Hollow Knight

Characters on their own journeys stop the world revolving around the player. Cloth, Quirrel and Tiso keep turning up around Hallownest commenting on where they are, and small quests like saving Zote or the Grubfather's children add character moments.

"These bugs are off doing their own thing, with or without you." The Grubfather later inspired Silksong's Flea Caravan.

Corrupting a familiar zone raises difficulty as players progress. The Forgotten Crossroads becomes the Infected Crossroads, with harder enemies and blocked routes, breaking the usual rule of skipping proven challenges.

It is cited as one way to adapt difficulty to progress, and it inspired the corrupted Act 3 map in Silksong.

The shade mechanic pulls players back and discourages exploring elsewhere. Dying leaves a shade holding your Geo and halves your mana until you recover it, which tempts players to return to the same spot again and again rather than try another route.

Silksong softened this by letting players bank rosary beads and not halving mana, making it okay to leave the cocoon behind. The game also has no difficulty options.

Tease future zones and powers so players want to come back. Rooms in the Forgotten Crossroads hold Greenpath leaves or Crystal Peak gems, lodging those places in memory as worth returning to. The game also makes clear you will get new powers without saying what they are, and shows obstacles you cannot pass yet.

Teasing builds excitement before the content arrives, which lengthens the gap a game can leave between content drops. The locked black egg works the same way, planting an open question about what is behind it.

Distinct zones and linked places make the world easy to read and believable. Each of the 15 zones has its own colour matching the map, its own mechanic (trampoline shrooms in the Fungal Wastes, lasers in Crystal Peak, darkness in Deepnest) and its own enemies. The Blue Lake above the City of Tears explains why the city is always raining.

Kingdom's Edge is vertical while the Royal Waterways are stretched-out highways. The rain link is cited alongside Banjo-Tooie's sewage chain as a way to make a world feel like one place.

A long camera stall on a hit makes the mistake register. When the player takes damage the camera pauses for a long time, so they notice what went wrong and get a moment to collect themselves.

Corrupting a familiar zone raises difficulty as players progress. The Forgotten Crossroads becomes the Infected Crossroads, with harder enemies and blocked routes, breaking the usual rule of skipping proven challenges.

It is cited as one way to adapt difficulty to progress, and it inspired the corrupted Act 3 map in Silksong.

Several entrances to a key area replace signposts and markers. The Resting Grounds, home of the Dream Nail and the game's first real goal, can be reached from a Crystal Peak chasm, the Deepnest tram, a lift from the City of Tears, or a Crystal Dash to the Blue Lake. The east side of the City of Tears also has four routes.

Players almost certainly arrive eventually and it feels like an accidental discovery. The map only marks the dreamers at the end.

Abilities with many possible uses make the correct path harder to find. The Desolate Dive opens many floors, but only one of them matters for progress. Metroid Dread instead often gives a power-up one obvious place to use it, so players have less to remember.

Mark Brown suggests keeping many-lock abilities for optional pickups.

A guided opening hands players three abilities, then the whole map opens. Vengeful Spirit, Mothwing Cloak and Mantis Claw each unlock only a little more map. After the Mantis Claw, the City of Tears, Howling Cliffs, Deepnest, Ancient Basin and Resting Grounds all open at once, with Dung Defender, Mantis Lords and Soul Master fightable in any order.

With so much available, the game stops pointing the way because any direction leads to something important. Team Cherry: "we started with a basic, linear progression of item acquirement, with the idea that we would allow that progression to break apart, branch out and wind around itself as the world grew."

Vague hints steer the opening without ever stating a goal. The Elderbug says to head down, a sign points to the city at the kingdom's heart, the Vengeful Spirit tutorial clears a beetle blocking the corridor, and Hornet dashes just out of view to lead players west in Greenpath.

Inside the City of Tears the guidance stops: Hornet mentions a grave in ash with no location, and the first map marker points to the already visited, locked Black Egg Temple.

Tease future zones and powers so players want to come back. Rooms in the Forgotten Crossroads hold Greenpath leaves or Crystal Peak gems, lodging those places in memory as worth returning to. The game also makes clear you will get new powers without saying what they are, and shows obstacles you cannot pass yet.

Teasing builds excitement before the content arrives, which lengthens the gap a game can leave between content drops. The locked black egg works the same way, planting an open question about what is behind it.

Team Cherry trusts players to find their way instead of signposting. Being lost makes players learn the layout on a personal level, relying on observation, tenacity and skill to master the world.

Team Cherry: "we try to let the player loose in a wild world, not push them explicitly one way, and reward them for choosing their own path."

Give critical progress two locks, not one, so players find the way. The Mothwing Cloak has two critical uses, in Fog Canyon's Queen Station and at the bottom of the Forgotten Crossroads, and both lead to the Fungal Wastes. Super Metroid has a single critical Grapple Hook point, so missing it means being stuck.

Whether the player backtracks to an old blocked spot or keeps wandering, they are far more likely to progress. "Having two critical locks instead of one dramatically increases your chances of making progress through the game."

Several entrances to a key area replace signposts and markers. The Resting Grounds, home of the Dream Nail and the game's first real goal, can be reached from a Crystal Peak chasm, the Deepnest tram, a lift from the City of Tears, or a Crystal Dash to the Blue Lake. The east side of the City of Tears also has four routes.

Players almost certainly arrive eventually and it feels like an accidental discovery. The map only marks the dreamers at the end.

Add a connection between adjacent zones whenever it makes sense. Every zone except the Hive links to at least two others through lifts, trams, passages and secret routes. When Deepnest grew until it touched the Queen's Gardens, Team Cherry added a link.

Team Cherry: "If we can add a connection between adjacent areas, and it makes sense in the world, and it doesn't cause players to get stuck somewhere, then we do it."

The true ending drops the multiple-route rule and players fall off. Credits take about 20 hours and the true ending about 10 more, through Hornet's second fight, the King's Brand, the Abyss, the White Palace and Radiance. With no second route, missing the jump in the Kingdom's Edge leaves players lost.

Mark Brown felt finished after the first ending and ended up using a walkthrough, as many players do.

A soft lock turns players away without a physical barrier. A pitch-black room in the Forgotten Crossroads hides a gate to Crystal Peak, but seeing it needs the Lumafly Lantern at 1,800 Geo, which most early players cannot afford.

Soft locks based on strength, knowledge or cash keep a sense of sequence while leaving routes open. Other skips include a semi-secret Fungal Wastes path to Deepnest that avoids the Mantis Lords, and skipping the Crystal Guardian.

Team Cherry deliberately built in sequence breaks and welcomed new ones. Nail bounces off decorations and flying enemies make the Monarch Wings technically optional, Vengeful Spirit kickback can stand in for the Mothwing Cloak, and the Crystal Heart bypasses parts needing Isma's Tear. Some enemies and objects were placed on purpose to allow shortcuts.

The community found skips the team never considered, and one Kingdom's Edge spot had to be patched because players could get stuck there before the Monarch Wings. Team Cherry: "Watching players discover new routes is a huge joy for us and is a really empowering moment for a player."

Most of the 30-plus bosses are optional and many stay unseen. A player may fight only about 10 to 15 of over 30 bosses. Brooding Mawlek and the Enraged Guardian sit in hidden rooms, the Collector needs the Love Key, Flukemarm the Desolate Dive and Nosk the Crystal Heart or Monarch Wings.

Team Cherry: "Just having it there, out of sight from most players makes the world more truly alive." Zote's quest only happens if you save him in both Greenpath and Deepnest.

Rewards are useful enough in a hard game that searching always pays. Optional content pays out 16 Mask Shards, 9 Vessel Fragments, nail upgrades via Pale Ore, spells and charms. Because the game is brutally hard, extra health or a stronger nail is genuinely valuable even without story progress.

Charms synergise but are limited by charm notches, which can also be found.

Distinct zones and linked places make the world easy to read and believable. Each of the 15 zones has its own colour matching the map, its own mechanic (trampoline shrooms in the Fungal Wastes, lasers in Crystal Peak, darkness in Deepnest) and its own enemies. The Blue Lake above the City of Tears explains why the city is always raining.

Kingdom's Edge is vertical while the Royal Waterways are stretched-out highways. The rain link is cited alongside Banjo-Tooie's sewage chain as a way to make a world feel like one place.

Characters on their own journeys stop the world revolving around the player. Cloth, Quirrel and Tiso keep turning up around Hallownest commenting on where they are, and small quests like saving Zote or the Grubfather's children add character moments.

"These bugs are off doing their own thing, with or without you." The Grubfather later inspired Silksong's Flea Caravan.

Reveal the map in stages to keep both mystery and planning. A new zone starts blank and feels dangerous. Cornifer sells a sketchy map with hints (a monster head marks the first boss), a quill turns it into an auto-map, and it only fills in when the player rests at a bench.

Seeing your own position needs a compass charm, which costs a charm slot. Mark Brown notes the first incomplete map worked as a hint, not a solution, and the compass and auto-fill lost some of that charm.

A goal marker works best as a reminder, not a waypoint. The Resting Grounds statue draws the three dreamers' masks on the map, but with the map mostly unexplored they float in black and say nothing about the route.

Reaching them needs the Mantis Claw and Lumafly Lantern for Herrah, the Monarch Wings for Lurien and Isma's Tear for Monomon.

Routes open for good once the player has proven themselves. A locked Forgotten Crossroads gate forces first-timers through every room and challenge, then stays open so revisits skip them. The Crystal Heart opens a lift between Dirtmouth and Crystal Peak as an aha shortcut.

Connections start one-way and open from the far side, turning a restrictive map into one that is easy to cross.

Limit fast travel so players still have to learn the map. Only nine of the fifteen areas have Stag stations, and the City of Tears has two, so players cannot teleport everywhere and must plot routes.

Corrupting a familiar zone raises difficulty as players progress. The Forgotten Crossroads becomes the Infected Crossroads, with harder enemies and blocked routes, breaking the usual rule of skipping proven challenges.

It is cited as one way to adapt difficulty to progress, and it inspired the corrupted Act 3 map in Silksong.

The shade mechanic pulls players back and discourages exploring elsewhere. Dying leaves a shade holding your Geo and halves your mana until you recover it, which tempts players to return to the same spot again and again rather than try another route.

Silksong softened this by letting players bank rosary beads and not halving mana, making it okay to leave the cocoon behind. The game also has no difficulty options.

Tease future zones and powers so players want to come back. Rooms in the Forgotten Crossroads hold Greenpath leaves or Crystal Peak gems, lodging those places in memory as worth returning to. The game also makes clear you will get new powers without saying what they are, and shows obstacles you cannot pass yet.

Teasing builds excitement before the content arrives, which lengthens the gap a game can leave between content drops. The locked black egg works the same way, planting an open question about what is behind it.

Reveal the map in stages to keep both mystery and planning. A new zone starts blank and feels dangerous. Cornifer sells a sketchy map with hints (a monster head marks the first boss), a quill turns it into an auto-map, and it only fills in when the player rests at a bench.

Seeing your own position needs a compass charm, which costs a charm slot. Mark Brown notes the first incomplete map worked as a hint, not a solution, and the compass and auto-fill lost some of that charm.