Hollow Knight is a solid contender for my favorite game, so good choice! I'm going to try to keep things spoiler-free as much as I can since a huge part of the experience is exploring and slowly unraveling things. Here's a list of (hopefully spoiler-free) tips that I think might help.

Not much will make sense at first.

Hollow Knight follows the Dark Souls school of lore: You don't get an exposition dump in the beginning giving you the whole background behind what's going on. It's perfectly fine to be confused about what you are doing and why. In fact, I'd say that's an intentional choice that winds up making a ton of sense after a certain point in the game.

Careful looking up info

Because of this fact and how long it's been out (as well as how popular it is), it's unfortunately very easy to spoil things. Be careful with that, and make sure to tag on "spoiler free" to any searches you do on the game.

It's difficult, but fair

You're likely going to die a lot, that's true. That being said, there aren't really any situations that I can think of where I had no way to avoid dying. The nice thing is, the game sort of sets itself up in a way that you (hopefully) learn different techniques over time, and the fact that it's a metroidvania means you get upgrades drip-fed to you, so you don't have a million things to try to learn at once. I'm not great at games nowadays, but I did still manage to beat the game. I never completed the boss rush stuff, but that's more because I've never been a huge fan of boss rushes in general.

It's methodical

You don't have a time limit during fights. Feel free to take your time learning an enemy's attacks; there are generally tells you can keep an eye out for so you can prepare to react appropriately. Don't be afraid to keep your distance as much as you can while in a fight.

Don't forget your Soul

Soul is the game's "magic" system, and it's a pretty big help in keeping you from dying. You recharge it a bit each time you hit an enemy, so as long as you're able to run in, hit an enemy, and get away without getting hit, you can recharge enough for another use. There are also generally minor enemies in each area that are relatively easy to deal with - these are basically prime candidates for recharging Soul if you're low.

Be sure to explore

There are going to be quite a few dead ends during your journey. These are usually places you just don't have the tools to deal with yet, so if it seems like you can't progress, try somewhere else and come back later! Another thing to keep in mind is you'll sometimes hear or see weird stuff on your journeys - it can be worth putting in some extra effort to see what the source is. Something that I would say is important for this is the map and quill you can buy in the shop in the first town. It updates when you sit down at a bench, so don't worry if it doesn't seem to "work" right away.

If you're having money troubles...

Grab the "Gathering Swarm" charm from the store in the first town, go sit on a bench, and equip it. It won't make your money problems disappear, but it'll help.

Enemy spawn mechanics

Enemies only respawn when you sit on a bench. Yes, that goes for the entire map. Yes, I have cleared a significant number of enemies across multiple zones without sitting on a bench and verified this (it was to help me finish a specific side quest). No, bosses will not respawn.

Hopefully this gives you a decent set of tips to get you started! I hope you enjoy your journey as much as I did when I played the first time!

there's a lot of bugs so watch out for those

There's been some great advice in this thread. In the future though here's a shout out for one of my favorite wikis out there, the before I play wiki .

It's great and has useful tips for all kinds of games. Good luck in Hollownest!

Man I envy you so much right now, just go blind. You may get lost a little bit but just enjoy the ride. I won't exaggerate but it may be the greatest game in human history :)

Don't look up walkthroughs until you're really stuck for a long time. Discovering stuff is a huge part of the game and part of the fun.

No, you can just go in blind and enjoy the journey.

If you find yourself in a fight that you keep dying to, you may try exploring other areas to make progression elsewhere before coming back and trying again.

I'd say go in dark, the exploration and discovery is the best part of the game.

You'll get lost and die a lot, maybe even take a break for a while then come back to it. But that's the best part

Getting lost is part of the experience.

I got lost on where to go countless times. The initial response of your brain is This is not fun. I braved through it and instead said I need to get lost less so I invested more time to getting maps and mark dead-ends or impassable places and it made the game one of the best games I've ever played.

I LOVE Hollow Knight. It’s one of those games I wish I could erase from my mind and play from scratch again. As someone relatively new to gaming (when I started playing), it was infuriatingly hard at times. But it definitely made me a better gamer – probably moreso than any other game I’ve played.

My advice would be to definitely pick it up and give it a try. Don’t be too intimidated. The music and art are gorgeous and it’s an absolute blast once you get into it! And if you get frustrated, take a break and come back a little while later. I had so many occasions when I immediately succeeded after a 30-45 minute break.

Also: I agree with what everyone says about not looking stuff up unless you have to. Spoilers make the exploration aspect way less fun and exploring is one of the best parts.

Oh man you're in for a treat! One suggestion: when you get to the late game, if you haven't and can, switch to a controller, late game can be difficult, much more so if you seek optional areas, those can be crazy hard and plain impossible on a keyboard.

And prepare for feels. It's surprising how invested you can become on a bunch of bugs.

If you're not playing hand-held, make sure your TV is set up to minimize input delay (usually called "game" mode or something like that). An extra few tens of milliseconds of lag can make a game like Hollow Knight unplayable :(

Die and retry... I made it to 98% but it goes to 112% I believe.

Also, it is gorgeous and the music is awesome and those 6 beetle things still haunt my dreams.

If you like it, make sure to try Ori and the Blind

Know that you can pogo (attack down on spikes, enemies and mushrooms) and get a little boost up. I didn't know this on my first playthrough which made navigating through the jumping platforms sooo much harder than it should.

You will die a lot 😅 but just take it easy. There are guides out there to help.

Hey! Have a lot of fun, this game is one of the ones that is difficult but totally worth it. A very nice and epic game to start on a Sunday morning.

Prepare to feel lost. Not in a bad way, hopefully, but let your curiousity lead the way. The lore is spread out, and there's a lot of backtracking obviously since it's a metroidvania. Don't forget to use the map either, it can give you hints where you might be able to go next.

Learn to use your pogo (jumping and slashing downwards) early and often, as you'll need it to get through bosses and obstacles later on.

It's hard. And punishing.

I was in the exact same boat you are now before I played. I almost never play platformers, and so even though I owned Hollow Knight, I always left it for some imaginary day when I felt up to it.

By complete coincidence though I also owned Steamworld Dig 2, due to loving Steamworld Heist by the same developer and wanting to see more of the world they’d created. Not feeling as intimidated by Steamworld Dig 2 because it didn’t have the same difficult reputation as Hollow Knight, I gave it a try.

It couldn’t have worked out better. Not only is it an amazing game in its own right, but the difficulty curve was absolutely perfect to prepare me for Hollow Knight. After finishing Steamworld 2 I was still craving more gameplay of that type, and was able to jump right into Hollow Knight and the difficulty just felt natural and achievable, since it was relatively close to the difficulty Steamworld 2 had ended on. The games are similar enough that my skills carried over, and I honestly think it helped me get the most out of Hollow Knight as a player who never played similar games prior.

That was my experience, and I’m always glad it worked out that way because now I love Hollow Knight and it’s one of my favourite games. So for anyone who has any doubts about their ability to play Hollow Knight due to their inexperience with the genre, playing Steamworld Dig 2 first may set you up perfectly to tackle Hollow Knight. It did for me, and I had a blast with both games.

I recommend diving in and seeing what you make of it. You should get to the first boss without too much trouble. You'll probably need a fair few goes before you beat it but at that point you can decide if you like the game or not.

Don’t expect to be able to reach a lot of areas for a long time (at least for me, I sucked).

I happened to start HK at the same time as a coworker. We would sync every few days about what we discovered recently. It wasn't a spoiler, it felt like I was back in the 90s talking with friends about game secrets before the internet spoiled it all. The game is just as much about the exploration as it is the challenge. Highly recommend if you have any friends who are also thinking of playing it.

Ah nice, I've also started the game recently. I'm around 18h in. Currently keep dying to the Mantis Lords.

• Metroidvania action adventure style game so be prepared to explore and backtrack quite a bit.
• It's tough at points. Keep on trying and you will persevere, but be prepared for some challenge along the way.
• Upgrades matter. I haven't played in a while but one specific part of the game at least was made immensely easier when equipping the proper skillset for the job.
• Have fun!