Whispering root hollow knight
You will probably want to buy a map from Cornifer here. After you beat the Mawlek, claim your first Mask Shard and destroy the wall to the left. Just don’t get too close, jump over the Mawlek if it did its spread move and take the opportunities to heal. I hope this boss isn’t too much of a problem for you. Take the left path for some geo and soul, then go down again and take the right path this time, where you will fight your first boss, the Brooding Mawlek. After this wall do the jumps past the spikes until you hit a split. If you lose too much health trying this you can go back to the other room and strike some easy enemies for soul to heal. This can be a bit tricky, but you can jump and pogo on the right spike and land on the wall. Go left and fall down while holding left, fall down evenn when you land on the Entrance to greenpath, to the third left exit in this room.ĭestroy the breakable door and go left until you hit a spiked wall. Fall down left, kill the bug and destroy the geo deposit, and go left again into the next room. You entered the Forgotten Crossroads, as your game will now tell you. Just venture on and dive into the hole, because you’ve got a god to kill. You could also now equip the Fury of the Fallen, but since you’ll never want to be at one mask left while attacking, you could just skip that for now. Talk to Elderbug if you want to be nice and rest at the bench if you want to. When you arrive in Dirtmouth, there’s not a lot to do. You have entered Hallownest the same way the Pale King once did, and arrived at the marks of his influence. Now continue, go up, and exit the King’s Pass. Do all this, and you won’t have to return here until Grimm asks you to. Now walk back, but this time when you fall at the place the floor collapsed, hold right, because there’s a geo deposit there. After the floor collapses beneath you, go right but go down after the platforms, destroy the geo deposit and pogo on the spikes (downstrike the spikes in the air while holding right) until you drop down and collect your first charm, Fury of the Fallen, which boosts your damage if you have one mask left. After landing go left for some geo, then just take the normal route, picking up geo where you can, including behind the breakable door. I assume you are familiar with this sight.
Also of course if there’s on optimisation please say so, but I will not be changing the route to someone’s specific need, or making multiple paths. This is my first guide ever so if something needs clarification please say so. Also if you are the kind of player that wants to get absolutely everything and leave no nook and cranny unsearched, even those without upgrades, I wouldn’t recommend any Steel Soul run, because you *will* die even after all that effort. If you want the fastest route or even a route that gets to the final boss safely without wasting any time at all, this guide is not for you, though I might recommend fireb0rn’s no damage speedrun for a route. This route also keeps in mind that you might want to 100% this savefile or use charms usually considered unviable. This route is in no way the fastest route, or the safest route, or the single most optimal route (though I try!!). This means grubs are not a priority, which means that we won’t be going out of our way to collect it on our first run through a region unless it’s on our path, but we will if we visit the region later on. Other than that they give geo, which is nice, but since we know what to spend we don’t need that much geo anyway. I also delay specific parts or bosses, mostly the entirety of Deepnest or the Watcher Knights, until we are more powerful, because I don’t think I could consistently beat those without upgrades.Īlso grubs, while nice, don’t usually give significant upgrades, other than a mask shard at grub 5 and a pale ore at grub 31, though the charm Grubsong might be nice.
If an item does not make you stronger immediately (like an amount of geo or items that unlock specific late-game locations like King’s Brand) and require significant detour and if we will return to this general area later, I will delay it. This route assumes you are decently good at Hollow Knight, since you’ve probably beaten the game before attempting a Steel Soul run.
This route prioritises speed over difficulty, aka if something is hard but easy this route will probably take it with some exceptions.
Whispering root hollow knight upgrade#
This guide describes a specific route through the game intended for Steel Soul mode that tries to pick up every upgrade along the way.