out to be the whole point.

Team Cherry released Hollow Knight in 2017. It is a 2D action exploration game set in Hallownest, a fallen kingdom of insects, and it asks more patience from players than almost anything else I have reviewed in the genre. This review is about why that patience pays off, and where it does not.

A map you have to earn

Most games hand you a map the moment you enter a new area. Hollow Knight does not. To get one, you first have to find Cornifer, a cartographer who hums while he sketches somewhere in each region, and buy his rough map. Then you need a Quill from the shop in Dirtmouth to update it, and the map only fills in when you sit at a bench.

On paper, that sounds like busywork. In practice, it changes how you move. In my second region, Greenpath, I spent about 25 minutes following the sound of Cornifer's humming through vines and spiked pits. When I found him, the map felt like something I had won rather than something given to me. Every room I added after that was mine.

The Wayward Compass charm, which shows your position on the map, costs a charm notch. Early on you have only three notches, so wearing it is a real sacrifice. I wore it for the first 10 hours and do not regret it.

Notes from my failed attempts

I keep a log of every boss attempt in games like this, mostly to stop myself from making the same mistake twice. A few lines from the Hollow Knight pages, copied as written:

1. Hornet, Greenpath: 7 attempts. Kept healing during her lunge. Stop focusing Soul when she crouches.
2. Mantis Lords: 14 attempts. The second phase with two lords felt impossible until I stopped attacking and only dodged for one full cycle.
3. Soul Master: 9 attempts. Lost 1,100 Geo on the way back up before I learned the shortcut.
4. Watcher Knights: 22 attempts. Notes get angry here. Skipped for two days, came back with a better nail, won on the third try.

What strikes me reading the list is how often the answer was not "get better reflexes." It was "watch first, then act." The Mantis Lords fight in particular taught me to spend whole attempts doing nothing but learning. That habit is the main skill Hollow Knight builds in players, and it carries into every action game after it.

Curiosity is the real upgrade

Hollow Knight has abilities that open new paths, like the Mothwing Cloak dash and the Mantis Claw wall jump. That part is standard for the genre. What is less standard is how much of the world is hidden behind walls that look solid, platforms just off screen, and rooms you only find by hitting the ceiling in the wrong place.

Several of my favorite moments came from simply going the wrong way. I found a mask shard, an extra point of health, by jumping into a pit I assumed was a death trap. I found an entire side area because I was annoyed at a spike corridor and decided to explore above it instead.

The lore works the same way. Very little is explained directly. You learn about the kingdom's fall from short conversations, inscriptions on tablets, and the descriptions of charms. Players who read everything slowly assemble a sad and surprisingly coherent story. Players who rush get a good action game and not much else. I am not sure either is wrong, but the first group gets more for the same price.

The case against "just look it up"

The common advice for Hollow Knight, repeated on almost every forum, is to keep a wiki open on a second screen. Find the next upgrade, check the boss pattern, save yourself hours. I understand why people say it. The game can be genuinely cruel about direction, and some players have limited time.

I think it is mostly bad advice for a first run, and here is my reasoning. The difficulty of finding your way is not a flaw sitting on top of the game. It is the game. When you look up where the Crystal Peak entrance is, you skip the hour of being lost that makes the moment of finding it matter. My notebook from my brother's run, which I watched him play with a guide open, has almost nothing in it. He finished faster. He also barely remembers it.

My compromise: set a rule. If you have been stuck on the same problem for more than 45 minutes of real play, look up only that problem, and close the tab after. In my own run I used that rule four times in about 40 hours. Each time, I was glad I had waited.

A friend made the same argument about Outer Wilds and its most curious players, and I think that game pushes the idea even further, since it has almost no combat to fall back on.

Where patience runs out

I would be lying if I said the game always earns its demands. The corpse run is the clearest example. When you die, your Geo stays with a shade at the spot of your death, and if you die again before reaching it, the money is gone. Losing 1,100 Geo to the Soul Sanctum climb was not a lesson. It was just a long walk with an annoying ending.

The late game also has a few areas where the platforming gets very demanding, especially the White Palace, which is optional but required for one of the endings. Some players will love it. My notes from those two evenings are short and not suitable for printing.

For a tougher platformer that handles failure more gently, there is a reason we keep recommending Celeste right after this one.

Who it is for

Players who like getting lost and finding their own way back. Anyone who enjoys learning a boss over 10 or 20 attempts and keeping track of what went wrong. Lore readers who are happy to piece a story together from fragments. People with time for long sessions, since a first playthrough often takes 30 to 45 hours.

Who should skip it

Players who get stressed by losing progress, because the Geo system will punish you. Anyone who needs a clear objective on screen at all times. If you only have 20 minutes a night, the distance between benches can make short sessions feel unproductive. And if you already know you will open a guide in the first hour, you might enjoy a more direct action game more, and that is fine.