Hollow Knight is a metroidvania action-adventure game developed by Team Cherry, released in 2017. Players explore Hallownest — a vast underground kingdom of fallen insects — in a hand-drawn world of exceptional beauty and punishing depth that became one of the defining indie games of its generation.
Hollow Knight is a metroidvania action-adventure game developed and published by Team Cherry, a three-person studio based in Adelaide, Australia, released in February 2017. Players control a nameless insect knight descending into Hallownest, a sprawling underground kingdom whose civilisation has been destroyed by a mysterious infection.
The game blends precise 2D combat with deep exploration across a vast, interconnected world. Players acquire new movement abilities — dash, wall-climb, wings — that unlock previously inaccessible areas, layering discovery across dozens of hours. The nail-and-soul combat system rewards aggression: striking enemies refills a magic meter used for healing and spells. Death drops the player's Geo currency at the point of death, to be recovered or lost permanently — a risk system that gives every encounter weight.
Hallownest is one of gaming's great invented worlds — a civilisation of insects with its own history, religion, and tragedy, communicated almost entirely through environmental storytelling and brief NPC interactions. The hand-drawn art style, muted colour palette, and Christopher Larkin's melancholic score created an atmosphere of lonely grandeur rarely matched in games at any budget level.
Hollow Knight is ranked #34 on Rolling Stone's 2025 list of the 50 Greatest Video Games of All Time. Developed on a Kickstarter budget and sold for a fraction of AAA prices, it became one of the most celebrated indie games ever made and set a new benchmark for the metroidvania genre.