Team Cherry walks through the unique way they designed Hollow Knight: Silksong’s world

** “We try to be methodical – we’ll decide what area we’re working on that month, and move through it. So we have a plan – but the plan is never so calcified that it can’t bear a change of course two weeks later – or two months later, or two years later.**

If you think about it more as a world and a space, it’s actually much easier to come up with stuff to put in it. Early on with Hollow Knight, I did it a bit, trying to think of the space. If you’re trying to build a Mario level, you might take an empty space and think, oh, should there be a few platforms here? Should there be a certain type of enemy? But if you just start thinking- well, it’s a cavern with a lake on the left or it’s a ruined tower suddenly the design of the space at the micro level is much easier.

As the map grew, we’re generally not thinking about which power up you are getting next and where, and what places you’re moving through to get them. We’re thinking about the Citadel at the top of the world, and what’s around it – what you would expect to find, where that could lead you, and who you might find there? What might they ask you to do, and if you did do it, what would that mean? And where would that leave you?”