Hollow Knight: The Benchmark Everyone Compares To
What this page helps you decide: whether you want the genre's reference point, or something that departs from it.
Hollow Knight is the title most other metroidvanias on this list get compared to, and the numbers explain why that comparison is unavoidable: 558,775 Steam reviews at 96.9% positive, second only to one game tracked here on volume. It costs $14.99, which puts it in the lower half of this list despite being the most-reviewed metroidvania on it. It also runs on windows, mac, linux — one of only a handful here that covers all three — and ships 11 interface languages. Being a benchmark cuts both ways. If you have played it, several titles here will feel derivative; if you have not, starting elsewhere means meeting the ideas second-hand. This site does not rank it against the others, because a 96.9% score inside a list where nothing falls below 95% is not a ranking signal.
Why the review count matters more than the percentage here
Every title tracked on this site sits above 95% positive, so the percentage separates nothing. The review count does separate things: it tells you how many people the score survived. At this volume the number has been tested across every kind of player, including many who bounce off the genre entirely. That is a different claim from a similar percentage earned on a few thousand reviews.
What the store page publishes, and what it does not
Published: developer, Steam release date, price, language list, platform list, review totals. Not published: map size, completion time, boss count, or ending count. Those circulate widely for this title in particular, and none of them comes from the store page, so none appears here.
Step-by-Step
- Check the platform row — this is one of the few titles here listed for Windows, macOS and Linux.
- Expect a large map with no waypoint hand-holding. That design choice is the reason the guide-video bench for it is so deep.
- Price sits in the lower half of this list despite the scale, which is worth knowing before you compare it to the sixty-dollar entry.
- If you look things up while playing, check the video-coverage page — this one has among the deepest benches here.
Tips & Notes
- 558,775 reviews is the second-largest sample on this list, which makes its 96.9% a stronger claim than the same number on a small base.
- Fully cross-platform, which only a minority of this list manages.
FAQ
Does Hollow Knight run on Mac and Linux?
Its Steam page lists windows, mac, linux, making it one of the few fully cross-platform titles tracked here.
How much does it cost?
$14.99 on Steam, checked 2026-08-28 — the lower half of this list's price range.
How well reviewed is it?
558,775 reviews at 96.9% positive, the second-largest review sample tracked on this site.
Sources
- Official Hollow Knight on Steam (official store page) — Source for the developer, Steam release date, price, review counts, review percentage, language list and platform list quoted on this page. Read 2026-08-28.
- Community "Hollow Knight ► The Ultimate Starter Guide" by Rusty. — Guide video referenced for Hollow Knight; search "Hollow Knight guide" returned about 421,704 results. Read 2026-08-28.