Hollow Knight

The hero existed before the game. Ari Gibson and William Pellen of Adelaide studio Team Cherry took part in game jams, and their very first jam game was Hungry Knight. Both the hero and his sprites carried over from it into Hollow Knight. Hungry Knight itself once held a 1 out of 5 rating on Newgrounds.

In November 2014 Team Cherry went to Kickstarter. They asked for 35,000 Australian dollars and raised more than 57,000 from 2,158 backers. After the 2017 release the game got four free expansions, and sales passed 15 million copies.

Reviewers praised the responsive combat and movement and noted that the game is hard. One found it ruthless and at times even unfair, another at first could not recommend it until it clicked. Players leave 96% positive out of 508,331 reviews; critics give it 87 on Metacritic. By our Recommended Score it is #46 of 4,736 games.

Liked it? Try Hollow Knight: Silksong, planned as an expansion until it grew into a separate game about Hornet, and Nine Sols from Taiwan's Red Candle Games, where combat is built around deflecting blows.