Hollow Knight

Hollow Knight on PC is a hand-drawn 2D action-adventure and Metroidvania built around exploration, precision combat, platforming, and discovery. Steam and GOG still list the game under its original name; Voidheart Edition is associated with the console release branding rather than a PC rebrand. Team Cherry develops and publishes this single-player journey through the ruined insect kingdom of Hallownest.

Explore Hallownest on Your Own Terms

Hollow Knight drops the Knight into a vast interconnected world with only a loose sense of direction. There is no fixed mission route forcing you through every region in sequence. Instead, open-ended exploration leads you through forgotten highways, fungal caverns, overgrown wilds, ancient cities, royal waterways, and hostile wastes.

The map gradually becomes more readable as you meet Cornifer, purchase regional maps, and collect tools such as the quill, compass, and map pins. Even then, Hallownest expects you to remember blocked passages, suspicious walls, unreachable ledges, and strange mechanisms for later visits. This creates a strong ability-gated progression loop: every new movement power changes where you can go and how confidently you can navigate familiar areas.

That structure suits players who enjoy getting lost for a while. Progress may come from defeating a boss, finding a movement upgrade, discovering a shortcut, rescuing a captive, or simply noticing an environmental clue that points toward another route.

Precision Combat, Soul, and Charms

The Knight’s primary weapon is the Nail, and its basic moveset remains deliberately focused. You slash in four directions, jump over attacks, dash through danger, and use downward strikes to bounce off enemies or hazards. The combat is not built around large weapon inventories. Its depth comes from spacing, timing, enemy behavior, and learning when to attack rather than from button-heavy combos.

Successful strikes generate Soul, a resource that can restore health or power several spells. Healing is not automatically safe, so recovering health becomes a risk-reward decision during encounters. Finding a brief opening matters as much as dealing damage, especially when bosses fill the arena with projectiles, shockwaves, summons, or changing patterns.

Charms provide the main build system. These equippable relics consume a limited number of notches and can improve survivability, movement, spell use, Nail attacks, Soul generation, or exploration utility. Swapping charm combinations at benches encourages players to tailor their setup for a difficult boss, a platforming section, a long expedition, or a resource-focused journey.

Players who enjoy demanding 2D combat and interconnected worlds may also find a useful comparison in gothic Metroidvania action games such as The Last Faith, although Hollow Knight places more emphasis on hand-drawn atmosphere, navigation, and environmental storytelling.

Bosses, Quests, and Optional Mastery

Hallownest contains more than 130 enemies and around 30 major bosses according to the current PC storefront description. Encounters are designed around readable patterns rather than inflated health alone. Familiar enemies can still be dangerous in cramped spaces, while bosses often test movement, positioning, spell timing, and the ability to recognize safe attack windows.

The Hunter’s Journal gives combat a collection and observation layer. Defeating enemies and studying their behavior gradually turns the kingdom’s creatures into a catalog of threats. Optional challenges extend well beyond the central path, including dream encounters, difficult platforming sequences, arena trials, hidden bosses, multiple endings, and demanding late-game objectives.

Completion-focused players can pursue increasingly strict mastery goals rather than stopping at the first ending. Finishing the main adventure unlocks Steel Soul Mode, a high-stakes challenge that removes the normal tolerance for death. The result is a game that works both as an exploratory adventure and as a long-term test of route knowledge and mechanical consistency.

All Four Free Content Packs Are Included

The PC version is not divided into a basic campaign followed by mandatory paid gameplay expansions. Its major additions arrived as free content packs and are part of the current game experience. That content includes Hidden Dreams, The Grimm Troupe, Lifeblood, and Godmaster.

• Hidden Dreams adds optional boss encounters, Dream Gates, music, and a hidden Stag Station.
• The Grimm Troupe introduces a major quest, new boss fights, charms, enemies, characters, and a darker ritual storyline.
• Lifeblood brings a new boss, an upgraded encounter, balance changes, map markers, audio additions, and broader refinements.
• Godmaster adds new characters, quests, secrets, boss challenges, and a series of demanding battles focused on combat mastery.

Optional soundtrack products exist separately from the game itself, but the four gameplay content packs do not require a separate season pass or paid expansion purchase on PC.

Who Should Play Hollow Knight?

Hollow Knight is a strong fit for players who want solo exploration, atmospheric worldbuilding, difficult but learnable boss fights, and progression that rewards curiosity. Its story is intentionally indirect. Characters, environmental details, visual motifs, and discoveries in the Dream Nail gradually reveal what happened to Hallownest instead of presenting every answer through conventional exposition.

It is less suitable for players who need constant quest markers, a strictly linear campaign, frequent equipment upgrades, or relaxed combat. The game expects patience with backtracking and accepts that important areas, lore, bosses, and endings can be missed on a first journey.

If the appeal is more about fast repeated runs than one persistent kingdom, rogue-lite Metroidvania combat in games like Dead Cells offers a different structure built around procedural attempts and permanent unlocks rather than Hollow Knight’s handcrafted world.

PC Features, Controls, and Availability

Hollow Knight is available on PC through Steam and GOG, with Team Cherry listed as both developer and publisher. Steam provides the platform’s achievement ecosystem and lists full controller support alongside single-player functionality. GOG offers a DRM-free edition that can be installed and played without GOG Galaxy; Galaxy is optional for features such as cloud saves and achievement synchronization.

The official PC support information also documents a controller settings path for players who encounter detection or input conflicts. The game uses Unity’s newer input system on current PC builds while retaining an option to switch input behavior through advanced controller settings when a particular setup needs it.

Steam lists interface, subtitles, and full audio support in English, French, German, Spanish, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, and Traditional Chinese. Hollow Knight is a single-player game, with no official co-op, split-screen, competitive multiplayer, or online party mode.

Similar PC Games

For a more cinematic and movement-focused interpretation of the Metroidvania formula, hand-drawn platforming adventures such as Ori and the Will of the Wisps share Hollow Knight’s emphasis on traversal, ability upgrades, environmental hazards, and emotional worldbuilding.

Players drawn to Hollow Knight’s bleak fantasy, side-scrolling exploration, and demanding encounters can also look toward dark 2D action games such as Blasphemous. The overlap is strongest in nonlinear exploration, hostile environments, boss-focused progression, and gothic presentation, even though each game handles weapons, storytelling, and character growth differently.

Hollow Knight FAQ

Is Hollow Knight still called Hollow Knight on PC?

Yes. Steam and GOG list the PC game as Hollow Knight. Voidheart Edition is a separate branding label used for console editions that package the game with its four major free content packs.

Does the PC version include the major content packs?

Yes. Hidden Dreams, The Grimm Troupe, Lifeblood, and Godmaster are included as free gameplay updates on PC. There is no paid season pass required for this content.

Is Hollow Knight multiplayer or co-op on PC?

No. The official PC version is single-player and does not include co-op, split-screen, or online multiplayer modes.

Does Hollow Knight support controllers on PC?

Yes. Steam lists full controller support, and Team Cherry provides advanced controller settings for resolving certain detection or input-system conflicts.

Does Hollow Knight have a no-death mode?

Yes. Completing Hollow Knight unlocks Steel Soul Mode, which turns death into a far more consequential failure and is designed for experienced players seeking a stricter challenge.

How does progression work in Hollow Knight?

Progression combines permanent movement and combat abilities, Nail improvements, health and Soul upgrades, map tools, and Charms. The game’s central loop is exploration, finding a new route or power, returning to previously blocked areas, and mastering the enemies that guard deeper parts of Hallownest.