Hollow Knight
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50 free Hollow Knight trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Hollow Knight began as a small crowdfunded project and became one of the most admired indie games of its era: an underground world of insects, ruins and secrets that rewards curiosity and punishes carelessness. Much of its story is never told outright, which is why players love comparing notes on what they found. This quiz covers the characters you meet along the way, from boastful wanderers to quiet shopkeepers, plus the bosses, regions, charms and abilities that shape the journey. It also digs into the lore behind the kingdom's fall, the genre conventions the game borrows and bends, and the story of how a tiny team built it, funded it and brought it to consoles. The opening questions suit anyone who has played for a few hours. Later ones are for players who have explored every corner, beaten the optional bosses and read the fine print of the lore.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which character's planned playable expansion for Hollow Knight grew so large it became the sequel Silksong?
Hornet
Hornet was promised as a playable extra when a crowdfunding stretch goal was met, but the idea became too large and too unique to stay an add-on.
Q 02What is the name of the plague-ruined underground insect kingdom that the Knight explores in Hollow Knight?
Hallownest
Hallownest was described by Team Cherry as in some ways the inverse of the world tree that forms the setting of Faxanadu, one of the game's inspirations.
Q 03Hollow Knight's backtracking and ability-gated areas place it in which genre alongside Ori and the Blind Forest?
Metroidvania
Metroidvania worlds open up as new abilities are found, and Team Cherry modelled the game's disorienting sprawl on Metroid itself so that players could enjoy getting lost.
Q 04In Hollow Knight, the Knight's hit points appear as a row of which objects, extended by collecting four shards?
Masks
Masks start at five, and the 16 shards hidden around the kingdom can raise the row to a maximum of nine.
Q 05Which crowdfunding site hosted the Team Cherry campaign whose 2,158 backers helped fund Hollow Knight's development?
Kickstarter
Kickstarter backers took the campaign well past its goal, which paid for a technical director and a composer to join the team.
Q 06Ringing a station bell in Hollow Knight summons which giant insect to carry the Knight through the old tunnels?
A stag beetle
A stag beetle called the Last Stag answers every bell, and reopening all the stations helps him remember the way to his kind's lost nest.
Q 07Team Cherry, which set Hollow Knight's crowdfunding goal at 35,000 of its own dollars, is a studio from which country?
Australia
Australia is home to Team Cherry, based in Adelaide, and the studio brought in a fellow local developer, Shark Jump Studios, to speed up the console port.
Q 08Which currency in Hollow Knight pays merchants and station tolls, and is lost whenever the Knight dies?
Geo
Geo can even be thrown away on purpose: dropping 3,000 into a fountain in the Ancient Basin is rewarded with a Vessel Fragment.
Q 09In Hollow Knight, which hostile spirit appears where the Knight last died, guarding all the money lost there?
A Shade
A Shade announces itself with an off-key music box melody, and striking it with the Dream Nail defeats it at once.
Q 10Which creatures does the Knight free from glass jars across Hollow Knight to earn rewards from their father?
Grubs
Grubs number 46 in all, and once the last is rescued their father is found bloated with them inside, apparently a stage in their life cycle.
Q 11Which near-deserted town, the Knight's first stop in Hollow Knight, sits in a valley above the buried kingdom?
Dirtmouth
Dirtmouth has a single resident left when the Knight arrives, and two of its missing townsfolk come home only if the Knight rescues them.
Q 12Which humming cartographer in Hollow Knight leaves a trail of scattered papers leading to where he sells his maps?
Cornifer
Cornifer falls silent in just one region, a spider-infested one where he is too afraid of giving away his position to hum.
Q 13Which forgotten deity, once worshipped by a tribe of moths, is the secret final boss of Hollow Knight?
The Radiance
The Radiance is fought in only some of the endings, because the Knight needs the Void Heart charm to reach her inside the Dream Realm.
Q 21Which supporting character in Hollow Knight stars in a 14-page prequel comic that follows his journey to the kingdom?
Quirrel
Quirrel arrives with much of his memory gone, called back by the Dreamer he once served as an apprentice.
Q 22Which bargain-driving shopkeeper in Hollow Knight is secretly the Great Nailsage who trained the three Nailmasters?
Sly
Sly gave up teaching after deciding that piling up wealth was a surer strength than swordplay, yet he keeps his great nail in the shop basement.
Q 23Which lone remaining resident greets the Knight at the start of Hollow Knight and hints at where to explore next?
Elderbug
Elderbug can be handed a Delicate Flower, a fragile gift that makes his faded world look a little brighter to him.
Q 14Which ruler of Hollow Knight's fallen kingdom was once a giant Wyrm that shed its shell to take a smaller form?
The Pale King
The Pale King gave the bugs of his realm minds of their own in exchange for their devotion, promising them that the kingdom would last forever.
Q 15In Hollow Knight, resting on which piece of furniture restores health, saves progress and lets charms be swapped?
A bench
A bench is the game's checkpoint, though a fake one in the Distant Village is a trap laid to carry the Knight off to the Beast's Den.
Q 16Which boastful Hollow Knight character carries a shellwood nail named Life Ender and recites fifty-seven precepts?
Zote
Zote can be left to die in a giant fly's jaws early on; players who rescue him twice later meet him as an arena boss who deals no damage.
Q 17In Hollow Knight, bugs overtaken by the mind-controlling Infection bleed fluid and have glowing eyes of which colour?
Orange
Orange is the Infection's signature: struck victims spray it, their eyes glow with it, and late-stage sufferers swell with growths that seep gas of the same hue.
Q 18Which trio of sisters in Hollow Knight's Fungal Wastes bow to the Knight after losing a duel in their throne room?
The Mantis Lords
The Mantis Lords fight one at a time and then two together, and their tribe resisted the Infection even after their brother embraced it and was exiled.
Q 19In Hollow Knight, the endless rain over the City of Tears is water leaking from which body above the cavern?
The Blue Lake
The Blue Lake sits over the capital's cavern, and the leak gave the city the only name anyone remembers: its original one was lost to history.
Q 20Which composer, who sent Team Cherry a demo during the crowdfunding campaign, wrote Hollow Knight's soundtrack?
Christopher Larkin
Christopher Larkin built the largely orchestral score around recurring leitmotifs tied to places and characters, and came back to score the sequel.
Q 24Which cheerful singing miner in Hollow Knight slowly succumbs to the Infection as the Knight's journey goes on?
Myla
Myla ends up a hostile husk, but reading her mind with the Dream Nail shows that the song she always sang remains in her thoughts.
Q 25Which of Hollow Knight's three Dreamers was the kingdom's chief researcher, sleeping in an archive in Fog Canyon?
Monomon
Monomon also wrote the elegy for the fallen kingdom whose first four lines appear on screen as the game opens.
Q 26Which troupe master sets up circus tents in Hollow Knight once the Knight lights the Nightmare Lantern?
Grimm
Grimm entrusts the Knight with a childlike companion to feed with collected flames, and the ritual can end in a duel with his far stronger dream form.
Q 27Which former queen in Hollow Knight, mother of the Vessels, bound herself inside a cocoon in the Queen's Gardens?
The White Lady
The White Lady bound herself out of shame for her part in creating the Vessels, and she hands the Knight one half of the Kingsoul charm.
Q 28Which Hollow Knight boss, once the loyal knight Ogrim, guards a sewer pump and passes time sculpting statues?
Dung Defender
Dung Defender attacks only because he mistakes the Knight for a mindless husk, and afterwards he apologises and praises their honour in battle.
Q 29In Hollow Knight, which City of Tears character asks to be struck down once his finest work is complete?
The Nailsmith
The Nailsmith lives if the Knight simply walks away, and he is later found happily modelling for a retired swordsman turned painter.
Q 30Which hidden shape-shifting boss in Hollow Knight looks just like the Knight until it transforms inside its lair?
Nosk
Nosk copies faces it finds in its victims' memories, and once it is beaten only its counterfeit shell is left behind to be knocked around.