Hollow Knight walkthrough: a complete progression guide for Hallownest

Hollow Knight walkthrough: how to plan a clean first run through Hallownest

Hallownest is a connected world rather than a stack of separate stages, so the most useful hollow knight walkthrough is one that turns a sprawling map into a sequence of decisions. Before chasing every hidden nook, decide what kind of run you want: a relaxed first playthrough that follows the story, a completionist hunt for charms and mask shards, or a Steel Soul attempt where every death resets the save. Each path uses the same checkpoints and abilities, but they differ in when you should detour and when you should push forward.

A solid plan also saves real time. The map of Hallownest opens gradually, and the fastest route to a new ability usually passes through areas you have already cleared. Treat the sections below as a progression ladder rather than a checklist of side rooms. You can return to older zones later to mop up items once you have the movement skills that open shortcuts, and you can use an external reference such as the official IGN Hollow Knight walkthrough hub alongside this guide when you want a second opinion on a specific boss or collectible.

Early game priorities: Forgotten Crossroads, Greenpath, and Fungal Wastes

The opening hours set the pace for the entire run. Focus on three goals: learn the combat rhythm, unlock the first movement ability, and extend your mask and soul capacity just enough that mistakes stop being lethal. Anything that does not serve those goals can wait.

Forgotten Crossroads as a tutorial in disguise

Forgotten Crossroads is where the game teaches the core loop: attack, focus, heal, retreat, and observe enemy tells. The vertical layout also prepares you for the layered maps of Greenpath and beyond. As you descend, note the stag stations, the benches, and the hot springs that restore masks without costing geo.

• Buy the early map from Cornifer in each area; the small fee pays for itself by preventing backtracking.
• Salvage every mask shard you can reach safely, even if it means backtracking later, because mask upgrades are permanent and carry into Steel Soul.
• Avoid combat in Deepnest and the Colosseum until you have at least one extra mask container and a comfortable charm loadout.
• Mark grubs, whisperpering roots, and hidden walls on the map as you find them so future runs do not require a full search.

Greenpath and the dash ability

Greenpath introduces ranged enemies, spore clouds, and platforming over water. The midpoint reward is a movement ability that changes every future section, so push toward it before exploring side branches. Once the dash is unlocked, traversal becomes faster, and several optional bosses become reachable with far less risk.

Fungal Wastes as the first real test

Fungal Wastes feels like a difficulty spike because the enemies hit harder and the mushrooms restrict your view. Use the wide vertical rooms to pull single enemies, learn the wall-jump timing on the mushroom platforms, and save the Colosseum for later. The Mantis Claw area, accessible from here, is the first true skill check for many players.

Mid game route: City of Tears, Deepnest, and the Royal Waterways

By the mid game you have most of the basic abilities, and the order you tackle the mid-game areas has real consequences. The recommended order keeps the difficulty curve smooth and unlocks the charms that make late-game combat manageable.

City of Tears and the elegant key

City of Tears is the most navigable mid-game area, and the elegant key is the main reason to push through. Take time to map the vertical city, learn the bench and stag network, and unlock the upgrade that lets you carry more soul. The elegant key opens the City Storerooms, a structural reward that pays off in geo and lore.

Deepnest without panicking

Deepnest is dark, mazelike, and designed to disorient even experienced players. Two habits make the difference: keep a marker on every ladder and bench you find, and listen for the crawling audio cues that hint at hidden rooms. Skip the optional platforming challenges in the dark until you have a stable light source charm or until you are ready to accept repeated deaths.

Royal Waterways and the Isma’s tear

The waterways are short but punishing if you rush them. Take the slow path, clear one room at a time, and use Isma’s tear to unlock the acid-swim sections in nearby areas once it is in hand. Many of the late-game collectibles depend on this ability, so do not skip it.

Late game: Crystal Peak, Kingdom’s Edge, and the Abyss

The late game is where a hollow knight walkthrough starts to resemble a metroidvania strategy document rather than a route. The order below keeps the hardest encounters late and stacks abilities in a way that the developers tuned intentionally.

Crystal Peak and the crystal heart

Crystal Peak is the most vertical late-game area and rewards players who have already trained their wall-jump and super-dash reflexes. The reward is the ability to fly through mid-air, which opens new paths back through earlier zones. Plan a brief return trip to City of Tears and Deepnest after this ability to clean up the collectibles that were previously out of reach.

Kingdom’s Edge and the monarch wings

Kingdom’s Edge is a gauntlet of platforming and boss fights, ending in the monarch wings that let you double jump. The aerial mobility upgrade pays off immediately in the Colosseum, the Pantheons, and most of the traversal puzzles in the Abyss. Take breaks between bosses; the area is dense and mistakes compound quickly.

The Abyss as a late story beat

The Abyss is short but intense. It mixes tight platforming with emotionally heavy story beats, and several optional endings branch from the choices you make here. The shadow dash ability unlocked here is required for the final boss and for some of the trickier charm and mask shard pickups scattered across the map.

Combat basics that apply to every area

Combat in Hallownest is simple on paper and demanding in practice. Three habits are worth building early because they transfer to every boss and every zone.

• Heal only when an enemy is mid-recovery or in a clear window, because focus healing is interrupted by any hit.
• Cycle your nail upgrade as soon as the geo allows, since damage scales faster than the cost once you reach mid game.
• Swap charm loadouts by encounter rather than by preference, and test the offensive charms in a safe room before relying on them in a boss fight.

Charm loadouts by situation

Charm loadouts are where hollow knight walkthrough advice usually becomes opinion, but a few patterns are broadly useful. The table below groups charms by what they help with, not by slot order, so you can adapt the loadout to the encounter.

Spells, soul economy, and healing

Spells are your only ranged option for most of the run, and they share a single soul pool with your focus heal. The most common mistake is spending soul on a spell when a single nail swing would finish the enemy. Reserve spells for groups, armored enemies, or moments when a short teleport or burst is the only safe option. Quick Focus is the single biggest comfort upgrade because it cuts the heal animation roughly in half; pair it with Shape of Unn while standing still for a low-cost panic window.

Boss preparation: how to read a boss room

Each boss telegraphs a phase change through a visual cue, a new attack pattern, or a brief lull. Entering the room with a plan for the first phase and a fallback for the second halves the learning time. Most deaths happen because players try to heal during a phase transition rather than during the recovery animation.

Practice loop that works in any fight

1. Watch the boss perform its pattern once, without attacking, to identify the safest heal window.
2. Engage with single nail swings, retreating immediately to confirm the recovery timing.
3. Add a spell only after the melee rhythm is consistent, because spells lengthen your recovery and eat soul.
4. Reset the fight on purpose once you reach a clear plateau, and try a different charm or spell to see if it improves the pace.

Common boss patterns and the response

Collectibles, upgrades, and how to prioritize them

Collectibles split into three groups: combat upgrades, traversal upgrades, and pure completion. Combat upgrades are useful from the moment you find them, traversal upgrades open new paths through old areas, and pure completion items are best left until the late game so you do not waste time on a half-completed search.

Combat collectibles

Mask shards, vessel fragments, and charm notches are the three combat upgrades that affect every fight. Mask shards raise the total number of hits you can take, vessel fragments raise your soul pool, and charm notches let you equip more charms at once. Each one is a permanent improvement that carries into Steel Soul and any future save file, so prioritize them whenever they are on the critical path.

Traversal collectibles

Traversal upgrades are the dash, wall-jump, super dash, crystal heart, monarch wings, isma’s tear, and shadow dash. They double as progression gates, so the game hands them to you as you clear story beats. The practical tip is to return to earlier areas after each upgrade, because the map is designed to reward that second pass.

Completion collectibles

Grubs, whisperpering roots, seer rewards, and charm slots from NPC quests fall into the completion bucket. They do not change combat meaningfully on their own, but they unlock rewards, including pale ore, that let you upgrade the nail and complete the game’s content. A hollow knight walkthrough that ignores them ends with a save file that cannot access the Colosseum’s final waves or the highest-tier charm upgrades.

Optional content that is worth the detour

Not every optional area is worth a first run, but a few are worth the time even on a relaxed playthrough because they unlock charms and rewards that are not available anywhere else.

• The Colosseum of Fools, which rewards the mark of pride charm and the upgraded nail art for serious damage upgrades.
• The Grimm Troupe DLC content, if you own it, because the Grimmchild charm scales with the rest of your build and offers a different combat rhythm.
• The Godmaster content, which adds the Pantheons and the final binding style, but only if you already enjoy boss rushes.
• The Hive, which is short and rewards a useful charm for players who want an extra damage window in the air.
• The Royal Gardens and the hidden path back to the Abyss, which contain a fast travel point that saves minutes on any subsequent run.

Steel Soul and challenge runs: how to reuse this walkthrough

A hollow knight walkthrough for a permadeath run looks the same on the surface and very different in execution. The route is unchanged, but the timing is tighter because every mistake is permanent. Use the same progression ladder, but treat the early game as a speed run, since the more abilities you have, the safer each new area becomes. Save the Colosseum and the toughest optional bosses for after you have the dash, the wall-jump, and the monarch wings, because those abilities trivialize the platforming sections of those fights.

If you want to make the run harder still, layer self-imposed rules such as no charms, no maps, or no healing items. Each rule makes a different part of the game harder, and pairing one with a Steel Soul attempt is the most common way experienced players refresh the run.

Common mistakes that hold a run back

Most stalled runs share the same handful of avoidable mistakes. Spotting them early keeps the progression clean.

• Exploring too deeply before unlocking the dash, which leaves half-finished searches that interrupt the pacing of the late game.
• Ignoring the nail upgrade because the cost feels steep, even though the damage difference becomes obvious in the next boss.
• Hoarding soul for a “big spell” that never lands, instead of using small spells to control space and heal through the window.
• Saving the Colosseum for “later” indefinitely, which means the mark of pride charm is never equipped for the fights that would benefit from it most.
• Forgetting to upgrade charms, because the notch cost of the late-game builds is brutal without the charm notches from earlier areas.

Build planning by player style

Different players want different things from a build. Use the table below to pick a starting direction, then adjust charms one slot at a time so you can feel the effect of each change.

Closing the loop: endings, replays, and what to do next

Once the main story is finished, hollow knight walkthrough advice usually splits into two directions: mop up the collectibles, or restart for a sharper run. The mop-up path uses the late-game abilities to revisit every area in a clean sweep, and the restart path uses the same progression order to chase a faster time or a Steel Soul clear. Both are valid, and the choice usually comes down to whether you enjoy the moment-to-moment combat or the satisfaction of an efficient route.

If you want to extend the experience beyond Hallownest, look at game development analyses of metroidvania progression, since the way this game layers its abilities is a useful reference for anyone designing similar systems. Resources like a game outsourcing guide for studios also explain how production teams approach metroidvania scope, which can help you understand the design choices behind areas such as Deepnest and Kingdom’s Edge. If you enjoy the collectible-driven loop, the chapter structure of RDR2 shows how a different genre handles the same problem of pacing large, open worlds around story beats.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best order to explore areas in a first playthrough?

Forgotten Crossroads, Greenpath, Fungal Wastes, City of Tears, Royal Waterways, then the late-game trio of Crystal Peak, Kingdom’s Edge, and the Abyss works well because it stacks the hardest platforming and combat late and unlocks abilities in the order the game tuned for. Optional areas like Deepnest, the Hive, and the Colosseum can be slotted in once the dash and the wall-jump are available.

How do I get the dash early without skipping content?

Push through Greenpath until the movement ability is unlocked, then return to Forgotten Crossroads to clean up the side rooms that the new ability opens. The dash also makes a few mask shards and charm notches in Fungal Wastes much easier to reach, so a brief backtrack after the ability is unlocked is part of the intended route rather than a deviation.

When should I do the Colosseum of Fools?

After the monarch wings are unlocked, because the aerial mobility makes the later waves far more manageable. The mark of pride charm reward is a significant damage and reach upgrade, so plan a full charm set around it before the attempt.

Is it worth saving the Grimm Troupe or Godmaster content for later?

Yes, if you own the DLC, the late game is the natural time to tackle them because the charm and ability loadouts make the toughest fights feel like a fitting capstone rather than a difficulty spike in the middle of the story.

How do I handle Steel Soul runs without losing the save to a single mistake?

Use the same progression order as a normal run, treat early fights as training, and avoid the Colosseum, Deepnest, and any boss that punishes repeated mistakes until the late-game abilities are unlocked. Keep the bench and stag network mapped as quickly as possible so a panic run to safety is always one screen away.

What is the fastest way to upgrade the nail?

Prioritize the pale ore drops from the seer rewards, the grubs, and the optional bosses, since each upgrade costs both geo and a rare material. The damage difference becomes obvious after the second upgrade, so the cost is rarely wasted even on a relaxed run.

How many masks and vessels should I aim for before the late game?

Most players find the late game comfortable with the maximum mask count and at least the third vessel container. Lower counts are workable if your charm build compensates with healing and survival charms, but the safety margin becomes much thinner.

Can I finish the game without a specific charm?

Yes, all progression-defining upgrades are abilities, not charms. Charms are build-shaping rather than gating, so a first playthrough is fully completable with a small charm set, even though more charms make individual fights easier.

Where do I find the hidden wall sections?

Most are revealed by attacking suspicious walls with the nail until they crack, or by listening for the audio cue in areas such as Deepnest. The map also marks them once you have the appropriate upgrade, which is one of the strongest reasons to buy the maps from Cornifer as soon as you meet him.

What should I do after the main ending?

Decide between the mop-up path, which uses the late-game abilities to revisit every area for missing collectibles, and the restart path, which uses the same progression order to chase a faster time or a Steel Soul clear. Both are designed into the game, and each one makes the other more satisfying on a future run.