Hollow Knight player snags every achievement the Metroidvania has to offer on their first two playthroughs, including a 4-hour no-death run that’s hard as nails

Iain Harris
·2 min read
Hollow Knight.
Hollow Knight.

An achievement hunter has managed to get every Hollow Knight achievement the Metroidvania has to offer on just their first two playthroughs, including one that requires you to complete the entire game on a permadeath run.

As Lerkinz set out at the beginning of their video, they have to commit to two runs to get every achievement the game offers. The main reason is that certain unlockables are tied to narrative decisions that prohibit you from getting other ones. You also can’t tackle Hollow Knight’s permadeath mode, Iron Soul, until you’ve completed the game at least once.

While you can overshoot a 100% completion of Hollow Knight by 12% during your first playthrough, you can't technically get every achievement as some are tied to an Iron Soul completion.

Regardless, Lerkinz' runs were filled with highlights. For one, they completed the Path of Pain on their first try, which tasks you with some tricky platforming that involves a technique called pogoing – basically, hitting something beneath you to move like you would on a pogo. Even when that's done, you've got two enemies to beat.

By the end of it, they completed their first run in just under 48 hours with just 27 deaths, which isn't too bad for a first playthrough at all. The second run to get the Steel Soul achievement was notably quicker, with a game completion of just over three hours. You need to clock a time of under five hours for a separate achievement, though it helps that Lerkinz did so much on their first run, leaving some light cleanup needed for the second, harder run.

While we've seen plenty of these achievements before, nailing them all in your first two playthroughs is pretty neat. Now that's done, though, onto Hollow Knight Silkong, when it eventually releases.

Meanwhile, the Hollow Knight Silksong community has followed WoW, Minecraft, and Fallout as it abandons its wiki over advertising frustrations.