Tips & Tricks

Essential Tips and Tricks for New Players

Hollow Knight is a challenging yet rewarding experience, and a few key tips can sificantly ease your entry into the vast world of Hallownest. This guide offers practical advice for new players, covering exploration, combat, resource management, and general survival strategies to help you navigate the early game and beyond.

1. Explore Thoroughly: Hallownest is packed with secrets. Don't rush through areas. Check every corner, hit suspicious walls, and backtrack often. Many crucial items, upgrades, and lore pieces are hidden away.

2. Listen for Cornifer: Cornifer the Cartographer sells maps of each area. Listen for his humming to locate him. Buying maps early is vital for navigation and preventing getting lost.

3. Utilize Benches: Benches are your save points. Resting at a bench respawns most enemies and refills your health. Use them strategically, especially before challenging areas or bosses.

4. Master SOUL Management: SOUL is your resource for healing and spells. Damage enemies to gain SOUL, and use it wisely. Prioritize healing when low on health, but don't neglect powerful spells for dealing with tough enemies.

5. Combat Fundamentals: Learn enemy attack patterns. Most enemies have predictable movements. Use your Nail for consistent damage, and spells for burst damage or ranged attacks. Don't be afraid to retreat and heal.

6. Charm System: Charms offer sificant buffs. Experiment with different combinations at benches to find what suits your playstyle and the current challenge. Early game charms like Grubsong and Longnail are very useful.

7. Geo is King: Geo is your currency. Collect it diligently by defeating enemies and finding caches. It's needed for maps, charms, upgrades, and more.

8. Don't Fear Death: Dying is part of the learning process. When you die, your Shade (a ghost) appears at your death location, holding your Geo. You must defeat it to reclaim your lost currency. If you die again before reclaiming it, the Geo is lost forever.

9. Upgrade Your Nail: The Nail is your primary weapon. Seek out Pale Ore to upgrade it at the Forge Daughter's shop in Deep Dock. A stronger Nail makes combat sificantly easier.

10. Pay Attention to Lore: The story of Hallownest is told subtly. Read tablets, listen to NPCs, and observe the environment to piece together the narrative.