Hollow Knight Guide
Hollow Knight is an indie platformer which provides little aid to the player in figuring out where to go next. This can be either frustrating or enjoyable, depending on what style of games you like to play. If you don’t want the game spoiled for you, I highly recommend not using a guide. With that being said if you do decide to use one I put together this Hollow Knight guide to help people journey through this beautiful game. *This Guide is not a 100% completion guide.
Guide Content
- The Basics
- King’s Pass
- Dirtmouth
- Forgotten Crossroads
- Greenpath
- Fungal Wastes
- City of Tears
- Royal Waterways
- Crystal Peak
- Resting Grounds
- Ancient Basin
- City Tears
- Deepnest
- Kingdom’s Edge
- The Abyss
- Fog Canyon
- Forgotten Crossroads/Game End
Cornifer can appear in two locations in Deepnest, one where you said, and one near the entrance from the mantis lords.
Yeah, I actually experienced the other one first lol
Great guide. I use it to navigate workout wasting time in the wrong place, but in between each page I explore and test out my new ability or buy more charms. What a fantastic game.
Without wasting time *
Hey man. Just bought this game on Switch and LOVING it. Admittedly I’m more of a casual gamer so guides like these are super helpful. I love your hand-drawn notes. Some guide-writers tend to over-complicate things but I really appreciate that this walkthrough is so super simple and easy to follow. Thanks again and keep up the awesome work.
Same here! Don’t get much time to game nowadays so don’t like to wander around lost. Guides like this make me appreciate the game more. Just got it on the switch and loving it.
Thanks a lot for the kind words. Enjoy Hollow Knight!
Thanks for the comment! Enjoy Hollow Knight.
I love how you read “kill hornet#2” or “kill watcher knights” it sounds soo easy…
Till you get to the bosses and you rage over them.
(Tip: You can skip Watcher Knights and come back for them later after you get the void dash thingy)
I cant get the simple key?? how do I get into the waterways if ive i already bought the key and used it to open jiji’s cave? its not for sale anymore and apparently i dont have it :///
There is a simple key somewhere in the city of tears just lying around, I got lucky and found it. I am probably also late on the info
How do get to the bench right before the mantis lords? I’m getting sick of trudging all the way back from the first bench.
it opens after you beat them
You have to use the upgraded flying dash move to make it through the door before the mantis hits the switch.
Flukemarm is incredibly easy with the 3rd (channeled) nail upgrade.
Getting the Pale Ore is not possible. There are spikes everywhere in the area near it.
Nevermind you have to zoom across I feel dumb, I spent a solid hour trying to get across by swording the stuff
Flukemarm can be stupendously easily beaten using the desolate dive above it. I just tried it as a fluke and it beat the boss in probably 3 seconds
I’m a little confused on page 12.. I’m trying to get Isma’s Tear, but I can’t figure out how to get into her grove. I’m at the bit where there’s the sign that reads “Only those who prove their honour through combat may enter the grove beyond.” above the acid pool. How do I get in?
You have to go through dung defender then you come in isma’s grove from above.
Atleast i think, i’m in the same area as you
when you go back to the city of tears to fight the watcher knights, there is this picture of a way to break a chandelier and reduce the number of them… i can’t seem to find that area.
Right before you enter the Watcher Knight’s room, there is a breakable wall directly above the entrance to the boss arena. Break it to reveal a small area with the chandelier chain.
hello, after defeating the broken vessel the area of the false knight became blocked by the infection blobs, any idea if this area will be accessible later in the game? I wish there was a warning in the walkthrough about it prior to the fight.
my bad, there’s a route.
I dealt with Herrah first, but now I’m stuck in her area, once you beat her, how do you leave?
Maybe I just haven’t noticed something obvious but I have no idea how to get to mantis village or even the entrance to city of tears from the fungal wastes, I’m stuck in an area with bouncy purple mushrooms and every walk through I’ve seen people have jumped really high on the but whenever I jump on them I don’t go high enough and can’t get from fungal wastes to the lower areas like city of tears, hopefully someone can help.
When you jump onto the mushrooms, you need to down attack. This will send you bouncing higher than a simple normal jump. Hope that helps!
I couldnt figure it out for a while lol.
I think everyone was confused on that one (1hr here)
One quick correction: On page 14, you show dropping only down to the rectangular room with the centipedes, then immediately going left to the bench room. However, the first time you go to the area, that way is blocked – you can just go into the very edge of the room and you seem to be at a dead end. So instead you have to drop all the way to the spring, go left a big and climb back up to get to that bench. Once you get there you can go to the ‘blockage’ and a bit of floor will collapse, opening up the previously blocked passage.
Thanks. Good catch!
Page 7: For me, Cornifer is behind the black barrier in Fog Canyon, and not in the alcove in Fungal Wastes. How do I get to him?
wait until you get the shade cloak, then dash through the black barrier.
That black barrier is to be considered a red herring. Theres another way into the fog canyon that leads you to the other side of the barrier.
This was great! I tried to use it as little as possible for that “into the unknown” vibe, but it truly did help with the moments where I sat there thinking “Where the hell do I go now?”
Glad it helped!
wow,,,,this guide is priceless for person like me; beginner of hollow knight…
I salute your effort to create this awesome guide! Keep it up man.
Thanks. I appreciate it!
good guide it was helpful for me to get thru the game , but i gain access to the third mask before going to deep nest , and beat the final boss
Glad it helped. The beauty of Hollow Knight is that there is flexibility in how you play. Thanks for reading.
If you see in the boss fight the left area with the wood, if you hit it 4-6 times you can escape to the other side,and come back around to fight the boss with VS(Vengeful spirit),and if you beat him to collect the chest come back quickly to see the mallet/ball at the end of his mace run away, i didn’t get to kill it but if anyone does please get back to me, this is my second run and i don’t wanna start a 3rd one, the only reason i’m doing it again is because i killed Marissa ;-;…. I realized how big of a mistake that was…. and thanks to whoever made this walk through, You helped so much, hope my VS tip helped
Thanks for the love.
I ahve a problem in page 8, I used the key in other palce, so I don’t have key and I can’t access the Royal Waterways. What do?
That’s okay. There are a total of three simple keys in the game. Two are accessible to you. There is a key you can buy from Sly in Dirtmouth 950 Geo. For further reference, this is a good wiki entry http://hollowknight.wikia.com/wiki/Simple_Key
I know for sure an enemy drops a simple key in city of tears
You don’t actually need the Shade Cloak to reach Teacher’s Archives. There’s an alternate way in that only requires Isma’s Tear.
I didn’t know that. Thanks!
True, you only need to came from east entrance.
utilize downward dive and spell charms and its a piece of cake
In what area/boss?
thx for your guide. but the room for crystal heart is so dark and I can barely see the surroundings, and fell off the abyss quite often. No other ways to light up the path?
You can buy lumafly lantern in sly shop
thanks buddy. i’ll try search for it.
You guys rock! This guide was SUPER handy and I ended up using it for most of my run, though I was at 61% complete with the game when I finished.
Thanks! Glad it helped