Hollow Knight Is Ripe For a Roguelike Spin-off

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home January 15, 2025 46 Views 5 Min Read
Hollow Knight Is Ripe For a Roguelike Spin-off



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For the time being, the Hollow Knight community is still engaged in the long wait for Hollow Knight: Silksong, though it isn’t idle. Between the various spiritual successors to Hollow Knight that have come out in the past few years and the variety of fan-made mods released for the original game, everyone still itching to play Hollow Knight has had something to fill their time. It helps that Hollow Knight already had an impressively large amount of content for an indie metroidvania, giving Team Cherry both room to breathe and a reason to keep its next game in the oven.

Still, the news-starved fandom is eager to welcome any distractions that cross over with their interests, and another one may be just around the corner. Elden Ring Nightreign is taking the tried and true Soulslike gameplay that partially inspired Hollow Knight and refitting it into a co-op roguelike format. It’s a bold move, even for the smallest-scale game FromSoftware has put out in a while. Should the Hollow Knight IP continue after Silksong is out, it will probably want to scale back similarly, and taking up the roguelike banner as well could be just the ticket.

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Hollow Knight: Silksong’s Light RPG Elements Explained

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Hollow Knight Would Make The Jump To A Roguelike Gracefully

On the surface, the roguelike template sounds like it fits Hollow Knight just as well as, if not better than, Elden Ring. A brutally hard game with equal emphasis on action and platforming naturally lends itself to the run-based structure of a roguelike. Mods have even demonstrated that Hollow Knight can support multiplayer about as well as 3D Soulslikes can, so it could fully recreate the Nightreign template. The greatest advantage of making this Hollow Knight roguelike would be its chance to retread old ground in terms of reused assets, mechanics, and structure from other games like it, such as Nightreign and Remnant 2.

Doing so would keep the scope and development time down compared to the two regular Hollow Knight games and carry their strengths into this roguelike. Not everything can stay the same, however, as gameplay emphasis would likely have to be shifted from exploration to combat. Hollow Knight: Silksong may have a more offensive emphasis already, but more combat rooms with elaborate environments like the Colosseum of Fools’ arenas would be necessary to keep the shifting areas interesting. Platforming would still be present, but depending on how areas are generated, players may rue or rejoice in a run resulting in a mobility-based loadout.

Traits That Could Only Improve A Hollow Knight Roguelike

Speaking of equipment, Charms are one of the biggest reasons why Hollow Knight is so specifically suited to the roguelike format. Build variety and discovering synergies are strengths that Hollow Knight shares with many roguelikes, including heavy hitters like The Binding of Isaac and Hades. Silksong swapping them out for Tools just makes for another vector by which a run can be customized, especially if the Knight and Hornet are both playable in this roguelike. Replay value should be through the roof, and a lot of old Charms and the like can be revisited with balance changes and new variants.

Hollow Knight’s World Is Roguelike-Friendly

Whether the player ends up playing as the old protagonist or a new one, a Hollow Knight roguelike needs to lean on its existing setting. The visual of jumping into Hallownest after preparing in the hub town of Dartmouth is perfect for a roguelike, and Silksong may produce a similar setup for climbing Pharloom. Regardless of whether this roguelike takes place in a known location, or involves delving into the depths of the Abyss or a dream similar to Godhome, it needs to include plenty of familiar enemies and backdrops alongside whatever new ideas Team Cherry throws in for the ultimate Hollow Knight experience.

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