Hollow Knight is a solid contender for my favorite game, so good choice! I'm going to try to keep things spoiler-free as much as I can since a huge part of the experience is exploring and slowly unraveling things. Here's a list of (hopefully spoiler-free) tips that I think might help.

Not much will make sense at first.

Hollow Knight follows the Dark Souls school of lore: You don't get an exposition dump in the beginning giving you the whole background behind what's going on. It's perfectly fine to be confused about what you are doing and why. In fact, I'd say that's an intentional choice that winds up making a ton of sense after a certain point in the game.

Careful looking up info

Because of this fact and how long it's been out (as well as how popular it is), it's unfortunately very easy to spoil things. Be careful with that, and make sure to tag on "spoiler free" to any searches you do on the game.

It's difficult, but fair

You're likely going to die a lot, that's true. That being said, there aren't really any situations that I can think of where I had no way to avoid dying. The nice thing is, the game sort of sets itself up in a way that you (hopefully) learn different techniques over time, and the fact that it's a metroidvania means you get upgrades drip-fed to you, so you don't have a million things to try to learn at once. I'm not great at games nowadays, but I did still manage to beat the game. I never completed the boss rush stuff, but that's more because I've never been a huge fan of boss rushes in general.

It's methodical

You don't have a time limit during fights. Feel free to take your time learning an enemy's attacks; there are generally tells you can keep an eye out for so you can prepare to react appropriately. Don't be afraid to keep your distance as much as you can while in a fight.

Don't forget your Soul

Soul is the game's "magic" system, and it's a pretty big help in keeping you from dying. You recharge it a bit each time you hit an enemy, so as long as you're able to run in, hit an enemy, and get away without getting hit, you can recharge enough for another use. There are also generally minor enemies in each area that are relatively easy to deal with - these are basically prime candidates for recharging Soul if you're low.

Be sure to explore

There are going to be quite a few dead ends during your journey. These are usually places you just don't have the tools to deal with yet, so if it seems like you can't progress, try somewhere else and come back later! Another thing to keep in mind is you'll sometimes hear or see weird stuff on your journeys - it can be worth putting in some extra effort to see what the source is. Something that I would say is important for this is the map and quill you can buy in the shop in the first town. It updates when you sit down at a bench, so don't worry if it doesn't seem to "work" right away.

If you're having money troubles...

Grab the "Gathering Swarm" charm from the store in the first town, go sit on a bench, and equip it. It won't make your money problems disappear, but it'll help.

Enemy spawn mechanics

Enemies only respawn when you sit on a bench. Yes, that goes for the entire map. Yes, I have cleared a significant number of enemies across multiple zones without sitting on a bench and verified this (it was to help me finish a specific side quest). No, bosses will not respawn.

Hopefully this gives you a decent set of tips to get you started! I hope you enjoy your journey as much as I did when I played the first time!

Wow this is amazing!
- Thank you! Like I said, Hollow Knight is possibly one of my favorite games, so if there's a way I can possibly make it more accessible for more people to experience without also spoiling that experience, I'm going to take it. I could gush on and on about how great everything about it is (art, music, story, mechanics, design, etc.) but it's one of those things where it's best experienced for yourself.
I think you might have just sold me the game. Someone should pay you.
- I'm so glad to hear it, and I hope you enjoy it if you do decide to pick it up! As for payment, my Hollow Knight evangelism is strictly because of how much I enjoy talking about it; the only payment I would ever accept is the team finally releasing their next game (Hollow Knight: Silksong).
I greatly appreciate this write up. Thank you.
- My pleasure, I hope it helps! Just don't get discouraged if you're having trouble - there's one platforming challenge (completely optional, don't worry) that took me something like 2 or 3 days of 8-hour sessions to finally get through. Like I said, I'm not really a great gamer nowadays thanks to not having much time to keep my skills sharp (I used to play Kaizo Mario hacks on a regular basis when I was younger), but it was a compelling and enjoyable enough game to motivate me to keep going.
lmao #1 so true, tyfys 💙
- I really am a huge fan of how you get tossed into this weird world, but slowly unravel what's happening. Come for the cute bugs, stay for the weirdly compelling story of what's going on with those cute bugs.
Great info, thank you! Started Hollow Knight a few years back and gave up after a bit. Might have to pick it back up to give it another try
I thought "souls like" just means it's hard as fuck and there is no easy mode.

Whenever I see the "souls like" tag I just hard pass.
- It's unfortunately become a catch-all phrase meaning "this is hard and you'll die a lot, git gud lol." In this case though, there's a lot of parallels between Dark Souls and Hollow Knight on multiple levels: Themes, gameplay and design philosophies, how lore is dispersed... I can't really elaborate without going into a ton of detail and spoiling things, but needless to say, there's an actual reason for that tag here. I would also say that, while there isn't a specific "easy mode" to switch to, there are different ways to tweak the difficulty while you play. Charm loadouts, putting extra time and effort into finding hidden power-ups (health expansions, for example), and the fact that some of the most challenging portions of the game are basically optional unless you're looking to experience every piece of the lore personally.
  
  I personally don't see any problem with just looking stuff up after playing the game if you're satisfied with the experience you had, but your mileage may vary there - I don't have as much time to spend on gaming, so my tolerance for grinding or bashing my head against a challenge repeatedly is directly tied to how fun the actual gameplay is for me. I was much more tolerant of the difficulty in Hollow Knight because the controls are so tight and responsive that it's just fun for me to play and improve in.
That's good advice about the bosses. It's like learning a dance for many of them, you won't succeed unless you know the moves and what your part of the dance is. You can't just run in, do the equivalent of a circle strafe and breeze through first time.

there's a lot of bugs so watch out for those

Omg first instinct was to downvote, but then realized the pun. Joke went whoosh
I reluctantly give you an upvote. RELUCTANTLY.

There's been some great advice in this thread. In the future though here's a shout out for one of my favorite wikis out there, the before I play wiki .

It's great and has useful tips for all kinds of games. Good luck in Hollownest!

Thanks for sharing! That's a great Wiki, didn't know that one yet.
- No problem! Don't forget to contribute if you think you have some good spoiler free tips 😁
What a great resource; I love how it's just the information in a neat bullet list - it's like how the internet was meant to be.
Damn, never heard of that wiki before. Looks super useful.

Man I envy you so much right now, just go blind. You may get lost a little bit but just enjoy the ride. I won't exaggerate but it may be the greatest game in human history :)

If you find yourself in a fight that you keep dying to, you may try exploring other areas to make progression elsewhere before coming back and trying again.

Don't look up walkthroughs until you're really stuck for a long time. Discovering stuff is a huge part of the game and part of the fun.

You'll get lost and die a lot, maybe even take a break for a while then come back to it. But that's the best part

Getting lost is part of the experience.

I got lost on where to go countless times. The initial response of your brain is This is not fun. I braved through it and instead said I need to get lost less so I invested more time to getting maps and mark dead-ends or impassable places and it made the game one of the best games I've ever played.

No, you can just go in blind and enjoy the journey.

Die and retry... I made it to 98% but it goes to 112% I believe.

Also, it is gorgeous and the music is awesome and those 6 beetle things still haunt my dreams.

I LOVE Hollow Knight. It’s one of those games I wish I could erase from my mind and play from scratch again. As someone relatively new to gaming (when I started playing), it was infuriatingly hard at times. But it definitely made me a better gamer – probably moreso than any other game I’ve played.

My advice would be to definitely pick it up and give it a try. Don’t be too intimidated. The music and art are gorgeous and it’s an absolute blast once you get into it! And if you get frustrated, take a break and come back a little while later. I had so many occasions when I immediately succeeded after a 30-45 minute break.

Also: I agree with what everyone says about not looking stuff up unless you have to. Spoilers make the exploration aspect way less fun and exploring is one of the best parts.

I'd say go in dark, the exploration and discovery is the best part of the game.

I was in the exact same boat you are now before I played. I almost never play platformers, and so even though I owned Hollow Knight, I always left it for some imaginary day when I felt up to it.

By complete coincidence though I also owned Steamworld Dig 2, due to loving Steamworld Heist by the same developer and wanting to see more of the world they’d created. Not feeling as intimidated by Steamworld Dig 2 because it didn’t have the same difficult reputation as Hollow Knight, I gave it a try.

It couldn’t have worked out better. Not only is it an amazing game in its own right, but the difficulty curve was absolutely perfect to prepare me for Hollow Knight. After finishing Steamworld 2 I was still craving more gameplay of that type, and was able to jump right into Hollow Knight and the difficulty just felt natural and achievable, since it was relatively close to the difficulty Steamworld 2 had ended on. The games are similar enough that my skills carried over, and I honestly think it helped me get the most out of Hollow Knight as a player who never played similar games prior.

That was my experience, and I’m always glad it worked out that way because now I love Hollow Knight and it’s one of my favourite games. So for anyone who has any doubts about their ability to play Hollow Knight due to their inexperience with the genre, playing Steamworld Dig 2 first may set you up perfectly to tackle Hollow Knight. It did for me, and I had a blast with both games.

Dude this is so weird. I started Hollow Knight a week ago, couldn't beat the first boss and quit. I saw Steamworld Dig 2 and having loved the first one on Vita I booted it up on steam. Hard but chill, so when I finish that I'll go back to HK :)

It's hard. And punishing.

Don't forget rewarding.

I should really finish Hollow Knight at some point. I've been distracted by other games for the last 13 months (according to Steam).

If you like it, make sure to try Ori and the Blind

I bought that game too because it was on sale. Maybe I'll flip flop between it and Hollow Knight.
- Its a good game. Bit easier than hollow Knight, but both are amazing

If you're not playing hand-held, make sure your TV is set up to minimize input delay (usually called "game" mode or something like that). An extra few tens of milliseconds of lag can make a game like Hollow Knight unplayable :(

Ah, good advice, though I almost always play on handheld mode and have the oled screen switch for this reason.

Know that you can pogo (attack down on spikes, enemies and mushrooms) and get a little boost up. I didn't know this on my first playthrough which made navigating through the jumping platforms sooo much harder than it should.

This is definitely a great technique to bring attention to and I considered mentioning it too. I opted for a more general batch of tips, hopefully the "tutorial" for pogoing hits its mark... There's a room with floating spike chunks that leads to either a money node or a collectible (can't remember which offhand), and that's supposed to be a hint that you can pogo on spikes. I only tried after my third time passing it though, since I thought maybe there was a power-up later that I could use until I decided to say screw it and gave it a try.

You will die a lot 😅 but just take it easy. There are guides out there to help.

Learn to use your pogo (jumping and slashing downwards) early and often, as you'll need it to get through bosses and obstacles later on.

I happened to start HK at the same time as a coworker. We would sync every few days about what we discovered recently. It wasn't a spoiler, it felt like I was back in the 90s talking with friends about game secrets before the internet spoiled it all. The game is just as much about the exploration as it is the challenge. Highly recommend if you have any friends who are also thinking of playing it.

Couldn't agree more about the exploration. It is about discovery. Discovery and pure frustration at enemies. Great game that I never finished but still think about.

Prepare to feel lost. Not in a bad way, hopefully, but let your curiousity lead the way. The lore is spread out, and there's a lot of backtracking obviously since it's a metroidvania. Don't forget to use the map either, it can give you hints where you might be able to go next.

Don’t expect to be able to reach a lot of areas for a long time (at least for me, I sucked).

Hey! Have a lot of fun, this game is one of the ones that is difficult but totally worth it. A very nice and epic game to start on a Sunday morning.

Ah nice, I've also started the game recently. I'm around 18h in. Currently keep dying to the Mantis Lords.

Granted I'm 18h in cus I've also discovered 2 areas I'm not supposed to from what I see. The City of Tears and the one with a lot of wind where you learn a new move (forgetting the name).

I don't think there is a "wrong" path in Hollow Knight honestly. Somewhere around the gardens it starts opening up in all directions, and all have something to find.

It's not really like a Metroid-style game where there is a hidden but clearly intended path (even though there are ways to deviate from it). HK has some ability gates, but comparatively not that much.

Oh man you're in for a treat! One suggestion: when you get to the late game, if you haven't and can, switch to a controller, late game can be difficult, much more so if you seek optional areas, those can be crazy hard and plain impossible on a keyboard.

And prepare for feels. It's surprising how invested you can become on a bunch of bugs.

I second the controller, and that it's a good idea to learn to use directional pad rather than joystick, because precise movement is going to matter a lot in the late game.
I anti-second the controller - there's no benefit to it, and as the other commenter said, you're going to want to play with the d-pad anyway. Play with whatever you feel more comfortable with, there's no difference between the two.
- White Palace says hi, mind the buzzsaws

Metroidvania action adventure style game so be prepared to explore and backtrack quite a bit.
It's tough at points. Keep on trying and you will persevere, but be prepared for some challenge along the way.
Upgrades matter. I haven't played in a while but one specific part of the game at least was made immensely easier when equipping the proper skillset for the job.
Have fun!

Make good use of the bank! If you die on your corpse run you lose all your money, so it's definitely worth it to pay for the bank account and store it all there instead.

You're evil lmao

I recommend diving in and seeing what you make of it. You should get to the first boss without too much trouble. You'll probably need a fair few goes before you beat it but at that point you can decide if you like the game or not.

You're in for a good time. I found some boss fights to be quite difficult but I loved it.

Honestly just play and have fun. The only tip I used my first playthrough was a steam guide that had the recommended progress route. It's 100% unnecessary but some areas are EXTREMELY difficult, and others are very hard to find so it was helpful to know where/when I should go.