Hollow Knight is Officially Art Script

April 19, 2021

Hollow Knight is Officially Art Script

I think it’s time for a pop quiz. First question. What is this? No, it’s a building. Second question. What is this? That’s right. It’s the Australian Centre for Moving Images located in Melbourne, Victoria in Australia. Inside these walls is a large array of objects relating to cinema, animation and video games. They’ve got a replica of the Pursuit Special from Mad Max. They’ve got old timey film cameras and television sets. They’ve even got fucking Mario Kart. And now, they have a display dedicated entirely to Hollow Knight.

Of course, Hollow Knight has been a huge indie success and it’s won plenty of awards, so something like this isn’t really that big of a surprise. But it’s still really cool to see this game continue to get recognition like this. What’s cool about this display is that the museum was able to get their hands on actual development documents and drawings from Team Cherry.

Now a good chunk of what is on display here is stuff we have already seen. Like these screenshots. I swear I’ve seen these exact same images about 1000 times by now. Some of these are so old, they date back to before Hollow Knight actually released when the Knight with only 4 masks. These screenshots just keep getting reused everywhere and it’s kinda funny.

There are also some framed images of early map designs for Hallownest. These were shown off in an interview Team Cherry had with PC Gamer. It seems like these drawings are what Team Cherry had on hand to show off, and they just ended up giving it to the ACMI. Who knows what else is lying around the Team Cherry office that deserves to be in a museum?

There are also some images of the Unity Asset Browser, which Team Cherry would have used during development as well as two images of King’s Pass, one showing the black boxes that are used for the floors and walls in the game, and one with the finished art assets on top. Finally, there’s a monitor that appears to be playing the launch trailer for Hollow Knight.

So yeah, nothing here really lights the world on fire. But Team Cherry did give the museum a few other things. Namely sketchbooks. Ari Gibson would meet up with other artists at coffee shops once a week and draw tons of art that would later be used for designs in the game. A few images from these sketchbooks have surfaced through an interview Team Cherry had with Rock, Paper, Shotgun, but the museum has actually shared a few more images with us on their website.

We got some new art for the Broken Vessel, including a sketch of it resting in what appears to be Greenpath. We can even see this area depicted in an old video Team Cherry shared on their Twitter, back when they still used their Twitter that is. And from looking at an early map, we can tell that the Broken Vessel was originally located where the Hornet 1 fight is in the final game.

We also got this nice drawing of the White Lady. We can see that over time her design was changed so she is… bigger. It’s also possible that this is what the White Lady was supposed to look like before she rooted herself into the ground. Like when she was sitting in that chair in the White Palace.

There are also some early Crossroads drawings including some of Myla, both before and after getting infected. There are also some early sketches of the promotional art that they made for the Kickstarter, as well as some sketches of Deepnest, including a few different Nosk sketches. It seems like Nosk went through a few iterations from its initial concept to what we see in the final game. Good thing Team Cherry refined it so much. And now it’s the best boss in the game.

One of the more interesting pages shows off what appear to be some new Abyss creatures. We can see the Shade Beast here, who is rocking that same dad bod that we see in the final game. But we can also see this weird puppa thing, and this thing that looks like a hopper, and some other thing that looks like that thing in the Silksong Demo. And there’s also this, which I’m too scared to even describe to you. We know that there were more ideas for the Abyss, but Team Cherry left a lot out of the final game. Hollow Knight had to ship at some point. It’s not like Silksong where Team Cherry has millions of dollars. So if we still don’t get this puppa in Silksong, I’m gonna be pissed.

On this page, we get a sketch of the Hollow Knight. There are some basic ideas written out here, like that the Hollow Knight has its own mind as well as a bunch of questions that would eventually make up the driving mystery of the game. This page also mentions AVCon, which helps us date this page to around July of 2015. July 2015 is when Team Cherry went to AVCon and let people try out the game for the first time ever. After the convention, they had a lot of changes to make based on feedback. It’s interesting to think about how far along the story and lore for the game was developed at this point. We can at least see that the concept of the Hollow Knight as a character was very clearly defined at this point.

We also get a single image of another sketchbook. This one appears to be William Pellen’s. It has more technical notes about how the camera system would work in Hollow Knight. There’s also a sketch of Leg Eater.

Overall, these drawings are really cool to see. At least for someone like me who can’t stop obsessing over this game. Unfortunately, it seems like there’s still a lot of pages we haven’t seen yet. I’m thinking we might need to pull a National Treasure on this bitch. If you want to check out all the available images from the gallery, you can go to the ACMI website and check them out. Otherwise this video is kinda short, so I’m just gonna ramble for a bit.

So now that Hollow Knight is in a museum, does that mean it has truly turned into art? Can video games even be considered art? That was a question that came up a lot like 10 or 15 years ago. But nowadays, I feel like everyone has kinda just agreed that they are. Which makes sense. Part of the resistance to the idea of games as art was how it was seen as a waste of time and damaging to the fabric of society. That is definitely not the case anymore. Video games are mainstream now. More and more people view video games as more than just a mindless distraction. And we’ve seen an influx of well known actors appearing in games such as Kevin Spacey in Call of Duty, Keanu Reeves in Cyberpunk 2077 and even Steven Seagul in Doom Eternal.

On top of that, we have seen games that push heavy narratives and emotional stories. Big games like The Last of Us: Part 2 are discussed just as much for their story as their gameplay, perhaps even moreso. These games try to be incredibly cinematic as well. Like the amazing Geralt bathtub scene in the Witcher 3. And fuck, look at this guy eating bread in Yakuza 7. Like damn. And it’s not just the big games. Even smaller indie platformers like Celeste are bundled with stories that tackle topics like depression and anxiety. And they elicit strong emotional responses from a lot of people. So we can see a definite trend of video games trying to be more artistic. But does this mean only games within the last 10 or so years can be considered art?

Of course that’s the thing about art. It’s incredibly subjective. You could ask 100 different people what makes something a piece of art and get 100 different answers. Take the classic NES game Super Mario Bros for example. The lead designer on this game was Shigeru Miyamoto. Surely the man responsible for so many amazing games must view games as art, right? Well no. In an interview with Glixel, Miyamoto said the following:

I’m a designer. I don’t think of myself as creating works, I really think of myself as creating products for people to enjoy. That’s why I’ve always called my games products rather than works of art.

But despite Miyamoto seeing his games more as products, that didn’t stop the young people playing those games from developing strong emotional bonds to them. Take Edward Snowden for example. Most well known for his cameo appearance in the long running anime series Lupin the Third, Edward Snowden also authored a memoir titled Permanent Record. In this book, Snowden shared his experience with the NES classic.

Ultimately, though, it was Super Mario Bros. that taught me what remains perhaps the most important lesson of my life. ...When the game begins, Mario is standing all the way to the left of the legendary opening screen, and he can only go in one direction. ...Throughout all thirty-two levels, Mario exists in front of what in gaming parlance is called “an invisible wall,” which doesn’t allow him to go backward. There is no turning back, only going forward—for Mario and Luigi, for me, and for you.

Life only scrolls in one direction, which is the direction of time, and no matter how far we might manage to go, that invisible wall will always be just behind us, cutting us off from the past, compelling us on into the unknown.

So is Super Mario Bros just simply a product to entertain children or a deep allegory on the nature of mortality, the frailty of humanity, and the inevitability of death? And that’s why I don’t think it’s useful to discuss individual games when talking about games as art. Sure, I may know that Garfield: Caught in the Act is an artistic masterpiece, but we don’t all have 6 hours for me to explain it. It’s not that games coming out today are objectively better pieces of art. It’s that gaming as an artform as a whole has gained legitimacy over the course of several decades.

This is a process that all new art mediums go through. Take film for example. In the early days of film, it was seen more as mere entertainment. Of course, those working in the medium wanted film to be viewed as art. 1927 saw the establishment of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which among other things, attempted to paint the motion picture industry in a more favorable light.

In the 1950s, competitive film festivals began popping up. This whole idea of films being compared to one another for how well they are made, by people who had studied film critically helped legitimize filmmaking as an art form. And in the 1960s, courses in film study began appearing in universities across the country. The sixties also saw the rise of the French concept of auteurism in the United States, where films weren’t just made to reflect the desires of the studios, but instead were reflections of a single director’s artistic vision.

So it wasn’t around until the 60s that films were widely considered for their artistic value, but we can look back at films like Casablanca, Citizen Kane and King Kong which are applauded today by film critics as great works of art.

Switching back to video games, we can see that it has been on a similar trajectory as well. In 2004, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts began giving awards to video games. In 2012, the Smithsonian Museum ran an exhibition on the Art of Video Games. And in 2014, the Game Awards became a thing. And now they are as hated by general audiences as the Oscars are. Now that’s progress!

It has now become a really bad idea to bet against the value of video games. Take for example, Andrzej Sapkowski. Andrzej Sapkowski is best known for authoring the fantasy novel series, The Witcher. These books have garnered a cult-like following in Eastern Europe and have sold over 15 million copies worldwide. But when Sapkowski gave CD Projekt Red the rights to translate the Witcher series to games, Sapkowski wanted no involvement in writing the story. To him, games were stupid, and completely incapable of providing the kind of valuable storytelling found in literature. He said the following in an interview with Vice:

A video game serves a different purpose. It works differently. How much substance can there be in the lines of text when the hero walks through the woods and talks to a squirrel? Where's the literature in that? Where's the room for depth or sophisticated language with which games could elevate culture? There's none.

Sapkowski had no faith in video games, and when it came to negotiating the finances, Sapkowski opted for an upfront payment instead of a percentage of the profits. He was sure CD Projekt Red would fail. Now, remember how I said the books have sold over 15 million copies? The Witcher games have sold over 50 million copies. In an interview with Eurogamer, Sapkowski said the following:

I was stupid enough to sell them rights to the whole bunch. They offered me a percentage of their profits. I said, 'No, there will be no profit at all - give me all my money right now! The whole amount.' It was stupid. I was stupid enough to leave everything in their hands because I didn't believe in their success. But who could foresee their success? I couldn't.

And not only are these games selling extremely well, but they have been praised for their narratives and storytelling. George R. R. Martin has caught onto this, and teamed up with the developers behind Dark Souls, From Software, to do the world building for the upcoming game Elden Ring. Just think about that. There are now world renowned authors writing the lore for item descriptions in video games. This can only lead to even more people analyzing and discussing these games.

And that discussion is part of why I think games are more commonly considered art now than a few decades ago. Since those early games, we have seen an artworld develop around video games. An artworld is basically when an ecosystem exists around a certain type of art. If there weren’t people interested in creating, studying, observing, purchasing and discussing paintings or sculptures or literature, they wouldn’t really be art anymore, at least not the way we typically view them.

In fact, the mere existence of something within an art world can turn it into art. Like when someone taped a banana to the wall at the Art Basel in Miami, Florida. Since the Art Basel itself and the people who run and visit it are a part of an art world, this banana itself became art to a lot of people simply because it was placed there.

By that same token, it’s easier to argue for the artistic value of any individual game when the entire medium has been legitimized as an art form, whether that’s Hollow Knight or The Last of Us: Part 2 or Super Mario Bros. or Mario Kart. So it really comes down to time. I’m sure 50 years from now YouTube and TikTok videos will be featured in museums all around the world. And if you are watching this video in a museum in the year 2070, well, I just have one question for you. Is Silksong out yet?

Songs used:

Dung Defender (Hollow Knight OST)

City of Tears - Inside Loop (Hollow Knight)

Evil Morty Theme

First Steps (Celeste OST)

New Donk City Cafe (Super Mario Odyssey OST)

Collection Room (Door Into Summer) (Sonic Generations OST)

Wretched Shades (Hades OST)

The Vagabond (The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt OST)

Main Theme (Donkey Kong Country OST)

Links to stuff:

ACMI Hollow Knight Display: