There’s been an ongoing debate in the Hollow Knight community and among gamers in general about whether or not Team Cherry’s Hollow Knight should be considered a “Soulslike.” This discussion has been around since the game’s release back in 2017, and to this day, players are still arguing over its true nature.
Let’s find out.
Bonfires and Benches
The parallels are hard to ignore. Both Hollow Knight and Dark Souls share a signature “bonfire” mechanic where resting fully restores your health and respawns the enemies you’ve defeated. Team Cherry added their own twist by replacing fast travel between benches with the Stag System, making exploration feel more deliberate and interconnected.
Personally, I find pacing myself through Hollow Knight’s exploration much easier compared to Dark Souls. The 3D design of Dark Souls makes its navigation more complex, while Hollow Knight’s 2D plane feels cleaner and easier to manage. Resting at a bench also feels far less risky than resting at a bonfire since the regular enemies in Hollow Knight aren’t nearly as punishing as those in the Souls series.
READ: Why Giving Team Cherry Only $20 for Hollow Knight: Silksong Feels So Wrong
Doom and Gloom Worldbuilding
Hollow Knight also shares a similar tone with FromSoftware’s games. Its world is shrouded in mystery, and its lore is intentionally cryptic, revealed through subtle NPC dialogue and environmental storytelling. This mirrors how Dark Souls tells its story, throwing players into a decaying kingdom filled with horrors and strange, otherworldly creatures. Even the questlines are vague and, at times, frustratingly unclear, just the way I like it in Souls games.
This is where I really start to see its dark fantasy inspirations, and it’s one of the main reasons I consider Hollow Knight a Soulslike. Sure, Hallownest may just be a city full of bugs, but beneath its surface lies a complex web of harrowing lore with Higher Beings, ancient power struggles, and secrets that could easily fuel countless lore videos on YouTube.
Uncovering these deeper mysteries and piecing the story together feels just as rewarding as progressing through the game itself. Both Hollow Knight and Dark Souls rely heavily on worldbuilding instead of straightforward, linear storytelling, which makes exploring their worlds so compelling.
Bosses and Death
Another clear sign of Soulslike design is the way Hollow Knight handles death. When you die, you leave behind a Shade holding your lost Geos. You need to fight and reclaim it, or risk losing everything if you die again before doing so. This mechanic is almost identical to retrieving your lost souls in Dark Souls. It’s frustrating and stressful, but finally recovering your resources is deeply satisfying, which is a love-hate experience that’s pure Soulslike design.
The similarities don’t stop there. Even the boss fights feel familiar. For example, battling The Hollow Knight himself reminds me of fighting Artorias the Abysswalker, while the chaotic gank fight against the Watcher Knights feels a lot like the Abyss Watchers from Dark Souls 3. Both encounters are brutal, but they capture that “punishing yet fair” difficulty that Souls fans crave.
Still, Hollow Knight never loses its Metroidvania roots for me. The satisfaction of unlocking new abilities like the Mothwing Cloak (Dash) or Monarch Wings (Double Jump) gives me that rush of dopamine unique to Metroidvania games. Backtracking to previously inaccessible areas and seeing how far you’ve come remains at the heart of the experience, even with all the Soulslike elements layered on top.
What Team Cherry Has to Say
What’s interesting is that Team Cherry themselves never intentionally tried to copy mechanics from Soulslike games. In an interview with MCV UK years ago, co-creators William Pellen and Ari Gibson admitted they didn’t have much exposure to FromSoftware’s games during development. This suggests that many of the similarities may have been purely coincidental.
But that doesn’t take away from what they’ve achieved. If anything, it highlights just how talented Team Cherry is at weaving deep, interconnected design elements into their game. Hollow Knight’s biggest departure from the typical Soulslike formula (aside from RPG stats and builds) is the absence of a stamina bar. This is a blessing, because I can’t imagine doing platforming challenges like the Path of Pain while constantly managing stamina. Instead, the focus stays on precision and movement, which feels incredibly refreshing.
Metroidvania and Soulslike Can Coexist
Hollow Knight resonates so strongly with fans of Dark Souls because it embraces similar themes: despair, ruin, and perseverance. Its cryptic lore, brutal difficulty spikes, and layered storytelling hit all the right notes for Soulslike enthusiasts, while its Metroidvania progression keeps it accessible and exciting for players who aren’t fans of Souls games.
Hollow Knight’s brilliance lies in how it blends these two genres seamlessly. It doesn’t need to choose between them, and neither do we. It’s proof that a game can wear multiple identities and still stand out as one of the best in its class.
Whether these similarities are intentional or not, they add up to something undeniable. Hollow Knight is a Metroidvania, but it is also a Soulslike. And it’s time we stop pretending it’s not.
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