Hollow Knight walkthrough: a route through Hallownest

Hollow Knight walkthrough: planning your route through Hallownest

Hallownest is a connected underground kingdom, and the first hour in it is mostly about learning how its traversal works. Doors open from both sides, vertical shafts connect distant rooms, benches save progress, and almost every new ability reveals a short loop of areas that were previously blocked. A useful hollow knight walkthrough therefore starts with a route, not a checklist of boss attempts. Decide which direction to push first, which abilities to chase, and how to avoid the softlocks that catch players who wander into deep late-game zones with three mask containers and a basic nail.

For the purposes of this guide, progression is described in roughly the order most first-time players will find natural after the Forgotten Crossroads. That is not the only valid order. The game rewards curiosity, and several optional zones offer charms, geo, and lore that smooth out the harder encounters. Treat the order below as a default route and detour whenever a side area looks interesting, as long as you keep an eye on your mask and vessel counts.

Before the first real fight, make sure the basics are second nature: focus on the bench, the simple key, and the map vendor. A reliable map changes the game more than any single charm in the first three hours, because it turns aimless wandering into a sequence of short, planned trips.

There is also a question of save discipline. Hallownest autosaves at benches and on transition screens, and a habit of saving before any major fight or expensive purchase will save you from losing a charm you spent the last hour farming for. That single habit removes a large share of the frustration new players report in forum posts about the game being “unfair.”

Early setup: Forgotten Crossroads, Greenpath, and Fungal Wastes

After Dirtmouth and the False Knight introduction, the game hands you a real map of the Forgotten Crossroads. This is where most of the mechanical vocabulary of the game appears: breakable floors, geo pickups, walls you can slash to open, and benches placed close together so mistakes feel cheap rather than punishing. A practical hollow knight walkthrough for this section is mostly about not running past the merchant in the north, because the map and quill system is easy to miss on a first blind run.

Once the Crossroads open up, the next decision is whether to head west into Greenpath or east toward the Fungal Wastes. Both are valid, both contain two main bosses, and both feed back into the hub. Greenpath is the more forgiving option and is where most players pick up the Vengeful Spirit spell, which makes the next few fights noticeably easier. Fungal Wastes, on the other hand, has denser geo and a faster route to the Mantis Village if you want to push mobility first.

The order between the two is less important than not skipping either. Each area has at least one charm that the other does not, and the two together cover most of the early combat vocabulary the rest of the game assumes you know.

Map, quill, and compass basics

Iselda sells the map of an area once you find her husband Cornifer. Cornifer hums a tune in each new region, and his cart appears once you have collected enough map data. Every map costs geo, and pins or waypoints are unlocked by buying the quill and compass from Iselda. For a walkthrough focused on not getting lost, the priority order is:

Find Cornifer first in any new area and finish his map before exploring the deeper rooms.
Buy the quill so you can drop custom pins on benches, stag stations, and difficult platforming sections.
Buy the compass only after you have at least one decent charm loadout, because the extra geo is more useful in the shop than on the map.

The map is the single most important quality-of-life tool in the game. Skipping it because you want to experience the world without markers is a common reason new players get frustrated and assume the game is unfair, when in reality they just walked past the cart and never came back.

One small but useful habit is to drop a custom pin at every bench and stag station as soon as you unlock them. The default map shows their position, but custom pins let you label the trickier rooms above and below the main path, which becomes critical once the map is fully filled and the default icons start to overlap.

Forgotten Crossroads highlights

The Crossroads are dense and full of dead ends. Three landmarks matter most for the rest of the run:

The City of Tears lift, which is the gateway to the central hub area and to several mid-game zones.
The Black Egg temple entrance, which seals the game’s main ending and only opens once you have collected the required items.
The hidden Grub container locations, which feed a long-term charm reward that pays off only after a serious backtracking session.

Do not treat the Black Egg as a target. It is a door that will not open until later. Heading straight for it usually means fighting a late-game boss with starter gear and no idea where the closest bench is. If the door does not respond, that is the game telling you to go and unlock the prerequisites first.

Key abilities and where to find them

Most progression in the game hinges on a small set of movement and combat abilities. A reliable hollow knight walkthrough sequences them so each one unlocks new content without forcing backtracking across the whole map. The abilities below are the ones that open meaningful new routes, in roughly the order you will find them. A few of them also unlock alternative routes that experienced players use to skip large sections of the recommended order, which is worth knowing even if you do not use them on a first run.

Mothwing Cloak

Found inside the Mantis Village on the way to the Mantis Lords. The dash is the first major mobility upgrade and makes almost every later platforming section manageable. Until you have it, treat every long gap as a wall jump test rather than a jump test, because a raw jump without a dash is rarely enough to clear the wider chasms in the mid-game.

Mantis Claw

Allows wall jumping, which opens vertical shortcuts all over the map. Most players find it shortly after the Mantis Lords and immediately start using it to skip previous routing. The ability also enables a number of sequence breaks that take you from the Crossroads directly to the City of Tears if you know the room layouts well enough.

Isma’s Tear

Lets you swim in the acid pools of Isma’s Grove and the Royal Waterways. Required for a few optional areas and for one of the endings. Without it, several visible paths are simply dead ends that look like they should open up into a new room. The groves around the ability are also a good place to farm soul because of the high density of weak enemies.

Crystal Heart

A super dash that covers long horizontal distances. It unlocks most of the Crystal Peak, the upper City of Tears, and the upper sections of the Ancient Basin. The Crystal Heart also enables one of the most useful sequence breaks in the game, which experienced players use to reach the City of Tears early and skip a large part of the Crossroads exploration.

Monarch Wings

Double jump. The final major movement upgrade, found in the late-game White Palace area. Not strictly required to finish the main story, but needed for the most useful ending and for many collectible routes. The Monarch Wings also change how the Coliseum of Fools feels, because the platforming puzzles there assume a double jump as a baseline.

Spells

Vengeful Spirit, Desolate Dive, and Howling Wraiths are the three baseline spells. Vengeful Spirit is the strongest first pickup because its projectile is fast and cheap. Desolate Dive is excellent for breaking floors and for hitting groups, and Howling Wraiths becomes a top-tier ability once upgraded. Each spell also has a higher-tier version, and deciding which to upgrade first is a small but meaningful build decision that depends on whether you lean toward pogo combat or ranged damage.

Boss strategy table for the main route

Below is a compact reference for the most important bosses a first-time player will meet in the order this walkthrough recommends. Damage values, HP, and exact healing windows are not listed because the game does not expose them directly. Instead, the table focuses on what the player can observe and exploit. Numbers like phase count and recommended masks reflect community-tested experience rather than hardcoded data, and the row labels match the way players talk about the fights.

Boss	Where to find it	Recommended masks before the fight	Main attack pattern	Recommended strategy
False Knight	Forgotten Crossroads, top of the broken structure	3 to 4	Ground slam that sends a shockwave, jump-and-slam, armor shield	Hit three times, retreat. Focus on the armored head once the shield appears, because the rest of the body regenerates. The arena has a back exit and a floor exit, but the safer pattern is to finish the fight where you entered.
Gruz Mother	Forgotten Crossroads, large open area	3 to 4	Charges across the arena, spawns baby Gruz	Stay on platforms, drop down to hit, lift up. Babies can be killed for one extra hit, but it is faster to ignore them if you have decent soul generation.
Mantis Lords	Mantis Village, after the wall jump ability	5 to 6	Two or three rotating enemies that dash, slash, and combo	Defeat them one at a time. When one lord bows, that is the cue to land a hit before the next phase starts. Stay near the center, not near the walls, because they will corner you.
Broken Vessel	Greenpath, deeper section	5	Lunges and drops balls of infection from the ceiling	Stay mobile, avoid the infection pools on the ground, and hit it as it lands from a jump. Healing during the head slam is a reliable moment once the timing is learned.
Dung Defender	Royal Waterways, after Isma’s Tear	6 to 7	Rolls in dung, throws clumps, climbs walls	Use pogo strikes on the roll and stay near the corners. Dung pools damage you on contact, so keep moving. A spell-heavy build is effective here because the boss is large.
Soul Master	City of Tears, tower visible from the lift	6	Fires slow orbs, teleports, opens a phase with a ball of projectiles	Keep your distance during the orb phase and chase during the teleport phase. The Mage is one of the easier spell duels once you learn the telegraphs.
Watcher Knights	Watcher’s Spire, City of Tears upper level	7 to 8	Rolling knights that respawn until enough are killed	Position yourself so newly spawned knights roll off the ledge. Pogo bouncing on their heads is the most consistent damage. Use a healing build with Quick Slash and Fragile Strength.
Broken Vessel / Lost Kin (optional harder version)	Same arena, different journal entry	8+	Faster telegraphs, more infection pools	Only attempt this in a Strength run after you are comfortable with the regular version. The fight teaches aggressive dodging rather than defensive play.

This table is a planning aid, not a substitute for learning each fight. Bosses in this game have no scripted difficulty curve, only a hidden damage threshold, and your mileage will vary depending on charms. Two players with the same mask count can have very different run times, because charm synergy and the order in which you learned the inputs matter more than the loadout itself.

Charm build suggestions by progression phase

Charms are the closest thing the game has to a build system. The choice is not just about raw damage: some charms trade power for survivability, others for utility. A walkthrough benefits from a small set of focused loadouts rather than a single “best build,” because the best charm setup for a boss run is rarely the best setup for exploration. Below are three loadouts that cover most situations a first-time player will face, with a short note on when to switch.

Exploration loadout

Compass so you can see your position on the map.
Quick Focus to speed up healing at benches, which is mostly useful in longer zones where bench density is low.
Thorns of Agony, which triggers damage and a brief stagger when you take a hit, and helps mitigate a lot of contact damage from common enemies.

Switch out the compass for a Gathering Swarm or a different utility charm when you are backtracking through already-mapped areas, because the map value drops once the zone is fully explored.

Survivability loadout

Quick Slash to shorten fights.
Fragile Strength, upgraded to Unbreakable Strength if the geo is available.
Quick Focus for fast healing, paired with a Soul Catcher or Soul Eater charm to keep the meter topped up.

This is the default loadout for most boss attempts until you have a full charm collection. It is forgiving and works on every fight in the game, even if it is not always the fastest way to clear a particular boss.

Spell build

Shaman Stone for stronger spells.
Soul Catcher or Soul Eater to extend the cast count.
Spell Twister to reduce soul cost, useful against groups of weaker enemies and during the early City of Tears section.

Notch cost is the most common surprise. Each charm takes up a number of notches, and the player has a fixed notch pool that grows by collecting more charm slots. Mixing two powerful charms without enough notches is a frequent reason players feel weak even when their loadout looks correct on paper. The fix is usually to drop a utility charm for a notch-efficient one, not to chase more slots.

Geo economy: when to spend and when to hold

Geo is the soft currency, and a hollow knight walkthrough has to address it because the first mid-game wall usually shows up at a vendor rather than at a boss. The rule of thumb is simple: spend geo on map upgrades, then on masks and vessels, then on charms, and only then on relic items and consumables. A small reserve for bench upgrades in the City of Tears is worth keeping, because bench cost scales with the bench and players often arrive in a new area with less than they need.

Geo also has a soft cap in the early game, because the most expensive items in the first ten hours cost less than the amount you can carry after farming a single long run. Holding too much geo at once is therefore not as useful as spending it in the right order. A target of around 1000 to 1500 geo in reserve, plus whatever you can carry to the next vendor, is usually enough to cover the next meaningful purchase.

What to buy first

Map for any new area, always.
Quill, then compass, from Iselda.
Mask pieces and vessel fragments from any vendor that sells them, with a soft priority on mask pieces because every hit costs the same regardless of remaining health.

What to avoid early

Pre-upgrading fragile charms with the wrong amount of geo and then dying before you can retrieve them.
Buying consumables when you can use bench time and careful routing instead.
Skipping a boss fight in order to grind geo from an area that you have already out-leveled.

One more trap worth naming: leaving large amounts of geo on the ground after a death because the shade marker is in a hard room. The first instinct is to push forward, but a short detour to recover the shade is almost always cheaper than farming the geo back from scratch.

Optional areas and how to recognize them

Most optional content is signaled by a dead end that is not actually a dead end. If a wall looks slightly different from the surrounding rock, if a floor has one tile that looks softer, or if a high platform has a single breakable object above it, there is usually something on the other side. This is part of the design language of the game: the level is a system of hints, and the walkthrough is mostly about training the player to read those hints.

Optional areas also tend to escalate in difficulty the deeper you go, which is a useful signal in itself. If a corridor keeps getting harder without any obvious reward in sight, the next room is almost always a checkpoint, a mask piece, or a charm. The opposite is also true: if a long, empty-feeling room ends with a small platform and a single pickup, that pickup is usually better than it looks.

How optional areas help progression

They grant mask pieces and vessel fragments, which scale your survivability more than any charm.
They offer charm upgrades that change the math on specific boss fights.
They often contain lore tablets that explain the connection between zones, which helps when planning late-game routing.

For a fuller picture of how the development of Hollow Knight shaped the world design, the Wikipedia entry on the game covers the release history, the role of the Australian studio Team Cherry, and how the early Kickstarter scope compared to the final release. For a focused reader review that discusses the first hours of the game in the context of its release, the original IGN review of Hollow Knight still gives a useful snapshot of the intended difficulty curve and the parts of the design that aged well in the years after launch.

Common progression traps and how to avoid them

Most “the game is too hard” complaints come from one of three traps. A walkthrough that names them explicitly is more useful than a list of every boss, because each trap has a clear fix that the player can apply without any extra routing knowledge. The traps below are the ones that show up most often in new-player posts and the fixes that tend to work the first time.

Trap 1: going to the deepnest too early

Deepnest is dark, full of softlock-causing enemies, and gates a number of useful upgrades behind a single late fight. Going there at four masks with no dash is a quick way to lose hours of progress. The minimum recommended state before entering is five masks and the Mantis Claw, with the Monarch Wings or Crystal Heart preferred. The arena geometry in Deepnest also assumes you can see incoming threats, so a light source charm or a quick route to a nearby bench is more important than raw damage.

Trap 2: ignoring the royal waterways

The Waterways are not flashy, but they contain Isma’s Tear, several mask pieces, and a route to the City of Tears from a different angle. Skipping them is one of the most common reasons the mid-game feels stuck. The waterways are also a good place to practice pogo combat because the enemy layout is dense and the bench density is high, which keeps the cost of failure low.

Trap 3: spending geo on a lost bench

Bench upgrades are useful but not urgent. The same geo often buys a mask piece that prevents a future death. Treat the bench as a long-term project, not an immediate priority. If you are deciding between a bench upgrade and a mask piece with similar geo cost, the mask piece is almost always the better buy in the first 20 hours of the game.

Endings, the Hollow Knight, and the final fight

The game has multiple endings, and the steps required to reach them are not obvious from the main route. A serious hollow knight walkthrough must address the endings because the choice affects which late-game areas matter and which can be skipped. The endings and their requirements are listed in the table below, along with a short note on the routing implications of each one.

Ending	Steps required	Difficulty	Notes
The Hollow Knight	Defeat the three Dreamers to weaken the seal, then reach the Black Egg	Moderate, mostly a routing challenge	The default ending. Includes the final fight with the titular Hollow Knight and a brief cinematic.
Sealed Siblings	Same as above, then collect the void-related items and return to the egg	Moderate to high	Requires backtracking with the void powers unlocked in the Abyss. Often described as the “true” ending by the community, though the developers have been careful to avoid that framing.
Dream No More	Same prerequisites plus the Kingsoul amulet fully upgraded, then return to the birth place	High	Adds the White Palace traversal, which is one of the hardest platforming sections in the game.
Embrace the Void	Defeat the final boss while wearing specific void charms	High	Same requirements as Dream No More plus a charm loadout restriction. Only attempts in New Game+ or after a successful run.

The table is intentionally not exhaustive. Players chasing a specific ending should check the current version of the game for any new content, because post-release updates have added additional endings and refinements to existing ones. The choice of ending also affects which optional zones you should prioritize in the second half of the game, because the White Palace is only relevant for two of the four paths.

New Game+ and Steel Soul: what carries over and what resets

New Game+ keeps your charms, masks, and vessel fragments but resets vendors, geo, and most map unlocks. Steel Soul is a permadeath mode that resets the save on death, even at benches. Neither is required to see all endings, but both are worth understanding before starting a new file. A walkthrough that ignores them tends to leave first-time players surprised by how much of their progress is preserved, and how much is not.

What to do before starting a new file

Collect all charm slots you intend to use in the new run. Charms carry over, but missing slots do not.
Save a backup save file in a separate profile if you plan to use Steel Soul. A single accidental death ends the run, and there is no in-game warning before it is too late.
Note vendors that resell useful consumables. The new file resets inventory but not charm unlocks.

Steel Soul is also a useful way to force yourself to learn a cleaner route, because the cost of a death is the run itself. Many players who finish Steel Soul report that the second normal run feels much easier, not because the enemies are weaker, but because the routing decisions are already cached in muscle memory.

Accessibility and player-friendly options

The base game does not include difficulty settings in the traditional sense, but several recent updates have added features that affect how a walkthrough should be written. Assist modes, alternative inputs, and a handful of visual aids have all been added in patches. If you are using one of these, the routes in this walkthrough still apply, but boss timings and damage numbers may feel different than the community guides describe.

For players who want a less stressful first run, the most useful assistive features are usually the ones that adjust enemy aggression, since most of the difficulty in the game comes from long enemy contact zones rather than from individual boss damage numbers. That is also why a walkthrough like this emphasizes routing: a shorter path through an aggressive room is more impactful than a damage buff in most cases.

Players using keyboard on PC should also be aware that the default binding for the dash and the spell buttons can feel cramped on smaller keyboards, and rebinding those two inputs to a more reachable position is one of the highest-value accessibility changes a new player can make.

Player guide: putting it all together in 60 minutes

If a new player has only an hour and wants to feel like the game has clicked, this is the sequence that gives the best return on time. It assumes the Forgotten Crossroads have already been opened and that the bench network is mapped, and it is designed to hit the two mobility upgrades that change how the rest of the world feels.

Find Cornifer in the Fungal Wastes and buy the map. Skip the fight against the boss of the area for now.
Head into Greenpath, collect Vengeful Spirit, and beat the area boss.
Return through the City of Tears lift, locate the stag station, and unlock the second fast-travel route.
Push into the Mantis Village and learn the wall jump.
Use the wall jump to reach the Mantis Lords and take the Mantis Claw charm.
Backtrack to the City of Tears and explore at least one of the upper buildings with the wall jump unlocked.

By the end of that loop, the player will have seen four bosses, two movement upgrades, and two new maps. The world will feel more open and the difficulty curve will be noticeably easier than the first hour, because most of the early-game “where do I go next” pressure is gone. The same loop, repeated once with the Crystal Heart, will unlock roughly two thirds of the game’s content without any further routing decisions.

Frequently asked questions

How long does a hollow knight walkthrough take?

A first run focused on the main story typically takes 25 to 35 hours for a player who is comfortable with 2D platformers. Completionist runs, including all charms, all endings, and Steel Soul, push that number well past 60 hours. The variance is mostly due to optional content rather than the main route, which is shorter than it feels because so much of the time is spent backtracking through the same areas.

Do I need the dash ability to finish the game?

Yes. The Mothwing Cloak dash is required for the main route and for almost all optional content. The Crystal Heart is not strictly required for the default ending, but it opens so many useful routes that most players treat it as essential anyway. There are also a handful of rooms that are technically reachable without the dash, but the routing cost is so high that they are usually treated as dash-locked in community guides.

What is the best early charm for a new player?

Thorns of Agony is the strongest first charm for players who are still learning enemy patterns. It triggers a damage burst whenever you take a hit, which interrupts most enemy combos and prevents a lot of one-shot deaths in the early zones. Quick Focus is a close second for players who prefer a slower, more defensive playstyle.

Should I follow a fixed route or explore freely?

Follow a default route through the first two areas to get the dash and the wall jump, then explore freely. The game is designed so that once you have those two abilities, almost any direction you go has something useful. A rigid step-by-step hollow knight walkthrough usually underperforms a flexible route that adapts to the player, because the optional content is dense enough that a fixed path can actually skip useful pickups.

How do I recognize when an area is too hard for my current gear?

If you are dying to regular enemies in three hits or less and the bench is far away, the area is probably too hard. The clearest signal is enemies that one-shot you from full health with the same mask count you used to clear a previous zone. Backtrack, pick up one or two more mask pieces, and return. A short detour to farm geo and buy a mask piece is almost always faster than grinding the same room on a low mask count.

What is the difference between the dreamers and the dream bosses?

The three dreamers are mid-game characters you must defeat to weaken the seal. The dream bosses are harder versions of the same characters that you can fight in a separate late-game ritual. The walkthrough treats them as different content because the difficulty, rewards, and routing implications are not the same, and a new player who tries to fight a dream boss without the right charm upgrades is likely to burn through a dozen attempts before realizing the prerequisites are not optional.

Is the game harder on PC or console?

The core experience is identical. PC players have a wider range of input options, while console players get a tighter default mapping. Players using a Steam Deck or similar handheld should expect slightly longer runs because of the smaller screen, which makes some of the late-game platforming sections harder to read. The platform difference also affects how useful controller-friendly charms like Quick Slash feel, because the input latency is generally lower on a wired controller than on a wireless handheld.

What should I do after finishing the main story?

Start a new file on Steel Soul if you want a long-term challenge, or use the new file plus to clean up the remaining endings and charms. The charm completion percentage is a useful long-term goal because it pushes the player into areas they probably skipped during the first run. Chasing the last few percent of completion is also a good way to find the optional bosses that are not part of the main route at all.

Are the bosses the same on every save file?

The boss layouts, attack patterns, and rewards are the same on every save file. The Hollow Knight, however, scales slightly with your mask count, so a well-prepared player will see longer fights than a player who rushed the route. Save files on the same patch version share the same enemy behavior, so any walkthrough that works on one file works on the next. Cross-save between platforms is supported, but only for cloud saves, and not for Steel Soul runs.