Hollow Knight sets a benchmark for the metroidvania genre that very few games have come close to matching. Hallownest is a vast, mournful ruin of a kingdom, and Team Cherry trusts you to read its history through environment and silence rather than through pages of exposition.
Hollow Knight gameplay: the Knight mid-leap across a stone bridge in the glowing teal depths of Greenpath
Every region has its own palette, its own theme, and its own quiet tragedy, and the hand-drawn art holds up beautifully years later. Combat begins as a simple nail swing but slowly blossoms into a genuinely expressive system once charms, spells and movement upgrades start stacking together. The bosses are the highlight: tightly tuned, fairly telegraphed and almost always beatable on the very next attempt once you understand them. There is so much optional content that two players can finish the game having seen completely different halves of it. My only real warning is that it respects your curiosity more than it respects your time, so come in patient. An essential purchase, and Silksong cannot come soon enough.
