Capturing the Beauty of Hallownest (Hollow Knight)

Hollow Knight is one of my favourite indie games of all time. I like a lot of things about the game, the rich lore, intense boss fights, amazing music, detailed world and of course beautiful hand drawn 2d art with some nice particle effects.

Today, I am here to showcase this beautiful world to you. I had to install a couple of mods to hide HUD elements (and in some cases, the knight) to take these shots. You can check this helpful guide by fireb0rn on YouTube.

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The world of Hollow Knight is melancholic; you explore this long-lost kingdom of Hallownest and find a lot of things that indicate that something very tragic happened here. The music gives out the exact feeling as well. You will find carcasses of bugs lying on the floor in almost every part of the kingdom.

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The above one is a warrior known as Galien who doesn't realise that it died and we had to fight its dream variant in the game.

The arena is quite beautiful with glowing white mushroom-like things growing out everywhere, lighting this dark place called Deepnest.

One of the mysterious things in the game is the Lifeblood, a mysterious bulbous growth that gives you temporary health upgrades. The lore on these things is unclear, and no one knows the true source of their power. The community is expecting to uncover its mysteries in the upcoming Silksong game.

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For the next shot, I zoomed out the camera, giving me this shot of the distant village in the deepest. You enter the weaver's den to defeat a dreamer, which is a must to get any ending to the game.

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A popular location in the game is the City of Tears. This city was the heart of the Hallownest, but now it is a wasteland with multiple bugs whose minds are overtaken by the corruption. This area invokes the saddest feelings for me, especially the constant falling rain from the top with a beautiful soundtrack.

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Very few games have the power to invoke such a feeling from their presentation.

This will be a big spoiler, so keep that in mind. When the power of Radiance (the corrupting entity in the game) was spreading, the Pale king (ruler of the Hallownest) decided to use a mysterious substance called the Void and made a pure vessel to contain that Radiance within, this was proved successful initially and the people of Hallownest built this memorial for the Hollow Knight.

I always loved this location, and this time I took a shot for my wallpaper.

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There are a lot of benches in the game, and most of them are the same, but some like the following in the Greenpath, blend well with the overall aesthetics of this area. One more thing you can do with this mod is remove the background blur and some areas look even better with this.

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There are a lot of NPCs that you fell in love with, but the sad part is you can't save all of them. Some even give you direct choices to kill them, one example is the Nailsmith, who wants you to strike him with the pure nail once his job is finished. While some others, like this bug called Cloth, die fighting with you in a boss fight.

I captured both of them with their carcasses in this shot.

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Team Cherry was able to create such a beautiful game with so much character and charm. Every room is recognizable, and you can tell from the surroundings which part of the map it comes from. There is a lot of hidden info and signs that tell more about this lost kingdom.

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One of my favorite places in the game is the Abyss which is a spooky region and birthplace of us and all the other vessels that were created to fight against the Radiance. One some were able to escape from this region including the player character and the main boss, Hollow Knight. This is the place where the powers of void were used as well. You can find lakes of this mysterious source of power and many carcasses.

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There are lot more locations and rooms that I want to take pictures of with this mod. I am using these shots are my wallpaper and I am very pleased with the results. Let me know which one is your favorite shot or place from the game?

Until next shot...