Hidden Easter Eggs in Hollow Knight

I hate references. Remember when Wario was on SNL? Or that time Rick and Morty showed up in Space Jam 2? That was so pathetic. I will never forget this scene until the day I die. These corporations and anonymous billionaires believe they can cooperate in our relationships with beloved fictional characters just to please us. No, thanks. However, if done tactfully, references can be really interesting. Many indie games like to make references and cameos, but it's usually to show appreciation for the properties that inspire them. This is why Meatboy's corpse can be found in Ori and the Blind Forest, or why Chozo statues can be found in Guacamelee.

Turning our attention to Hollow Knight, its references are a bit more subdued. Very few things stand out as blatant Easter

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, which helps make Hallownest seem more believable. But the game isn't completely free of cheeky nods to other properties. So in this video, we'll explore the world of Hollow Knight to see if we can find some subtle references to other games and media. Metroid is a good place to start, as it's easy to make a comparison. A big connection that a lot of people make is the Fog Canyon jellyfish and the titular Metroid creatures. Metroids are artificial life forms that suck the life force out of their victims.

While Hollow Knight's jellyfish are perhaps artificial life forms that just explode. While they aren't very similar mechanically, it makes sense to consider this as a reference, as it would be pretty strange to include jellyfish in your bug game for no reason, unless you're paying homage to Metroid. I think the most blatant reference to Metroid is the Shadow Beast, where the Knight gains the Shadow Cloak ability. The way this creature is positioned and how the Knight interacts with it is very reminiscent of the Chozo statues from Metroid. The Chozo are a race of birds that have apparently been to every planet in the universe.

They always leave behind these statues that contain powers that Samus can use to help her progress in the world. Next up is Castlevania. Most Castlevania games end with a fight against Count Dracula, one phase as his normal design, and a second phase where he turns into a giant cookie monster or a Final Fantasy boss or a 1993 Toyota Camry. Grimm obviously takes inspiration from Dracula in general, but the Grimm fight definitely has some clear parallels to phase one of Castlevania's Dracula fights. The spikes on the pillars are very reminiscent of the fire pillars from Castlevania 3. And the cape attack with the bats is also similar to the fireball attack.

Another Hollow Knight boss, Galien, also seems to be inspired by the fight with Dracula's henchman Death. Both fights involve scythes flying across the room. This one seems pretty vague, so it may not be intentional. Also, this boss was created by a sponsor, so it could be that the sponsor was the one making this reference, not Team Cherry. In fact, it is in the sponsors' content that the most blatant references can be found. Waldie in the Spirit's Glade is an obvious nod to the character Guts from the critically acclaimed manga series Berserk. And then there's the super-

hidden

area of ​​the Believers' Sanctuary, where patrons were able to leave simple messages.

One message is literally just a quote from H. P. Lovecraft, except they replaced the phrase "human mind" with "insect mind." Another message says "Good Luck Skeleton," which I think is a reference to the messages people can leave in Dark Souls games. And here's another subtle Dark Souls reference. Many people claim that Dark Souls had a lot of influence on Hollow Knight. And it's undeniable that Hollow Knight took some inspiration from Dark Souls, especially in terms of the respawn mechanics. But, outside of the supporting content we just covered, there really aren't any blatant references to Dark Souls.

You can make some general story comparisons between the two games. The main comparison is that they are both stories about discarded warriors who are tasked with fighting a curse by sacrificing themselves to prolong an era of stagnation. So there's kind of a connection there, but I think team Cherry missed an opportunity to put the T-Posing guy somewhere to really cater to Dark Souls fans. A similar fantasy game that Team Cherry mentions in their interviews is Faxanadu. This old NES game is about a traveler who arrives in his hometown at the base of the World Tree. The protagonist discovers that an Evil One has turned all the Dwarves into monsters who are now attacking the Elves, and now they have to free the kingdom from the Evil One's curse.

Team Cherry has explicitly stated that Hollow Knight's story parallels Faxanadu at the beginning. There is a wanderer who returns to a place from which he departed a long time ago and who is now under some kind of affliction. So you could consider the opening sequence in which the Knight arrives at Hallownest as a sort of homage to the opening of Faxanadu. But I admit, a character arriving somewhere is such a standard plot point that it's hard to call it an Easter egg or a direct reference. Another stretch I've seen people make regarding a certain charm known as Dashmaster.

A lot of people have pointed out that the Dashmaster amulet looks like Sans the Skeleton from the hit Earthbound-inspired indie RPG Undertale, which is honestly crazy. The amulet has a white face with black and blue eyes on the sides, a design first made famous by Sans Undertale himself. I think this charm is an intentional reference by the Cherry team? No. But would it be so bad to pretend for a moment that it's intentional? Yes. One aspect of Hollow Knight that I really love is how Cornifer hums whenever the player is around. But there is something about this melody that seems strangely familiar to me.

The main comparison I've seen a lot of people make is with the Luigi's Mansion theme. Now, to avoid a copyright strike from Nintendo, I can only play the song for a few moments, but it should be long enough for you to hear the similarities. Pretty similar, right? However, the buzzing sound actually seems to be inspired by a theme from Super Ghouls and Ghosts for the Super Nintendo. It's not an exact match, but it still sounds like a legally distinct imitation. However, Team Cherry denied this reference when asked, so who knows, it could just be a coincidence.

I've seen some people claim that Midwife's design is actually a reference to No Face from the classic Studio Ghibli film Spirited Away. I don't know about this one. I mean, I see it, and both William Pellen and Ari Gibson studied art and animation in college. They even have statues of various anime characters like Lupine III, Batman, and that annoying Digimon cat in their office. So there's no doubt that you've seen Spirited Away, as it's one of the most critically acclaimed animated films of all time. Their designs are pretty similar, but they're also just black blobs with legs and a mask for a face, so it's not the most unique.

Probably Midwife's most defining feature is that his mask splits in half, something No Face's mask does not do. But it is not impossible that No Face is the origin of his design. We see him weaving at some point, so maybe he's an inspiration for the Weavers as well. Speaking of... anime, I think I should mention Angel's Egg, since Ari Gibson has explicitly mentioned this movie before as an influence. I have talked about this 1985 film several times on this channel, but I think it deserves more attention. This is one of those "what the fuck did I just see?" something like movies.

It was directed by Mamoru Oshii, of Ghost in the Shell fame, and animated by him and Yoshitaka Amano. The plot of the film, if you can call it that, is about an unnamed girl who lives in a ruined wasteland and carries around this egg waiting for it to hatch. She eventually meets a man who tries to convince her that the egg is empty and that she needs to break it to really know what is inside her. The film is a reversal of the Noah's Ark story, so it rains for a good portion of the film. The characters visit an abandoned city at one point that eventually becomes submerged in rain, and we see that the bones of several long-dead creatures have now turned to stone in the walls.

All of these elements appear in Hollow Knight, even including a fountain as an important landmark in the city. We can even see these influences in the older art created for Hollow Knight, when he was still forging his own identity. This image evokes the rainy city and stone fossils quite well. And the original artwork for the Hollow Knight soundtrack is so similar to the poster art for Angel's Egg that I think it's probably intentional. So consider this a literal Easter egg. Speaking of weird media that Team Cherry could reference in Hollow Knight, let's talk about Dune. Dune is a series of science fiction novels centered on political factions competing for control of a desert planet rich in a valuable mind-altering substance known as spice mix.

The original novel was written in 1965 by Frank Herbert and is considered by many to be one of the greatest works of science fiction of all time. Team Cherry read the Dune books while creating Hollow Knight, so naturally I started reading them myself to find some kind of parallel. I recently finished the fourth book, God Emperor of Dune, and while there are no explicit references, there are many similarities between certain elements of Dune and Hollow Knight that would be worth discussing. For example, the spice of the Dune novels can give people the ability to foresight, the power to see possible futures depending on the present.

In Hollow Knight, the Pale King also has a type of presence, although the mechanics of him are left vague. In God Emperor of Dune, a giant wormman takes control of the entire galaxy and uses his power to force the entire civilization into a kind of stasis where nothing really changes for thousands of years. This is a bit similar to what happened to Hallownest after Hollow Knight was sealed, although the details behind why it happens in God Emperor of Dune are a bit different. I'd explain it to you, but we'd probably be here an hour longer if I did.

But there could be an explicit Hollow Knight reference to Dune in the Pale King's Wyrm form, which is similar in design to Dune's sandworms, giant beasts that roam the desert planet of Arrakis. In particular, the Wyrm within the game looks a bit like H. R. Giger's interpretation of sandworms. H.R. Giger is the man behind the iconic Alien design from Alien, but he previously did some concept art on an unreleased film adaptation of Dune back in the 1970s. This is by no means the most popular design for sandworms and I think it's more likely that Team Cherry didn't reference it when designing their game.

But I thought it was worth pointing out. There's one last Easter egg I wanted to mention. This is Dung Defender, a character who spends his time wallowing in shit. This could be a clever reference to James Corden. As you can see, Hollow Knight is pretty light on blatant references, as I'm not even too sure about half of the things I mentioned in this video, but we can still find a few clues here and there. There are probably a few other possible references I might have missed, so let me know in the comments section what an idiot I am.

But this whole discussion raises an interesting question. Are there any references to Hollow Knight in other games? Sounds like a great topic for someone to make a video on. It would even be a great video for me to link to on the screen right now.