How Hollow Knight handles it's open world direction

[Kero Kero]

So I have a question.
I've watched 1 friend play Hollow Knight, and she beat it, aaand I'm super proud of her but she pretty much had to have a guide helping her the whole time.

Now another friend of mine is picking it back up after leaving it for a while and I'M the guide helping out because I'm playing through it myself. and I'm not one of those people who doesn't like to look things up for fear of spoilers, I don't care about spoilers, Life is too short. Anyway !

Often times we'll get into the topic of this game VS Metroid which is one of my friend's favorite games and how both handle direction. That being how Hollow Knight kiiinda has none.

But I'm curios to know what other players think , does not having a solid direction pointed out for you make the game harder ?
Better ?
Is it all just preferential ?
Is it just the style of modern Metroidvanias in action ?

Or is getting lost with no sense of what to do or where to go a design flaw of an otherwise excellent game ?

Feel free to discuss.

[Martini]

well, they hide content in almost every direction after hornet. So I say getting a bit lost is rewarding. Now that they've implemented map markers, people without perfect memory can slap them down at places of interest.

[Koval]

It's only mine opinion, but playing this game with any kind of guide ruins experience or at least cut it in half. Maybe it's ok when you beat final boss and don't have clue where to find something else.

[Lydian ♭7]

Idk how fair it is to say Hollow Knight has "no direction", at least in the first third of the game.

I'd say that, just before City of Tears, that's where the game stops giving you clear directions. Before that you only have one critical path you can follow, with a strict sequence of powerups and bosses.

In proportion, you get about the same guidance as the beginning of Super Metroid: you're locked in an area, wander around and find a clear obstacle that requires a powerup you don't have, wander around some more until you find that powerup, go back and clear that obstacle to go to the next area.

The difference is that Hollow Knight's world and individual zones are much bigger, so I guess you can kind of feel lost even when you have a very limited space to move in.
Maybe it's because we're not used to worlds of this size. Like, a friend of mine asked if they were about 10% done when they got out of Forgotten Crossroads.

-----

As for the rest of the game, yes, I guess you can "get lost" in a new area, but it's worth it if you get out of this area with a new powerup.
For me, knowing I'll get a new powerup (which in turn will open up more secrets and areas) is what gives me the determination to power through a new tough area.
And this is something I think Hollow Knight does really well.

...except in one specific moment you can run in too early by accident.
When you get the Mantis Claw, you're closer to the Mantis Lords than you are to the bridge to City of Tears. You're likely to fight the Mantis Lords and go into Deepnest, where you can get trapped.
From there, there's almost nothing you can do with your current equipment, no chance to get new powerups.
You can only get back to Resting Grounds by going the long way around the world, through 3 really tough end-game areas, without making any progress in terms of powerups. This type of getting lost I find really discouraging, and nearly made me give up. But I guess it might have its merits, like making you realize just how big the world is.

But aside from this, I think Hollow Knight hits about the right spot: any powerup can open up more than one new area, so there's always the feeling of progress, even when the ultimate goals aren't clear yet.

[Martini]

you can achieve 70-80% completion without any guides whatsoever. the rest is for dem shiny achievemnets and the joy of exploring

[🉑 rezno[R].technology]

It's a design decision by Team Cherry.
It's preferential.

Store Page description:

Originally posted by Team Cherry:

Forge your own path! The world of Hallownest is expansive and open. Choose which paths you take, which enemies you face and find your own way forward.

[5thbrother]

For me getting lost was probably best part of the game, HK have such a beautiful world design, getting lost mean you will spend even more hours in it, and for me thats amazing.
To be honest i wasnt even exited about beating last boss, all i wanted from game was to stay in this world for more hours.

Same feeling makes me love Dark Souls 1, nobody tells you what to do and how to do it, just take weapon you find, and discover whole world by yourself.

Best game design ever, after DS1 and HK i have problem playing any linear shooter, and i was FPS guy for like 10 years.

HK is a masterpiece.

[Funchucks]

I enjoyed the exploration and discovery aspect tremendously. I only started looking at guides when I got stuck for hours, and even then, I tried to avoid spoilers as much as possible. I didn't really look stuff up heavily until the endgame.

I found Hollow Knight did offer a lot of direction. It starts out linear (or with only short branches), and then you start meeting people and finding signs. You get the map, and then that's a guide to some interesting places to check. If you go outside the map area, and you haven't explored everything in the map, that's a hint to go back and finish the area. If you have done enough in the old area, then you know to go searching for stuff like the map guy and a bench in the new one.

If you just follow a walkthrough from the beginning, you might not notice how much help the game gives you to find your way to something interesting, but it's there.

[Kero Kero]

Originally posted by Koval:

It's only mine opinion, but playing this game with any kind of guide ruins experience or at least cut it in half. Maybe it's ok when you beat final boss and don't have clue where to find something else.

That's valid but some people just don't like wandering around white no idea where to go or what to do to progress.

[Phirestar]

For me, the loose nature of Hollow Knight’s world design is the best part of the experience. I love exploration in games - it’s my favorite aspect - and there’s nothing that ruins the immersion of discovery (to me) more than when a game tries to push you in the intended direction. It’s the reason why I found Ori and the Blind Forest to be a disappointing experience: the level design is very tightly-controlled, and the game constantly puts cutscenes and objective markers in your face to say, “Go this way!” “It’s this direction!”

I know there’s people out there that don’t like to feel lost, for one reason or another, and they’re completely in the right to feel that way. But this game is designed to encourage & reward you for getting lost. There are so many secrets tucked away all over the place, and regardless of which direction you go, you’re guaranteed to find something to see or do. Speaking from my own experience, I’ve played Hollow Knight for hundreds of hours over the last 3 years, and still to this day there are some minor secrets I’m only now finding.

I have beaten the game to full completion without ever using a single guide, so I can assure you that it isn’t flawed in that area. The game is structured so that you can complete as much or as little of it as you want; it is determined by how much you want to play. The developers have even said that they don’t mind that some people will never see all the game’s content, because it makes it feel more special for those that do. And that’s a great mindset in my opinion - one that not many developers have.

[Phirestar]

It’s also important to mention that only a small portion of the content in this game is required, even to reach the third ending (the one that many people consider the “true” ending). I’d say that at least 60-70% of Hollow Knight is optional content, meaning that you’re missing out on quite a lot of stuff by focusing on finishing the game.

By not guiding the player down the correct path, this actually works to the game’s favor, because it means you’re more likely to find (and complete) that optional content.

Even the basic ending only technically requires 4 boss encounters, out of the 47 total that’re in the game. (Though this does require knowledge of certain skips. Playing the game normally, it’ll probably be around 9 boss encounters, which is still a pretty small number regardless.)

[arceus03]

I didn't quite like the loose design at first. I think I spent about 2 hours on my first playthrough in the Forgotten Crossroads, trying to figure out what to do. Later, I just accepted the fact that the game isn't going to explicitly tell you where and what next, so I just explored and sometimes referred to guides to get a loose idwa of where I should go next. Then, having finished it and starting the game again for other achievements, I started appreciating the nonlinear design more, because by then I already had a rough idea of what I could do and I could play it a bit more freely. It wasn't that bit of a deal to me, I guess, but I could understand some people not liking the game style.

[izyz]

during the first play through yeah you will feel crazy hard.
even after beating the game (using guide), on the second play through i still get lost quite a bit but have a bigger picture of how the game goes.
all in all i would say the non linearity kinda balance of with its replayability.

[Whiskra]

Game gives you a map. Game gives you markers that point out important stuff like benches and stag stations on said map. Game gives you markes you can place yourself on said map so you can remember important stuff or obstacles you come across. I for one find it hard to get lost in this game. I distinctly remember from my first playthrough being fascinated by how the world was connected, which parts of the areas connected to where. There is no real way to get lost, because every road will take you somewhere. I'm not sure where the mentality that you always have to have the goal in sight whenever you take a journey comes from. The game is not so hard that you can't figure stuff out yourself, so why not let the game do so? Why not make your journey through the game a natural one rather than resorting to guides just to get it over with?

[TonyK]

Originally posted by Keero Kamiya:

But I'm curios to know what other players think , does not having a solid direction pointed out for you make the game harder ?
Better ?

Better. I wanna explore everything anyway. Having a big open world is very important for Metroidvania games and all my favorites have these feature. To name a few: La-Mulana, Rain World, Salt and Sanctuary.

[Xavr0k]

Hollow Knight's very open style of exploration is what I wish all Metroidvanias would do. By taking a very non-linear approach you end up much less likely to get stuck and frustrated because progression isn't limited to finding that one place in the game that an ability has unlocked. There are usually a bunch of paths you can take to allow you to move forward and multiple ways to end up in a new zone.

A game like Axiom Verge on the other hand tends to have a very linear path of progression. Each zone may have different ways to get around, but you will need to find that one place where a new ability can be used to unlock the next zone. If you don't play it in a long session you will forget where these places are and spend far too long running around frustrated with no idea how to progress.

We really need more non-linear Metroidvanias.