A Story Analysis of Hollow Knight

Hollow Knight is a remarkable achievement in both story and game design its narrative is incredibly interesting as it forces you to uncover the secrets of the world yourself while also having a large cast of characters that for the most part are delightful to talk to but it also has a couple issues regarding its method of Storytelling as some of its story is strangely not in the game but in other material and it has one DLC that almost ruins the original story that the game builds up we'll talk about all that in due time though as this video will not only explain the story of hollow Knight so you know what's going on in the hollownest but I'll also be critiquing it along the way I have a lot of things to say about this game so let's not waste any time and let's get started the game starts with a cutscene of a being locked inside some device an orange glow appears and seems to crack something before showing another scene but of our protagonist the night sadly we aren't given any information following this as we start playing immediately after the path we start on will take us to a town called dirtmouth with his only resident being the Elder bug who greets us upon our arrival from his dialogue it seems like we aren't the first people to arrive here and we certainly won't be the last he also assumes we only came here to visit the Eternal kingdom known as hollownest from there he tells us that the entrance to this underground kingdom is down the well right outside the town afterwards uh that's it that's all he says Hollow Knight makes it pretty clear right away that its story is pretty vague we technically don't have a quest or objective or even a motivation to be here hell we just found out what the Kingdom is called this might seem like a bit much as it's quite bold for the devs to just throw the player into the world and then refuse to give them a reason as to why they're even here but while the game refuses to elaborate on anything I'll say that at the very least there is a reason for the night being here specifically as their birth and Destiny are tied to this place but that's something we'll have to talk about later fortunately while the story is too shy to introduce itself just yet the gameplay is more than happy to make your acquaintance Helena is a metroidvania and is one of the few games on this channel I would recommend for purely the gameplay alone the story was really the cherry on top of all this as the gameplay is fantastic there is a lot to go over regarding the gameplay but basically you'll be exploring all the hallways dead ends and crevices of the hollowness you can uncover its Secrets this fits quite well regarding the story as presumably both the Knight and the player have no idea what they're doing here and by exploring this Kingdom they might just find the answer along the way I'll also get Geo the game's currency is as well as find some charms you could slot under not just to increase your power these range of things like extra damage and more Health to more situational things like having Geo come to you instead of just scattering all over the floor or shrinking your size when healing making it harder to hit you there are also a ton of items hidden throughout the map like Keys rancid eggs and upgrade materials some players even have the ability to Grant you spells or passive abilities like dashing or double jumping Plus in true metroidvania style whole areas Are Walled off until you get these items or even smaller sections of already accessible areas meaning you'll have to be backtracking constantly Hollow Knight will also try to challenge the player in numerous ways either giving them hard bosses or by adding platforming puzzles to it as well but even if this proves too easy for you upon completing the game you're given access to a steel Soul mode which is basically a permadeath challenge where you have to beat the whole game without failing as dying deletes your save like I said there was a lot to hollow Knight's gameplay but it is wonderful as not only do I think the charm system is what really brings us all together but there is a surprising amount of depth to the gameplay as well Hollow Knight's gameplay really was great to mess around with and experience which is quite important for a game like this given that the next five to eight hours or so with back-to-back combat encounters without much development in the story so it really needs to hook you in immediately and fortunately for the game it did right away earlier I talked about how the night's level design and how it's all connected requiring the player to backtrack throughout the levels this makes talking about the story difficult is there really isn't a proper place to start for example a game that we talked about before that is also getting a sequel in a couple weeks that I plan to talk about Blasphemous had a well-paced and structured story you were told by the first person you meet to find the three humiliations originally you were locked off to the first half of the map but once you found those three humiliations the second half would be open to you until you reach the end Hollow Knight doesn't really do this as a large portion of the game is just spent finding the actual objective and then doing it and then once that's complete you're on to the final boss it's a bit of an odd way to structure a story and definitely makes my job harder as I prefer to organize things a bit but fortunately a part of hollow Knight's story that isn't explained is the exploration itself walking around hollownest meeting with NPCs exploring new locations all of it is the story as exploring the kingdom will eventually lead you to some interesting locations that further develop the actual story and the ending Hollow Knight is both a story about hollownest and the knight's journey and uncovering what happened in Hollow and I really like this take on the storytelling as being thrust into an unknown land without explanation forces the player to seek out answers to their own questions the game never says in the beginning that hollowness fell to ruin and is a shell of its former self you ask the questions then you find the answer why is hollowness filled with different kinds of bugs why are some locations built differently than others where did it all go wrong just like the gameplay Hollow knight story allows the player enough for him to express themselves most of the time you get in what you put out if you want to learn about hollowness then you'll find the answers to your questions but if you don't want to engage with its world then you won't get anything out of it this not only satisfies the kinds of players who enjoy games for the gameplay as they don't need to be forced into a story they don't care about but dare I say it it kind of brought me back to Dark Souls 1. exploring Dark Souls 1 for the first time and simultaneously figuring out my own purpose in this world while also figuring out how it all came to be is one of the best experiences I've ever had playing a game before and Hollow Knight sort of encapsulates that feeling I honestly never thought I would say that before but it's true learning about hollownest in his residence while trying to understand the knight's role in all this was exactly how I felt when I stepped into lordram for the first time and I'm genuinely impressed sadly as I said before though there really isn't a definitive objective in this game as the objective for now is to find that objective thankfully the game is willing to feed us a breadcrumb trail of mystery until we get there as while exploring the hollowness you'll come across quite a few peculiar things the first is this black egg Temple located in the Forgotten Crossroads its design is similar to the one in the intro so clearly this place might house that orange glow we saw earlier sadly we can't open it though as there seems to be a lock on it so we'll have to come back once we find the keys during our travels we'll also made a few NPCs like Elder bug zote Hornet and the hunter while they're all great in their own way it's their designs I'm more interested in hollownest is filled with all kinds of insects and bugs from mantises to jellyfish to bees yet among them are a few bugs that look like our Knight at the time it could be assumed that the Knight is one of a kind or is from somewhere else but there are quite a few bugs that have similar head shapes Zodi is the best example of this as he looks identical to the Knight minus the face Hornet is less so but she like the Knight has a white mask of sorts and this kind of design is only seen on a few creatures this gives the player the impression that the Knight might have originated here although at the moment it's just speculation the hunter on the other hand doesn't look anything like the aforementioned NPCs but he serves another purpose as upon meeting him he'll give the player a journal this journal is basically a bestiary of all the enemies we come across on our journey but after killing a certain amount new tech starts to appear which may give some answers as to what these bugs are admittedly it's not all helpful as most of it seems to be written from the perspective of the hunter himself who always takes the chance to insult the beings we kill but sometimes his words can be useful talking to NPCs reading the Hunter's journal and discovering these Stone writings I call Lore tablets are the core pillars that make up Hollow Knight source of information and thanks to these we're able to learn quite a bit about the bugs here the first group of individuals you'll come across are the husks these are your standard enemy but they do come in a variety of shapes and sizes this group is seen in places like the Forgotten Crossroads the crystal peak in the city of Tears judging for the locations we find them in we could assume that the city of Tears is a place for the wealthy and the Forgotten crossovers is more for the poor and middle class while the crystal Peak sort of acts as a source of power for the kingdom the crystals located here have a faint amount of soul in them which are a part of the life essence of all bugs in hollowness so they're quite valuable to the kingdom as for the other settlements though many of the husks within the city of tears are extremely wealthy due to them being ordained in beautiful clothing and jewelry along with the fact that they drop more Geo when killed some of the residents seem to even be trying to capitalize on the downfall of the Kingdom by making a quick buck as this sweet grandma named miliba will hold their Geo for you in her bank but after enough time we'll run off with it that is until you confront her and get it back the city of Tears also got its name thanks to it being built Under the Blue Lake which is where the rain comes from funny enough I never found it odd or even bothered to wonder why it rained here even though the entire kingdom is underground although given that this place has jellyfish fungal mushrooms acid water and a literal pool of Darkness I guess the thought never crossed my mind regardless not much else is mentioned about these places but there are a few signs pointing towards the city of Tears like it's some kind of pilgrimage and seeing as this place is considered the heart of the Kingdom it's no wonder many people revered it and thus took great strides to get here but that pilgrimage may have been an unattended death trap for many as located at the top of the city is the soul sanctum and various lore descriptions point to the scholars here using the citizens of the city in various experiments they seemed to have been a normal group of Scholars looking to harness the powers of the mind but after an infection swept through the kingdom they attempted to stop it using the power of Soul Souls I said is considered the life force of all life and hollowness so in order to gain more Soul the scholars took to the streets and kidnapped or outright killed many of its residents and then dumped the bodies at the bottom of the sanctum to make matters worse not only did many of their experiments fail as these blob-like beings are the results of their failed tests but it didn't seem to produce any worthwhile results anyway as no information can be gleaned from their testing and none of the scholars are alive to tell us what they uncover hurt it's a pretty gruesome story to say the least but it's one of the stronger ones than Hollow Knight as it provides a wealth of knowledge on the city and its inhabitants in addition to the added entry that comes from a place such as this fortunately this Intrigue also carries over into the next area called The Green Path which is run by the moskin tribe what might surprise you about them though is that the Moss can aren't too interested in the Kingdom's ruler or their people colonists was created by The Pale King who rules over its land along with his Queen the white lady but not all the groups live in harmony the Moss can don't hate The Pale King and his people but they don't really care for them either they seem to just merely tolerate them as they allowed people to come into their land and even build roads on them but warn them not to stray too far off the paths they built to many of the bugs in hollowness The Pale King can be seen as a God in fact this is true in more ways than one as he's with the game calls a higher being The Pale King came here from a distant land and decided to create a kingdom for his eventual subjects to live in according to various lore tablets he was also able to Grant the bug sapiens allowing them to think instead of act on Instinct not all the bugs have this as some of the enemies in this game are sort of like animals in the real world but most the bugs were granted this power by The Pale King that's why the creatures of this Kingdom can even talk in the first place this power also only seems to extend too hollowness as a few more or lore tablets in the outskirts of the Kingdom warn us that leaving its grounds will basically make us lose the powers we were given that's kind of why I like the intro of the game despite it not giving us a reason to do anything because the Knight likely lost their memory of hollownest or at least doesn't have any cognitive thought until approaching its Gates we don't know what hollownest is or what we're doing here because the Knight doesn't even know either the both of us are just kind of going with the flow at this point and while I was skeptical at first I started to appreciate why the dev team was so secretive at the start back to the moskin they knew of the pale King's existence but unlike other bugs didn't worship him as they worshiped something called un un is another higher being in the game one of which the mosque Kim believes created them and their land we do actually get to meet this on though but the conversation is well quite hard to call a conversation great talk on thanks your people are definitely not in desperate need of your arrival or anything but uh thanks for the charm yeah un isn't very talkative and also seems to not be responding to her people's call as a lot of the dialogue implies that she's not answering them this actually seems to have led some of the mosque in to turn their backs on on and worship something they call the light this might not mean much now but it's kind of interesting to see how early the foreshadowing started here near the Green Path is our next location the Queen's Garden which not only houses the mosque in but also the Mantis tribe they're a bit hard to pin down at first as they also have their own village in the fungal waste and that's because the group was split due to an altercation the mantises we find in the Queen's Garden are called the traitors this is because of that infection I briefly mentioned earlier it somehow managed to find its way into the Mantis Village but fortunately for them they're able to resist its effects unlike the rest of the Kingdom unfortunately though not everyone was too keen on just letting this thing exist without at least looking into it and after some time members of the tribe began to embrace this infection this led to a dispute between some of the higher up members of the tribe which resulted in those that embrace the infection being forced to leave the village the one thing they both agree on though is that they don't care about The Pale King either whereas the mosque King tolerated their new neighbors the mantises refused to join up with them at most they entered a truce with The Pale King that said that they wouldn't be involved in their way of life but would keep the Deep nest and its monsters away from the rest of the Kingdom the reason why is the Deep Nest houses quite a few other species that also aren't too keen on visitors either the Deep Nest is home to the current species the spider tribe and a long forgotten group called The Weavers we don't know too much about the waivers as they left the Deep Nest some time ago thanks to that aforementioned infection sweeped in the land this place also seems to be quite primitive even though one of its inhabitants claimed that this place is the home to the most intelligent species in the world although that's likely just bias on her end this seems to be a bit of a recurring theme here but another group of individuals that also rejected the pale King's rule are the bees of the hive they went as far as wand themselves off on the rest of the kingdom is the only way to access their hive is through secret breakable walls thanks to their seclusion though we aren't able to learn much about them but we do know that their Queen grew so large she was unable to leave the hive ultimately ending in her death which is why the hive is in such disarray When we arrive this pretty much covers the main tribes and locations of hollownest but we haven't even scratched the surface yet there are both whole tribes and important members of the previous tribes that I intentionally left out thanks to them being more important to the main story entire areas I left out for the same reasons and some other things just due to the lack of importance like the flukes and the mushrooms but even without them we've already learned so much about this place every inch of this kingdom is filled with storage for the player to uncover and it's what makes Hollow Knight such a fascinating game to play is they're essentially collecting puzzle pieces that will eventually create the puzzle that is hollow Knight plus given the genre of this game most of this info will be fed you throughout the playthrough so you might not be able to learn everything about a single location or tribe in one visit it's this constant cycle of finding information and being interested enough in what you found to go look for more and it's these moments where Hollow Knight is at its best like I said and most of the time what you put in is what you get out and Hollow Knight's biggest strength is giving the player a wealth of information to find should they choose to I say most of the time though is not everything is in answered and that's one of the sore spots of this game I don't have an issue with the game not telling you things it's where that information comes from alongside Hollow Knight were a few pieces of external media that being an official manual a prequel comic and something called The Wanderers Journal quite a bit of this game's story can be found here and only here a great example would be the hive everything I mentioned about the hive was not found in the game at the time I'd gone through the whole Hive and came out with nothing which was bizarre given every other location was the complete opposite so I looked it up just to make sure I didn't miss a secret room or anything only to discover that I was destined not to find this information had I not looked it up the only dialogue of note and the hive comes from the ghost of Queen Vespa herself all she says is a thank you for setting her night free from the torment of the infection and that the hive plays no part in hollowness perpetuation however we know that there is more to this but that's because it comes from the other sources the official manual says that the hive was a tribe that walled themselves off from The Pale King it also states that Queen Vespa grew too big and died because of it to make things even worse we learned that the reason that the hive is in such disarray is because the infection was able to overpower the Beast thanks to their Queen dying but we only know of that information thanks to an ask me anything Reddit thread now I've played games before that answer questions in things like books and movies but a Reddit thread is definitely a new one for me none of this information is in the game as the only dialogue in the area comes from the queen and the Hunter's Journal also provides no further Insight either even the one thing that could have been interesting which is the fact that the bees also have bee hives with husks in them is used as a way to make a joke as the Hunter's Journal says quote did the husk squeeze in the hive or did the bees build their nests around them either way they seem pretty happy together this is a group that walled off its borders from everyone else yet has husks from hollownest in their domain and it's not brought up at all look I can see how some people might find this interesting as in a way it's sort of like its own scavenger hunt to find all this external info but you have to understand that that last piece of info would not have been known had it not been for the person who asked that question and for one of the devs who responded had the team simply decided that they were in the to answer more questions or even do the thread at all this would not have been known and realistically is the hive important to the story of hollow Knights not really which is an issue in and of itself as is probably the least developed and interesting location in the whole game but I feel like adding in basic information should have been a top priority here I have no issue with the game refusing to answer certain things about its world but not including something as basic as why the place exists or how it came to be the way that it is in the present day is bizarre as almost ever the location doesn't do this and gladly provides you with enough information to either tell you what happened or at least give you hints as to what could have happened regardless that's probably my biggest issue regarding Hollow Knight's storytelling as yes while Hal and I can be a hard game to piece together it's quite annoying to actually put in the work to learn about this game without knowing that you won't ever find certain info thanks to the tune deciding that a book or Journal was a better place for it to be even though most players likely didn't buy this or even know that it exists in the first place within the many locations of hollowness there also dozens of residents at the night can talk and interact with the NPCs of hollow Knight are another core part of the exploration as you're able to learn quite a few things about the Kingdom from them while also occasionally embarking on quests with them as well that said they are an 80 20 split ranging from Fantastic to borderline pointless a great example of the latter would be emilisha you'll find her lounging around the upper parts of the city of tears and from talking with her we could see that she's laughing at the current state of the city as the same people who cast her out of hollowness high society are now the Mindless Huss wandering around aimlessly outside of this one detail though she's completely useless returning to her doesn't add anything and even when you come back with specific items like the Delica flower or the king's brand she only makes a quick remark and that's all she also doesn't provide anything for the purposes of gameplay except the fact that her room can be used as a quick shortcut to the Royal waterways but I never found much use for it another example would also be Willow This Tall creature relaxing in the Queen's station all of her dialogue centers around her eating the food here and even now she wants to eat the night but knows that they won't let her Willow is arguably worse though as unlike a militia you can't come back to get new dialogue you can listen to everything she says the moment you meet her as having specific Quest items won't give you more dialogue furthermore she also doesn't provide any services that will assist with gameplay unless you count the one sellable item hidden above her on the complete other side of the Spectrum in terms of quality though we have someone like zote you find him in the Forgotten Crossroads being eaten by avengefly King once you kill the Beast instead of zote thanking you he scold you for taking his kill Zod immediately comes off as an and this continues throughout his entire questline he'll end up getting caught again in the Deep nest and not only does he not remember you but he also talks about his recent exploits such as killing a flying Beast meaning in addition to getting mad at us for saving him he also takes credit for the kill this all comes to a head at the Coliseum of fools a fighting arena within hollownest for the final boss of the first trial is zote and not only is he incredibly easy he can't even damage you not even contact damage something the literal weakest enemies in the game can do doesn't even affect you it's a therapeutic experience as you could finally take your anger out on him for the number of times he's berated you but somehow zote schemes know no bounds as if you defeat him in the Coliseum but also save another bug called Bretta and the fungal waste she falls in love with zote instead of you as he Regals her about his recent killings by holding the helmet of an enemy we defeated Bretta is head over heels for the night that she sees them as her knight in shining armor and even writes a few poems about us but now all her attention is on zote if you're really annoyed with him at this point you can fight his dream version called gray prinzot which after enough time will cause her to lose interest in him but it's an amazing questline regardless now obviously the reason for this Stark difference in quality is the fact that zote has an actual questline that the player can complete unlike a militia or Willow but that doesn't automatically make him a fantastic NPC as some characters have quest lines but are also not interesting to me while others have none but were some of my favorite bugs to talk to tiso is a great example of an NPC with a quest line that still managed to lose my interest as they're basically a poor man zote tiso arrives in Dartmouth at one point and talks about wanting to fight people they'll also appear near the Blue Lake and on a bench near a stag station and constantly remark how pitiful or boring these things are eventually tiso will find their way to the Coliseum but unlike Zod you can actually find their corpse falling from the Coliseum like the dozens of others before him we never actually get to see tiso fight and the one time we actually could fight him which is in a future DLC they pull a fake out and have him be crushed by the actual boss of the pantheon admittedly that last part did get a chuckle out of me batizo's Quest is confusing as he has two reasons for existing at least that I can think of but neither of them LED anywhere interesting to me if tiso was meant to be a warrior that is in over his head and despite talking up a big game is actually really weak then they really are a discount zote but if in a roundabout way he's used to convey how dangerous the Coliseum is as someone has experienced as tiso couldn't even survive then that doesn't work either as we don't know how strong tiso actually is we never see him fight throughout the entirety of the game or even see the remnants of a fight they just talk about fighting and then die at least with zote we could see how incompetent he was from the two times we see him which makes his fight even better as while the player likely knew he was weak they probably didn't know he was that bad on the other side of the coin though there are quite a few NPCs I grew to like due to their personality or the relation to other characters yet didn't have any quest lines at all two of which I want to specifically highlight are cornifer and Mila they are probably the two most likable NPCs in the whole game both of them don't have a questline but talking with them always felt nice Myla is just a bug who mines away in the crystal Peak right away she comes off as extremely likable as she's pleased to make your acquaintance and is very happy to see you again if if you return to her most of her dialogue is also lines from a song she slowly starts to remember over the course of the game until the infection returns and overcomes her forcing the player to flee or to put her down I didn't visit Mila matcha my playthrough but anytime I came to the crystal Peak I always made sure to say hi even if it was repeated dialogue As I Grew to like her delightful personality similar to Mila kronifer is also extremely friendly right from the start as you and him both have a common obsession with exploring unknown lands you don't meet corner for much outside of these occasional talks with him but it was nice to know that someone else was going through these areas with me and meeting with him to talk about our adventures was always nice to hear eventually once you buy all of his Maps cornerful will return to his wife is sell this house and sleep for the remainder of the game she's also a good example of a character that's likable due to their relationship with another NPC I liked cornivers so clearly I'm going to like his wife and while she didn't add much to the conversation you do learn that she used to be a fighter until she settled down with him a few years ago she also plans on asking if she can come with him on their next adventure as his tales about the hollowness got her interested to see what her husband's been up to once again it doesn't take a whole lot for me to enjoy the company of a character and Myla and cornifer are great examples of that as their personalities were infectious enough for me to care about them from the moment I met them as I mentioned earlier Hollow Knight's NPCs can be a mixed bag but overall there is a lovely cast of characters that I'll attempt to add something to the game even if it's small even though some of them weren't too interesting by the end I was at least curious to see how they would develop once I met them plus all this ties back into the game's core idea of exploration as you'll never know what you'll find around Each corner many of the NPCs carry with them this sense of mystery as you wonder where things will go next and this even extends to the ones we didn't mention like how the nail Masters are all brothers who trained under nail Sage Sly but they all separated as two of the brothers have a strenuous relationship possibly due to something in their past or the nail Smith the one who upgrades our gear who ends up asking us to kill him as they've completed their life's work but will end up living with one of the nail Masters if we choose to spare them then there's cloth who's on the search for stronger foes but ends up dying at the end of their questline which is sad Until you realize that it seems like they wanted this to happen as they were trying to meet with someone called NOLA who seemed to have died long ago even as someone as irrelevant as the grub father carries a mystery with them as all his children have been presumably taken by this being known as The Collector who who is also another topic of mystery as they seem to be related to The King's mold guards that guard the pale King's Chambers as a mold of its body is found in one of the rooms but the collector seems to want to save them either because they have a fascination with these creatures or maybe they don't want them to die because if you rescue all the grubs we find out that the grub father ate them all but even that is mysterious because the grope fly elegy charm could be what the grubfother is going to turn into or maybe the grubfather is like the Gru's mother boss fight and is being used as some kind of cocoon in order to evolve his children not everything will lead to an answer but not only is this part of the game's charm as most of the time there's enough info given to at least speculate on what could happen but the tribe's tablets enemies NPCs and locations are all things you can find and no matter how small they are each will create some kind of new and exciting experience for you to enjoy while hollownest has its fair share of history for us to learn much of which we've already talked about something that's been quite consistent among most of its history has been the mentioning of a widespread infection this infection is why hollowness is in the shape that it's in something you may have thought about while exploring the kingdom is why everyone's trying to kill us are they simply protecting their people are we some kind of killer to these people are their minds overcome with an infection that regressed them back to their old thoughtless States before the pale King's arrival did I just spoil the entire plot well that's what we're going to find out as well the game never tells you to search for clues about the infection there are enough things that showcase or talk about it that it's hard to ignore the real beginning of the story starts with our meeting with Hornet we first see her in the Green Path as she moves out of our view right when we get close when we finally catch up to her we see that she's killed another bug that looks similar to us this event forces us to question what's going on here and while not technically true my first thought was that Hornet was tracking us down and killing our people and this was basically all but confirmed the moment she started to fight me after our talk I started to question Hornet and her role in the story though as the next time we meet her is at the city of Tears in the town statue as we approach Hornet will come to greet us but unlike last time she's just here to talk which is followed up by her saying that if we want to know the truth we should keep searching and if by then we still want to continue the plan then we must seek out the grave in Ash and find the mark buried there it's about as vague as you could possibly get but at least we know we're on the right track much of her dialogue about the past of this Kingdom though has to do with the Statue right next to us it's a memorial for the John Hollow Knight who is apparently located in a Black Vault above the city and who made the ultimate sacrifice to save hollownest next to them are three beings who look eerily similar to the three beings we see after we defeat Hornet their masks also look like the masks on the black egg we saw earlier which confirms that not only are these B beings the key but that the hollow Knight is inside that Temple at the moment the player has no idea what any of this means but to spoil it ahead of time the pill king and the white lady use the hollow Knight as a vessel to seal the infection originally The Pale King likely figured his five great Knights could handle it but it seems like they too have succumbed to its effects the five grid Knights of hollowness were named hegemold Draya zamir isma and ogram dry and ismar both dead due to various circumstances dry because she was defending the white lady from the Mantis traders who sought to kill her and isma is attached to the wall via these plants but it's unclear if that's what killed her or not zamir and ogram are the only two that are confirmed to be alive as they're the gray mourner and dung Defender respectively zamir seems to be extremely depressed over the loss of her lover who is oddly enough the traitor Lord's child and ogram seems to have gone manic due to his fascination with dung although it's possible he was always like this hegemold is the oddest of the five though as his status is up in the air as his armor was taken by a maggot when he was sleeping who we know is the false Knight it's unclear whether this being killed hegemold while he slept or just took his arm armor but at the moment hegemold is possibly defenseless and wandering around the hollowness looking for his armor either way not even the great Knights of hollowness could defeat this being as ogram himself says that it's hard to kill something that has no form so The Pale King had to take drastic measures by using the hollow Knight as a vessel he would then take this being inside the black egg Temple and then use these three people called dreamers as lox in order to prevent it from opening our main objective is eventually going to be to find these dreamers and then defeat them so we can get inside the egg but we don't even know where to start yet thankfully there is a shrine that can give us the locations unfortunately we also get sent into the dream Room by The Dreamers themselves just like its name implies this is a realm conjured up by dreams this is due to the being who's helping us Escape called Seer they're the last member of the moth tribe who were able to manipulate dreams they like some of the other tribes used to worship their own higher being called the radiance as according to them they were born of its light over time though the tribe had forsaken its God in favor of The Pale King once he arrived the king then gave them the job of watching over the dead due to their Affinity with the dream realm that's how Seer was able to help us shape and why they're located here in the resting grounds which is a place within hollowness where the dead would be buried and loved ones would come to perform rituals and say prayers Seer feels guilty for this though and wants to atone for their ancestors mistakes of not worshiping their true creator by helping us out that may sound a bit odd given that we have no connection to the radiance but you'd be surprised how connected the Knight and their God are you might even say it's the only reason the Knight exists I'll get to all that later as for now sear gives us a dream now which allows us to appear into the minds of those in hollowness and read their thoughts this serves as both a story and gameplay device as gameplay wise it'll allow us to not only challenge new bosses called The Warrior dreams but also let us fight stronger versions of older bosses like the false Knight who is now called the failed Champion it's not every boss in the game but it gives the player more content to mess around with as for the warrior dreams these are all important people within hollowness history and while none of them really add anything to the main story they're a nice way of adding World building to the game for example Elder who was a monk who came to the Mantis Village in order to cure those afflicted by the infection but end up being killed by the Mantis tribe is he had unknowingly been affected himself there's also no wise who ripped her in her people's eyes out in an attempt to stop the visions and Nightmares they were having thanks to the infection now not every Warrior dream is as compelling as these as Galion for example just wanted to prove his Worth to The Pale King as he was one of the strongest knights around so he ventured into the deepness looking for battle only to die shortly after arriving but still there were not only fun fights but they added to the World building and exploration of hollow Knight by giving the player even more things to uncover in this vast Kingdom circling back to the dream nail though while those aforementioned details are more centered around the gameplay story-wise it allows us to peer into the minds of NPCs and bosses adding yet another item to our arsenal of Story tools as next to lore tablets MBC dialogue in the Hunter's Journal now sits the dream now I will say while this game can be a bit overwhelming at times when it comes to how much content there is to uncover and how much reading is you need to actually lay out a proper timeline of events it's only worth the effort but the variety of tools we have allows for more creative options instead of having an MPC info dump information to us the team can instead turn it into dream nail dialogue this gives us more pieces to the puzzle in addition to making us question why they didn't say that to us such as the mask maker who wonders if the Knight knows about the face that hides beneath theirs why didn't he say that to the Knight is the mask maker hiding something or does he want them to find out for themselves it's honestly a really genius mechanic thanks to adding even more depth to the story than there immediately already was returning back to the story thanks this year giving us the dream now we can now use this on the other beings we call the dreamers in order to defeat them at the moment we don't know that the dream node will be used in this way as the game never tells us but it's something you'll find out very quickly as none of the dreamers are actually alive the three dreamers are named manamana Lorien and Hera and each one is located in a different part of hollownest and has their own stories for us to uncover however due to the freedom and flexibility of power Knight's gameplay you could challenge them in any order you wish so we'll just go in the order that I took them on which means manaman is up first within the fog Canyon is a large building called the teachers archives just outside its store is a being named Coral this is an MPC you'll likely meet throughout your journey who like the night has come here for an unknown reason most of his talks are about the areas in which you find him in like questioning where the rain comes from in the city of Tears or mentioning how it's said to see that the miners of the crystal Peak are still mining away at the walls despite being overcome by the infection Within These talks though mainly thanks to the dream now we can tell that Coral has been tasked with something and has come here for a reason and after enough exploring his quest has led him here he claims that this building feels familiar to him in fact quite a few things about the hollowness feel familiar to him as he seems to remember the nail Smith but can't figure out why and then goes on to talk about the crystals within the peak which is Then followed up by him saying such strange ancient facts I wonder where my knowledge comes from the reason he's having these thoughts is because he's lived here before furthermore he knows manaman all too well as he's her Apprentice monoman seems to be a teacher and researcher within hollownest as her quarters are filled with test tubes and lab notes it's unclear why her lab is here of all places but it is quite a ways away from the other tribes and it's also possible that the jellyfish here are what she was studying at the time before becoming a dreamer she was also likely chosen for this role due to her immense knowledge of the hollownest seeing as she's quite the intellect it's no wonder she had put in place numerous fail-saves to make sure her plan succeeded as defending her is umu a giant sentient jellyfish whose whole purpose is to defend the archive with her other protector being quarrel himself as the mask he wears as a hat has the same design as hers she seems to have called the coral back to the hollowness in order to set her free as Coral not only lets us defeat her but also helps us fight umu so clearly we have the same goal this also means that setting them free seems to be the right plan at least at the moment the dreamers were obviously tasked with Sue in the hollow Knight but killing them would in theory set it free but manaman seems to think this is the right idea and her dream nail dialogue corroborates this as she wants the seals of the temple to break so we end up following along and going into the dream realm to defeat monomon thankfully it's not another boss fight as all that's required of us is to hit her and then absorb her Essence into US returning to the real world sees Coral sitting by the tank that used to house his teacher he said and by her passing but knows that that's what she wanted he'll then disappear from the archives never to be seen again unless you manage to find her way to the Blue Lake in which you'll find him sitting alone by the shore earlier in your journey Coral mentioned how he wanted to see where the rain came from in the city of tears and he seems to have found it you can join coral and relaxer for as long as you want but leaving in return will see him disappear once again with the sword stuck on the ground implying that he's completed his journey and moved on where he plans to go next is unclear and will likely never be known but similar to my thoughts on corniver it was always nice to catch up with quarrel every now and then and be able to listen to his thoughts on the hollownest he's a very likable character easily one of my favorites in the game and being able to fight together even if it was only once was a great way to end his questline after manamon is lower Again The Watcher they're located at the top of the city of Tears in a building they called the Watcher's Spire given the location of their room it seems like Lurgan was someone within hollowness High Society possibly one of the more popular ones given that they have a tower all to themselves unlike manoman Lurgan didn't seem to have some kind of grand plan as they just decided to do this out of the kindness of their heart as he cared about hollownest and its City blocking us from reaching him though are the Watcher Knights a large army of knights who were tasked with guarding lerium with their lives oddly enough all of them are dead by the time we arrive so it seems like they never left the room and then slowly died over time meaning they just left his quarters wide open for us to get to however I guess they did succeed in defending lurian until their dying breath so mission accomplished I guess sadly it's not going to be as simple as that though as something comes from the ceiling and reanimates the Knights to fight again judging from its orange color scheme it seems to be connected to the infection but it's never explained after their defeat we could finally meet with Lorien and just like manaman go into the dream room and absorb their Essence I know that was a bit fast and I was surprised too as the other dreamers had at least something timed them back to the world but lorgan really just seems to be a person in the city who wanted to do some good our final dreamer is Hera the Beast she's located deep in the Deep Nest as she at the time was the leader of her people as We Know the Deep Nest belongs to the Weavers in the spider tribe but we also know that most of the Kingdom didn't like them and the mantises under the order of The Pale King we're tasked with keeping them away from the rest of the Kingdom this just shows how desperate the King was to stop the infection as he went to the one tribe that hated him the most in order to work something out after lots of negotiating hair eventually agreed to become a dreamer but only if the pilgrim agreed to have a child with her and from numerous pieces of dialogue and thanks to her literally appearing shortly after killing hero we learned that this child was Hornet it's never explicitly stated why Hera wanted a child but given that her partner died at some point prior it's possible that she just wanted one it's quote unfortunate though that she didn't get much time if any to spend with hornik given that hero was then sent into the dream shortly after but like lorian she wanted to make sure the world was a better place not just for her people but for her eventual child this funny enough also means that Hornet is old as as well we don't know how long it's been since the hollow Knight was sealed we could assume it was a very long time ago also speaking of funny ages the other bug despite being called that is probably one of the young longest bugs in the game as he remarks how he's never seen the Stag stations before as they were closed before he arrived but they closed once the infection started spreading so he's actually quite young in comparison to the others of the hollowness and even younger than the Knight given their origin to get to her though we have to do a bit more work than before the core of the deep Nest is a giant open room filled with spider webs one of the rooms has numerous corpses being strung up or tied together which connects to the room right next door is these villagers encourage us to sit down only to tie us up once we do I don't recall the game ever mentioning anything about these beings outside of this one interaction but it's possible that they're the spiders of the deep Nest using a disguise within the deepness the player may come across another Knight wandering around if you manage to follow them all the way through their nest you'll be trapped and attacked by NOS who has disguised itself as the knight in order to lure us into their lair it's possible that these villagers are also just disguises used to lure other bugs into the deep Nest which explains why we find so many carcasses in the other room additionally we could find the bodies of the villagers after we escape their trap and they're laid out in a manner that implies that it's a costume or cloak of some kind instead of an actual body now that we're trapped though we need to break free and by doing so and reaching the end of this maze we can find the body of Hera just like before all we have to do is go into the dream and absorb her Essence but now that all the dreamers are dead the temple is open and we can go inside but upon arrival you'll notice that something's changed the crossroads has become infected and new enemies along with infected versions of old ones on pollute the streets this event occurs after the death of Warren dreamer or if we acquire the Monarch Wings which have us fighting a boss called the broken vessel in order to reach it this seems to be another being similar to the Knight that was killed but is now being puppeteered by the infection this is all basically an attempt to make an early game area much harder as by now most of the enemies die in one or two hits but it's also a good way of showing how easy it is for the infection to spread as well as how close the infection is to breaking out of the hollow Knight well this is definitely a cause for concern it should be something we do right away we aren't going to do that and instead attend the circus [Music] foreign after the release of hollow Knight 4 DLCs were released for the game two of them were more gameplay focused called Hidden Dreams and lifeblood with the other two being more story focused than the Grim troop and godmaster the Grim troop first starts in the howling Cliffs and is activated by strike in this Brazier hidden in a secret room this calls a few new people to dirtmouth who make the Elder bug uncomfortable anyone who scares the other bugs immediately on my hit list so let's go see what these clowns have to say for themselves well apparently clown wasn't far off as the Grim Trooper are traveling band of circus performers except they only seen to perform for their own people and only have one act which is centered around the main head of the troop Grim he has one of the best opening acts I've ever seen in which he gives us custody of his child tells us to raise it and then disappears I guess you could call me the new stepfather but I'm really just the father who stepped up nevertheless to raise this child they must equip the new charm Grim child and then take it to various points throughout hollana store to capture the Flames located there these will always have some kind of enemy that we have to defeat so there's at least some level of challenge here the issue is that this is all we do for most of the DLC we we grab three Flames from hollownest go back to Grim get three more return to him fight Grim grab three more and then choose our ending it's not exactly the most stimulating experience out there but I do recognize that this would have been better suited to do throughout the playthrough usually for my videos I record the DLCs after the main content is done so as to organize my recordings in fact at this point in the playthrough I had already done the three main endings of the game so this was all I had left to do this decision ended up making the DLC a chore to go through as it's the same nonsense over and over again which is why I think doing this along with the other content would create a much better experience it's best to treat the groomtube not as a DLC but just as another mystery within hollowness to uncover as you go is it will feel a lot better than spending 20 minutes going back and forth picking up all the flames regarding those Flames what these are are basically the Flames of a kingdom the groom troop seems to go to the kingdoms that have long since passed and collect these Eternal Scarlet Flames they then use these flames in the ritual which is what Grim is having us do for him it feels a little odd to kill Grim's own people to gather these as I feel like a simple conversation could avoid any unnecessary Bloodshed but given how this DLC ends it's rare to assume that Grim is doing this to make sure the child is ready and prepared as giving it the tools it needs to grow without struggle would hinder its growth this is also another reason why I think doing this DLC along with the rest of the content is a much better option as you actually get time to use the Grim child and experiment with their different forms unlike me where I had it for maybe 30 minutes at most once we come back a second time Grimm will thank us for helping and have us take part in an upcoming act he's performing which means we have a boss to fight Grimm has no plans on dying here just like Hornet as he's just gauging our strength and making sure the child is worthy kind of a shame we can't actually use the child in the fight though as it's required to start the duel with grim but then he just takes the child back meaning we're also wasting a couple notches in the process over overall Grim himself wasn't too difficult and I found him to be very mechanically engaging like most of the bosses but I was a much bigger fan of his other version after Gathering the last set of flames he'd come across Brum another member of The Troop who tells us that if we want to send the Grim troop away we can stop the ritual this leads to two endings one where we stop the troop and another where we continue the ritual judging from the ritual ending it seems like all the members of The Troop survey higher being located in the dream realm it doesn't seem like the troop is allied with the being though as they seem to be partaking in the ritual against their own will as evidenced by Brum asking if we want to stop the thing they literally came here to do the ritual itself seems to be how the higher being sustains itself and continues its life cycle but most of the details behind it are unclear in fact quite a lot of this DLC is actually unclear which is probably my biggest issue with it as it feels like it ends too quickly I came out of this DLC not with satisfaction but more confusion as I was still trying to figure out what was even going on here the banishment ending sees us just stopping the ritual by striking the Brazier again which is in odd way to end things given we just killed or stopped a God by hitting a pot but okay which is Then followed up by the troop disappearing in an NPC named Nim seeking Refuge here in dirt mouth this is very clearly brung from before but without their previous memories as they claim to not know where they are or how they got here the ritual ending has this challenge nightmare Kane Grimm a stronger version of the original Grimm who upon death seems to disappear along with the troop judging by the design of the groom child and the various sources of info it seems like the groom child took the essence of grim and will eventually become the new Grim only to be eaten by the next grandchild repeating the cycle it's a cliffhanger type ending but not one that feels satisfying in any way to be fair Cliffhangers aren't meant to be satisfying but it goes back to what I said earlier it felt like we were just getting into the meat of this thing only for it to end right when it was getting good there is no fight against this higher being no section where we talked with or even really do anything which is a shame that being said the one thing that does at least Warren some discussion is one of Grim's dream nail dialogues which talks about The Pale King and the Knight more specifically referring to the Knight as a vessel which is something that will make more sense when we talk about the ending shortly but it seems to imply that Grim knows of the other higher beings likely because of his relationship with his higher being regardless I think the good ending in this context would have to be the banishment ending as it's very clear that the troop is being used by the higher being to extend its life so by stopping that we prevent the true from being manipulated and the higher being who started this either has to find the New Kingdom to pillage or will die thanks to us stopping it that being said though I'm not a huge fan of the banishment ending because doing so means you'll miss probably the best fight in the whole game Nightmare King Grim is my favorite boss in Hollow Knight due to how intense the flight was he's one of those bosses that doesn't have a lot of stuff surrounding him meaning all you have to do is learn his moves and then counter-attack every time until he's dead this became a bit of an issue though as nightmare Kane Grimm is not only faster and harder to kill but his moves change as well one of his most common moves is this bad attack in the original fight all you have to do is double jump over the three allowing you to dodge all the bats and get him one or two hits him before he disappears with the nightmare version though he not only sends four bats at you but their position in a way that will punish you for double jumping and instead what you're meant to do is jump once right when the first bat passes over you then Dodge forward allowing you to reach Grim without taking damage became a bit of a problem for me as I had to not only unlearn my old habits from fighting original Grim but also learn new habits involved with nightmare grin to make matters worse he is I believe one of two bosses in the game to do a minimum two masks of damage instead of one the game also lets you know things are getting real serious now because instead of his name appearing in the bottom corner like all the other bosses his name takes up the whole screen once you defeat Grim though he then ends up disappearing along with the rest of the troop thanks to them completing the ritual like I said it's a bit of a quick ending as I felt like things were about to get good but then it ends overall though I enjoyed the DLC as a short little Side Story that occurs alongside the night's journey I do wish more was mentioned regarding the troop as it's unclear what we even did in either ending and given that it's a DLC I have my doubts that this will ever be mentioned in a sequel and assuming that's true it ends up making the Grim true about to be a faction and DLC that kind of leaves you scratching your head wondering what you even did with the circus out of business we can now return to the task at hand and take the flight to the hollow Knight upon stepping into the black egg we're then greeted to an extremely dark room only being lit up thanks to the pillars that appear as we walk after walking through the large hallway we enter the room that houses the hollow Knight upon breaking his binds he immediately attacks us seeing as the infection is slowly taking over the room along with him it's clear he isn't in control of his actions but there does still seem to be some amount of him left as he'll stab himself throughout the fight it's kind of horrifying in a way actually watching this being battle his own mind while simultaneously killing you and himself just goes to show how deadly this infection is and how much pain the holiday is in because of it assuming you can get through all of his phases you strike the hollow Knight one last time which has him crying out in pain as the night like the dreamers consumes his Essence the Knight will then take up the mantle as vessel and replace the hollow Knight containing the infection within its body thus saving the hollownest but also repeating the cycle of Torment as only a matter of time Until It Breaks free again it's a pretty sad ending and not exactly satisfying for many reasons one of which being that the game told me that I didn't achieve 100 completion so I knew that there was still more to go but more importantly Hornet never showed up despite being quite the pivotal character it seems she didn't make another appearance after defeating Hera meaning we still have more to do hollow Knight's endings tie back into that exploration side of the story The More You explore the more you learn and by getting this ending it shows that we didn't learn anything we may have learned about hollowness but we haven't learned about us and our role in all this so we need to keep looking fortunately there are two more endings for us to find what prompts the activation of the second ending is the acquisition of an item called the void heart which is an item called the king soul that is Tainted by the power of the Void but the king's soul is put into two and needs to be meted together by acquiring both pieces that are kept by our two rulers the white lady and The Pale King the queen is located in the Queen's Garden who thankfully gives us the first half upon talking to her as I mentioned earlier she liked to come here is a sort of home away from home but the traders in moskin didn't take too kindly to as they say a pale one intruding on their land so they attempted to kill her dryer one of the Five Knights was able to hold off all those that would inflict harm upon her but it came at the cost of her own life the white lady is hard to talk talk about though she doesn't really display any sort of magical powers she is most definitely a higher being like The Pale King but we don't really know what she can do one thing we do know is that these Bindings that are wrapped around her were of her own volition according to her she has The Sensational urge to spread her seed and breed but she regrets her recent Endeavors and as such bound herself together these Bunnings may also be weakening her in some way as her strength is not what it used to be as she has trouble seeing right in front of her this specific regret though is tied to The Pale King who will meet very shortly to get to him and to understand his role in all this we need the king's brain and the awoken dream now this more powerful version of the dream now is only accessible after giving Seer 1800 essence you can collect Essence in this game either fighting the warrior dreams fighting the repeat dream bosses like dung Defender result and collecting these orbs in these dream routes neither of these though will provide you with enough Essence on its own so it's recommended that you dabble in each in order to acquire the necessary amount this awakened version allows us to go into the ancient Basin and dream nail this dead kingsguard this takes us to the White Palace the home of The Pale King originally this Palace used to exist in the physical world right where we just were but once the infection hit the king gathered his top subjects and teleported into the dream realm away from all the chaos of the hollownest the White Palace as the name suggests is extremely white and covered in shiny ordained pillars and Towers it's also got a few people from hollownest in here only talk about the king and their wand to serve him to get to the king we need to go through an obstacle course of traps that are filled with spikes and saw blades which makes me wonder why the king even has guards in the first place says this is more than enough to stop anyone from finding him except of course us as we're the knighting we can do anything upon arriving to the king's quarters though we can see that he's been dead for quite a while the contrast of the room is very well done as everything so far has been bright and holy but the actual bed chambers of the king himself are the darkest part of the palace thanks to him being dead though we can't get anything out of him except one dream nail dialogue that says no cost too great which connects to where we go next at the bottom of the king's edges where we find our next item the king brand but stopping us is Hornet who is once again here to test our strength and see if we're worthy of continuing she warns us that continuing further will only bring about Dark Truth and it's one that weak-minded individuals cannot bear to learn I do want to clarify Hornet seems to have no qualms of killing us as she doesn't want to Ally herself with a weakling so it's not like Graham where they have a plan that involves us hornet will gladly carry on without us and do things her way that being said I do believe dying is canon in these games as we leave behind a shade that we can kill in order to get our stuff back and Confessor Gigi is based around this mechanic as they can summon our shade for us so it does seem like dying is a part of our journey although I'm still unsure of that fact myself regardless once you defeat Hornet you will finally realize that we're strong enough to continue and that teaming up would prove beneficial to her that's because Hornet will save us once we enter what's behind her this show is actually the remnants of The Pale King when he first arrived in what would become hollownest the pill King is considered a worm and death to them is not a symbol AS dying but more so shedding their skin and becoming a different version of their original Self the pill King was presumably as large as this shell implies but thanks to them shedding his skin he's now a lot smaller the reason we're here though is that the king's brand is inside its shell and is going to be used to unlock a specific door in the ancient Basin upon picking it up though the shell starts to crumble and collapses on the night before Horner comes by to drag them out further confirming that she now sees us as a worthy Ally with the king's brand in hand we can now go to the giant door locked in the ancient Basin that locked away the abyss the abyss is a very dark location filled with sharp spikes a black void and hundreds of masks and shades similar to that of our Knight within here is also a large creature holding a bowl filled with black liquid I'm still not entirely sure what's up with this specific individual but there are quite a few creatures like this throughout the game like these statues gameplay-wise they give a soul that we can use for spells and for health but they've seen a point to an ancient civilization that existed long before the pale King's arrival a civilization that may have worshiped the void that permeates this location but while the kings run allowed us access to the whole area a specific location inside the abyss is only accessible thanks to the king's Soul this leads us to a giant black egg that upon hitting it takes us into a flashback we see the knight at the bottom of the Abyss attempting to climb back up to the door that we entered through while text continues to flash on screen saying things like no mind to think or no will to break this enzoid to reached top in which we see The Pale King in another night leaving the abyss before closing the door forever what this tells us is that the Knight was born here in the abyss and is made of the void and that these other people we've come across are our siblings furthermore the shape of the sibling's head is eerily similar to the hollow Knights meaning he too is our brother so with the biggest Twist of the story now revealed it's finally time to talk about what's going on here years ago The Pale King came to this land to die until it shed its skin and took on its new form he then decided to give his power to his people causing them to see him as a God after some time the kingdom of hollownest was born but soon after came the infection it swept across the land taking over people's minds and seeping into their dreams the king along with his Queen the white lady attempted to stop this Threat by creating the vessels the vessels are the Knight and their siblings their whole purpose was to be for a lack of a better word a box that seals the infection away the dialogue that talked about no mind to think and no will to break was referencing the vessels that's why the Knight can't talk or feel emotion as these are things that the infection could manipulate the king and the white lady made hundreds if not thousands of these beings in order to find the perfect vessel eventually the pill can determined that the hollow Knight was the one so he came to the abyss took him from his siblings and locked away all the trash now the game never explains why the hollow Knight specifically was the chosen one but I wonder if it has to do with the abyss itself as this place has a pain in the ass to get out of and that's with the tools we found like double jumping dashes and wall climb things the vessels don't have so it's my theory that the Pale King chose the hollow Knight because he was the first one to escape the abyss this could also explain the hundreds of bodies on the floor as the vessels could have possibly been climbing on top of each other in order to escape another thing that's also not explained is the door itself is The Pale King clearly locked the vessels away yet some of them including us managed to escape I sadly don't have any theories this time as this door is the only way out and required the king's brand to open so your guess is as good as mine as an extra layer of safety though The Pale King put the hollow Knight in the black gay Temple and sealed that using Lurie and Hera and manamon who later became known as the dreamers now that we know our true origin the first thing we need to consider is our relationship with the Hornet and zote as I mentioned earlier both are similar to The Knight design wise with zoping the more obvious of the two since Hornet was conceived by The Pale King and Hera that makes Hornet our stepsibling she isn't a vessel like we are but she is related to us through The Pale King as for zote I don't think he's a vessel for the simple fact that he could speak and think whether or not he intentionally created an outfit to look like the other siblings and the Knight is unclear and also very zote but I don't think zote is meant to be a vessel circling back to the hollow Knight though we have to ask the obvious question what the hell happened he was supposed to be the perfect vessel so how did it fail well it was actually the pale King's own doing inside the White Palace is one of the most annoying platforming puzzles in the whole game called the path of pain but if you can somehow cross it without wanting to tear your hair out it'll be shown another flashback of the hollow Knight and The Pale King resting in the White Palace The Pale King thought of the hollow Knight as his own son which is technically true but this caused the hollow Knight to gain emotions and feelings something it wasn't supposed to have which is why the infection started spreading that's also why the first ending is still considered sad and ultimately pointless as we too have gained emotions and feelings thanks to us interacting with the NPCs all this circles back to the introduction of the game though the Knight was summoned here by the call of the hollow Knight to fulfill its purpose seal the infection and protect hollownest but is that the only way well let's find out returning back to the temple we find a hornet who tells us that she'll Aid us in our fight against the hollow Knight but can only stay for a short time as the void within the egg would kill her further proving that she was not made to be a vessel the boss fight continues as normal until the Final Phase which he's Hornet tying down the hollow Knight and giving us an opening its head is also surrounded by dream Essence but if you somehow miss this clue Hornet will pass out and the flight continues defeating the hollow Knight now sees Hornet locked inside the egg with her mask being put on the outside of the temple implying that she's now a dreamer while the night once again becomes the new vessel for the infection once again not an amazing ending and definitely not the final one as we still have one more thing to do if we instead Drew know the hollow Knight we go into its mind to find the source of the infection thank you [Applause] inside the hollow Knight was the radiance a higher being and also the creator of the infection that is infested hollownest to add to our previous talk when The Pale King arrived and became a God we know that Sear's ancestors The Moth tribe forsook the radiance in favor of The Pale King well the radiance in an attention-seeking attempt to seek attention decided to use her powers as a way to influence the bugs of hollownest those dreams envisions all the citizens we're seeing was because the radiance wanted itself to be known many of its residents resisted these thoughts and this resistance resulted in the manifestation of the infection it seems like the radiance believed that if the people wouldn't accept and worship her willingly then she would do it by force The Pale King after hearing word of this infection attempted to stop it and well we know the rest but now as the night where tasks would stop in the infection at the source and putting this thing to rest once and for all one thing I'm a real sucker for that Hollow Knight uses quite a bit is making the story or fights based around Concepts and ideas the pill can blessed the bugs of Islam with the ability to think but the radiance wants to regress its inhabitants back to their original more primitive States is they would be easier to control as you can see there are goals for the people of hollownest are Polar Opposites the radiance is also a warrior that wields light while the Knight wields the powers of the Void two substances that would be at odds of one another in fact you might even say that they are the embodiments of these Concepts as the radiance is the brightest being in existence as far as we know and is presumably responsible for the creation of essence while the Knight is a being born of void who also thinks the void heart item we got earlier just reunited the void under him which is why the void slowly starts to creep into the boss fight like I said I'm a real sucker for this stuff as it makes it more than just a boss fight to me as the forces of dark and light are literally coming together to do battle with one another unfortunately though the radiance is too strong for the Knight on their own however she is unaware of the siblings waiting down below that are waiting for their time to strike foreign [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] the Knight evolves its original shade form and becomes something else entirely using its new void-like powers to strike the radiance while the shade of the hollow Knight holds it down and with that the radiance is defeated hollownest is saved the infection is no more Hornet is alive and the siblings including the Knight have served their purpose and can now finally rest talk about an ending it's beautiful and the music really tuggles on the heartstrings a bit is we could finally say that after all the deaths and failures we did it we won it's such a wonderful ending it is my favorite in the game from the quest it took to get here to the boss fight itself to the final rush to the end while the siblings all weight in anticipation ready to back us up it's a fantastic ending and a wonderful and a hollow knight story except it wouldn't be as one more DLC would release that ends up sort of soiling this otherwise great ending a year and a half after release steam Cherry the people behind the game would release the final piece of content for hollow Knight titled godmaster which not only added a wealth of new content but also two new endings the best way to describe godmaster is to say that it's a tale of two extremes itok would made Hollow Knight's gameplay so much fun and put it together in a neatly wrapped package yet despite recognizing A mid-hollow Knight's gameplay so fun to play it clearly didn't recognize him at its original story so fun to learn as it applies none of those same methods of Storytelling here in the DLC it first starts in the junk pit underneath the city of Tears in here is a new NPC called The godseeker Who upon dream nailing will send us to its home app we name the god home from here the players left to their own devices and you can immediately tell that this is a Boss Rush DLC through and through there are initially three pantheons which after being completed will unlock a fourth which upon its completion will lock the fifth and final Pantheon for the player to participate in each one has a set number of bosses from the main game that get increasingly more difficult with the first Pantheon having bosses like the vengefly king and Hornet so the fourth one containing the likes of numerous Warrior dreams in dream bosses each of them have 10 bosses each with a fifth one being the ultimate test as it's the previous four put together in addition to adding newer bosses like nightmare Kane grim and changes to previous boss fights like the vengefly king who is now joined by a second one in this specific version to add insult to injury all of them must be done without dying while the game does have benches usually halfway through the pantheon that allow to regain your health and soul back as well as respect your charms they aren't save points like in the main game if you're up for even more challenge you can also add bindings to the doors such as less damage or no spells due to this level of difficulty though you're likely going to struggle fortunately the game has another room called the Hall of Gods which lets you challenge every boss in the game each of them also has three difficulties which you can track using a board at the front door attuned is the basic default difficulty ascended is a slightly harder version of the original difficulty and radiant is the previous difficulty along with the ever so small caveat that you die in one hit it is as difficult as it sounds but it would be an understatement to say that there is a lot of content here you could be here for over 10 to 20 hours just going through everything and clearly team Cherry knew that the community would want to play this more because they made a game mode specifically for this DLC after unlocking the fourth Pantheon you also gain access to the godseeker mode which gives you all the charms nail upgrades spells and masks but you can't leave the god home it's supposed to be for those that want to play the dlc's content but don't want to go through a whole 30 plus hour playthrough just to get prepared for it like I said it takes everything that makes Hollow Knight's gameplay so good and puts it all together in one DLC and I had a blast going through the pantheons and practicing on the bosses that I struggled with but its story is what really dragged down the experience here it's hard to really call it a story as similar to the previous DLC you don't even know what you're doing here and you're giving even less answers as to what's going on the godseeker is a large bean that presumably locked itself inside of a coffin so that it wouldn't be disturbed that's because the godseekers people all live inside the god home dream realm they basically put other people's minds into one being and it's thanks to this that they're able to conjure up the dream realm with ease at the beginning though the godseeker is incoherent and will stay this way until we go through the pantheons that's because is the god Seeker wants to attune to the gods of the hollownest which in layman's terms are the bosses we fight in the pantheons you can think of each boss as a rung on a ladder and we're slowly climbing higher and higher until we reach the top that's why the bosses slowly get harder across the pantheons as the godseeker needs more strength than the last to ascend higher so to help the godseeker Ascend we have to do all the pantheons and I do mean all of them yeah the ending of this DLC is locked behind the 42 boss brush Pantheon Hollow Knight is definitely a difficult game there is no doubt about that but I'd argue this is too difficult only because the story content is locked behind something that's mostly designed for gameplay purposes but even if we're to ignore the difficulty why is the story tied to this admittedly I don't play many games with Boss Rush modes and even the ones that do I'm not too interested in doing so so maybe this is a common thing but I've never seen a game tied story to something like this before and that's probably because it doesn't make sense to the godseeker only appears during the pantheons when you have to go through all of them just to speak with them and even then their dialogue is as tedious as the pantheons themselves your first meeting with them is in the second last room of the first Pantheon and it goes about as you would expect the godseeker scold you for being in their domain and tells you to leave immediately lest we want Divine punishment to be struck down upon us this same dialogue is basically repeated throughout the other pantheons as well there are three places where the godseeker can talk to us which are before the pantheon starts the second to last room of the pantheon and then out by the junk pit but they only have new dialogue when you complete one so in order of events you'll listen to them in the beginning battle through the bosses listen to them towards the end beat it and then talk to them at the Jung pit you'll be repeating this four times for the four pantheons yet at no point does the dialogue ever change it's the same thing just in a different font It's All About Us and how we are ruining their plans and how the gods of the Holiness should kill us as a result we are 80 of the way through this story and all we've gained is a hater what immediately confused me though were these talks because the godseeker makes it explicitly clear that they attuned to the minds of the bosses through ritual combat but isn't that what we're doing if anything aren't we helping them we don't see the god Seekers fighting nor do we see the bosses fight each other so it seems like they're just lounging around doing nothing until we showed up I will say though it seems like the bosses are conscious enough to recognize where they are as Grim bows to the godseeker and Hornet's stream nail dialogue talks about whether she's in her dream or in ours but seeing his Hornet never talks about this outside of the DLC and no other characters mention something like this it's kind of pointless to talk about either way the reason we're doing this is because the god Seekers have an obsession with gods they used to be from a place called the land of storms but after their gods abandoned them they left to go find something else to serve this is when they decided to merge into one being as it was easier for them to travel and their combined knowledge managed to create the God only all inhabit the reason they came here is because the mask they wear is used to find the essence of great warriors and hollownest is supposedly filled with them so they're hoping to use this in order to ascend the godseekers are basically trying to be hollowness biggest dick riders as communing with what they call the god of gods located here will allow them to ascend to their Highest Potential what this God of gods is at the moment is unknown but once you arrive to the fourth Pantheon the godseeker will talk about the boss in the Next Room being the last one they need to attune to in order to find their God of gods and seeing as this boss is the pure vessel a perfected version of the hollow Knight this God of gods is likely the radiance this is then pretty much confirmed in the final Pantheon as the radiance is now called the absolute Radiance who is the final boss of the pantheon but can only be fought in that final fifth Pantheon as you can see the storytelling if we can call it that is almost non-existent as we're forced to play through these incredibly tedious rooms just to get the same dialogue set in different words it's holding until the 5th Pantheon where things seem to start to go somewhere but ultimately that doesn't end well either instead of showing up once the godseeker finally gets their act together and shows up a few more times now while also showing us visions of various higher beings within Hollow Nest mainly un the white lady in The Pale King but their dialogue is once again pointless all the godseeker does is comment on the beings themselves and sometimes ask itself questions which oddly enough we know the answers to the godseeker talks about on and says that they can feel their strength weighing and that they must have been pretty strong back in the day they also comment on the white lady's lack of strength and ask why she is hiding from them likely referencing her lack of power and how their Mass can't detect her which we know is thanks to The Binding she put on herself in regards to The Pale King they mentioned once again how they can feel its power emanating from its body but wonder why he took on the form he did as the godseeker claims that they would have gotten more devotees by being a bigger being but we know why The Pale King did this and that was because they were dying and worms like him shed their skin as a former rebirth so four-fifths of this DLC is spent listening to this being berate us over and over again with the last of it having us listen to it try to come up with answers to questions we already know like I said the actual story telling here is questionable at best and what makes matters worse is that this is the last time we will talk to the godseeker as in the Next Room is the absolute Radiance who upon its defeat will trigger the ending I also want to clarify this is an actual ending not one like the Grim tube where it's a DLC ending I mean a proper End Game ending as it sends you back to before you completed the pantheon just like the main game sends you back to before you beat the hollow Knight and you also get a thank you from Team Cherry in a completion screen just like the main game too this is an actionable ending to hollow knight story and that's my biggest gripe with this DLC because in what way is this tied to the events of the game the only items required to be this DLC are the dream now which is needed to under the god home and the void heart which we need to start the final Pantheon these are the only items you need which aren't locked behind any of the dreamers or the hollow Knight me meaning you can get an official ending to the game Hollow Knight with ever interacting with the dreamers or defeating the boss in which the game is named after now technically we do fight the hollow Knight and the radiance and the pantheons but we are also in the dream realm that's also partially in the mind of a being who locked itself on a coffin at the bottom of the City sewers we could it be further from the hollownest if we tried then there's also the fact that godseeker mode is Canon somehow as it takes place after the ending as the godsuga becomes uncomfortably hard to listen to given that they see us as their new God of gods even though as we're about to see we either kill the godseeker or teleport away from the kingdom and neither of which make a whole lot of sense to me outside of the fact that they have now gone from dick riding the radiance to dick riding us furthermore this all circles back to my earlier comment about when it made Hollow Knight's main story so interesting as that sense of exploration is gone here we don't explore anything besides this one room we only talk to One NPC and the only things we fight or find are bosses that we've already met it's everything that the main game is not and the fact that this DLC has an official ending yet doesn't require the player to actually engage with the main game in any way is the cherry on top here as for the endings themselves they're basically the same but change depending on if you gave the godseeker the delicate flower this is something that we can get from zamir and the resting grounds originally we're supposed to Planet at the grave of their lover which is the trailer Lord's child but once that happens it sprouts allowing us to give it to more NPCs the first one you should definitely give it to is the elder bug who is extremely delighted to receive it and will keep it with him forever but we can also give this to the godseeker this changes the ending as without it the Knight becomes a void entity that the community has called the shade Lord and completely destroys the radiance but this entity is now running loose in the god home and takes the opportunity to cover the godseeker in void and presumably kill it what if it has the flower it's able to protect the godseeker and instead teleports it and possibly the shade Lord away to an unknown destination zamir and a couple NPCs tell us that the flower comes from an unknown Place far away from here so maybe this will get touched upon in silk song but for now we're unsure of its true power either way the radiance dies in bold endings meaning the infection is gone as the veins around the egg Temple lose their orange color it also seems to have reverted anyone infected back to their original forms as Horna is seen walking its Halls before being approached by a mysterious being that looks like the hollow Knight judging by the curved mask and nail this in all fairness did get me pretty excited as the hollow Knight possibly being alive in the night being the literal void itself is an interesting idea that I would like to see elaborated on in silk song but the methods that it took to get here were just not interesting enough for me to justify this that's why I think the third ending with the original Radiance is better as it feels like an actual conclusion everything makes sense we destroyed the radiance at the source saved hollownest and used our siblings to kill the radiance but in here we meet a random NPC fought through an extremely tedious Gauntlet of the same bosses for hours and then the Knight Kills the radians through this ritual saves hollowness then becomes the embodiment of the Void nothing really felt answered or resolved and it arguably leaves more questions and answers which is not uncommon for endings like this but it is possible to make an ending that resolves the current game while setting up the next one and that's exactly what ending 3 did the godmaster endings just add more questions without any answers I do like the night being a void entity and I like the idea of the hollow Knight and Hornet possibly teaming up but all of that is complete speculation as especially when you consider that Silk song takes place in a completely different Kingdom so that also begs the question of whether or not any of this will even be answered to repeat what I said at the top of this section the godmaster is a tale of two extremes gameplay wise it's some of the best content in the game and I can easily see myself sinking more hours into this after I finish this video story wise though at best it's mildly interesting and at worst I almost wish it didn't have a story tied to it its method of Storytelling is tedious the main NPC of the DLC refused to elaborate on anything and barely interacts with the player at all and the endings take away from the previous set of Endings by making these the Canon ones in all fairness it's not clear what endings are actually Canon for hollow Knight but I find it odd that team Cherry would just add new endings for no reason especially after the main game is already out they did this with the grimchu DLC but that was only for that DLC these are official endings which makes me believe that they had these endings in mind as the Canon option since they were added in after the fact and that's a real shame as climbing the realm with our siblings and defeating the radiance alongside horn and the hollow Knight was a perfect ending to this game a godmaster kind of ruins that Hollow Knight is a wonderful metroidvania with an extremely interesting story that has me very excited for silk song obviously I was critical of a few Key Parts but if my biggest complaint was one DLC I think we're in good hands here plus that's also just one small slice of this incredibly large game that's also not even considering the fact that this was free too team Cherry now only charged 15 at most for this game but never asked for another Cent more after its release which is kind of insane to me given that this game needed money via Kickstarter to even exist I honestly would not have been surprised how they asked for money for these DLCs but team Cherry refused and it shows the amount of passion they have for this game they couldn't have made this game without its backers and not only did they want to make sure that they and their future buyers were happy with their purchase they also wanted to pay homage to those that gave this game the legs it needed as littered all throughout the game as backer created content bosses like the god Tamer and all the warrior dreams were initially created by fans NPCs like cloth and militia and tiso were backer created content and there's an entire location called the spirits glaive which serves as a cemetery for hollowness that also has loads of bugs created by the backers regardless of my thoughts on the call of those NPCs or bosses the mere concept of having your creation put into a game is extremely cool and the fact that team Cherry was willing to do this on multiple occasions shows how much passion they have for the game and their Community I can say without a doubt that this is the best 15 you'll ever spend in your life as there is enough content here to make it easily worth your purchase and even if you play this game one time Hollow Knight's story will easily be able to Captivate you the same way it did to me exploring hollownest was a joy and going through a new area always felt like a fresh Adventure as I wonder what would be around the corner would it be a boss an MPC an item all or tablet I didn't know but I was always eager to find out halona is at its best when it has you wanting more which may have had the unintended side effect of me wanting a bit too much as the way for silk song now begins if the trailers are anything to go off of those silk song is shaping up to be a beautiful entry in this series I don't know when it's going to come out but like the siblings of the Abyss I'll be waiting patiently in the darker cave that is my room until release hoping that unlike The Pale King the team won't close it off from the rest of the world never to be seen again thanks for watching thank you for watching today and I hope you enjoyed many of you likely remember that I promised this video a while ago I had some issues making it the first time around but I'm glad it's finally done also I want to shout out Lily who made this absolutely adorable piece of artwork for the announcement of the video I highly recommend you check her out especially if you're a fan art of anything related to the souls games as she has a ton of it she was incredibly easy to work with and I would definitely suggest you commission her for something if you got something in mind as for the next video well given what I mentioned towards the beginning of this video Blasphemous 2 is going to be up next As for after I'm not too sure actually there are quite a few new releases coming out that I'm quite interested in but if you want to know ahead of time make sure to follow me on Twitter regardless like the video if you enjoy and subscribe if you're new thinking about returning viewers coming back to another video and take care everyone goodbye

Channel: Gingy

Views: 409,855

Keywords: hollow knight, hollow knight story, hollow knight lore, hollow knight ending, hollow knight story explained, hollow knight lore explained, hollow knight ending explained, hollow knight godmaster endings, hollow knight grimm troupe, hollow knight hallownest, radiance, pale king, white lady, hollow knight infection, gingy

Id: gn4dYk2Hif0

Length: 75min 2sec (4502 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 11 2023