Hollow Knight is one of those games that doesn’t meet you halfway. It makes you work for everything. But if you push past the rough opening hours, what’s waiting on the other side is genuinely special.
The Quick Version
Few Metroidvanias nail the sense of discovery the way Hollow Knight does. The first playthrough scored a 6/10 in early analysis, mostly because the slow start and unforgiving difficulty are real barriers. After more time with it, that score moved up to an 8/10. The world of Hallownest has a depth and beauty that holds up across dozens of hours, and it almost never feels like padding.
What Makes It Great
The atmosphere is the first thing you notice and the last thing you forget. The hand-drawn art, the low-key lighting, and that melancholy soundtrack pull you in from the first underground chamber. It doesn’t feel like a game trying to look pretty. It just does.
Discovery is where Hollow Knight really earns its score. Stumbling onto a hidden biome or cracking open a secret passage feels genuinely rewarding, the kind of moment you actually want to tell someone about. The map of Hallownest is a masterclass in world design. Every zone has its own personality, its own history, and its own secrets worth finding.
Combat starts out feeling punishing but becomes precise and satisfying once it clicks. As you collect new charms and abilities, you can feel yourself getting better. That mechanical growth is rare in games, and Hollow Knight delivers it consistently.
Where It Struggles
The difficulty will stop some players cold. Certain spikes feel unfair, and the soul mechanic (die, and you have to go retrieve your lost currency from the spot where you died) adds a layer of frustration that not everyone will find fun. That’s a legitimate criticism, not just a “skill issue.”
The opening hours are also genuinely slow. It takes a while before the game opens up and starts rewarding your time. For players who need a hook early, this is a real problem.
Being lost is partly the point, but there are moments where the lack of direction crosses from “mystery” into “friction.” Players who prefer clearer objectives will hit this wall.
Bottom Line
Hollow Knight earned the bump from a 6 to an 8 because the atmosphere and sense of discovery are strong enough to outweigh the frustration for most players. It asks a lot from you. But what it gives back is a world that feels genuinely alive and a game you’ll think about long after you put it down.
If you don’t mind a slow build and some genuinely hard moments, it’s worth every bit of the challenge.
Hollow Knight scores 8/10 on immediate fun. A fascinating world that rewards exploration, though it suffers from a slow start if you leave it in your library too long.
Repetitive if lost. Slow start.
One question: did it deliver immediate fun? Graphics, story depth, difficulty and critical acclaim are ignored. Pick-up-and-play accessibility is rewarded; anything that makes you wait for the fun to start is penalized.
How we score: We don't care about graphics, story depth, or critical acclaim. One question — did it deliver immediate fun? We reward pick-up-and-play accessibility and penalize anything that makes you wait for the fun to start.