Hollow Knight: The Roguelike Adventure Awaits

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At present, enthusiasts of the Hollow Knight series are keeping busy while they eagerly anticipate the release of Hollow Knight: Silksong. While waiting, they’ve been entertained by several games that pay tribute to Hollow Knight and a multitude of custom mods for the original game. The extensive content in Hollow Knight, even for an indie metroidvania, has given Team Cherry the time needed to develop their next installment, ensuring it’s cooked to perfection.

Despite the lack of recent news, enthusiasts are always ready for anything related to their passions, and another possibility might be on the horizon. The game Elden Ring Nightreign is revamping the tried-and-true Soulslike gameplay that has a connection with Hollow Knight into a cooperative roguelike style. This is quite daring, even for a smaller project from FromSoftware in recent times. If the Hollow Knight franchise continues after Silksong has been released, it may follow suit by scaling back in a similar manner, and adopting the roguelike genre could be exactly what it needs.

Hollow Knight Would Make The Jump To A Roguelike Gracefully

At first glance, the roguelike format seems to align perfectly, if not more so, with the gameplay style of Hollow Knight compared to Elden Ring. Given its challenging nature that balances action and platforming seamlessly, it’s no surprise that a roguelike structure would be a natural fit. Remarkably, mods have shown that multiplayer is feasible for Hollow Knight, similar to 3D Soulslikes, which suggests the game could effectively emulate the Nightreign template. The main advantage of transforming Hollow Knight into a roguelike would be the opportunity to reuse assets, mechanics, and structural elements from other games in its genre like Nightreign and Remnant 2.

As a gamer, I’d approach this game differently than the two regular Hollow Knight games. To keep things manageable in terms of scope and development time, we’re focusing on a roguelike experience that retains the strengths of those games. However, it won’t be exactly the same. The focus will probably need to lean more towards combat rather than exploration.

Hollow Knight: Silksong might already have an offensive bent, but we’ll need to create more combat rooms with intricate environments, like the Colosseum of Fools’ arenas, to keep the shifting areas engaging. Platforming will still be there, but depending on how areas are generated, players might find themselves either cursing or cheering a run that results in a mobility-focused loadout.

Traits That Could Only Improve A Hollow Knight Roguelike

When it comes to the game, Hollow Knight stands out as an excellent fit for the roguelike genre, primarily due to its charms. Much like other popular roguelikes such as The Binding of Isaac and Hades, Hollow Knight excels in providing a diverse range of build options and exploring synergies. In Silksong, where they’ve swapped Charms for Tools, it offers yet another way to customize a run, especially with the possibility of playing both the Knight and Hornet in this roguelike. This should significantly boost the game’s replay value, and with balance changes and new versions of old charms, there will be plenty of opportunities to revisit them.

Hollow Knight’s World Is Roguelike-Friendly

In any scenario where the player assumes the role of either the original protagonist or a fresh character, a Hollow Knight-style roguelike should heavily rely on its established environment. The sight of leaping into Hallownest following preparations in Dartmouth’s hub town is ideally suited for a roguelike experience. Similarly, Silksong might establish a comparable setup for traversing Pharloom. Whether this roguelike unfolds within a familiar location, or explores the abyssal depths or a dreamscape reminiscent of Godhome, it must incorporate numerous recognizable adversaries and landscapes along with any fresh concepts introduced by Team Cherry to ensure an authentic Hollow Knight adventure.

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2025-01-15 21:25