Hollow Knight
One purchase, four expansions given away free, and multiple real endings around 27 hours in — a zero that stayed a zero even after the game became a hit.
- Is Hollow Knight pay to win?
- No. There is nothing for sale inside the game: no currency, no loot boxes, no paid convenience. A paid expansion, where one exists, is bought once from a store rather than offered to you while playing.
- How long to beat Hollow Knight?
- About 27 hours to reach the ending, based on aggregated player-submitted completion times.
The cost, in short
Pressure
000
To ending
027hrs
Scripted ending exists
Hours, depending on what “finish” means
- To the ending
- 27 h
- Everything, all achievements
- 64 h
Can you read the odds before you pay?
Nothing random is sold here
How this rating was reached
Score of 0 matches the Portal, Hades and Stardew Valley anchors: no purchase of any kind exists after the box price. Reinforced by all four content expansions being released free rather than sold. 27 hours reflects aggregated player-submitted main-story times (HowLongToBeat data as reported by Game Rant, which states its figures come from HowLongToBeat); the same source reports ~42 hours with extras and 64.5 completionist, rising to ~104 with all DLC. The game has an ending — the game has multiple discrete scripted endings depending on progress before the final encounter. We record no cost to progress, deliberately: nothing exists to progress toward beyond the purchase price, so there is nothing to record. The $15.00 figure is the published Nintendo US store price and $14.99 is the Steam US price, read from its store API on 22 August 2026 with the currency stated. The two differ by a cent of store rounding, not by region.
The monetization, in full
Nothing is for sale inside the game. No in-app purchases, no currency, no cosmetics, no season pass. Nintendo's own store listing shows no in-app purchases at all.
The detail that makes this notable rather than merely clean: all four content expansions — Hidden Dreams, The Grimm Troupe, Lifeblood and Godmaster — were released free to everyone who owned the game. A successful game charging nothing for years of additional content is the exception, not the norm, and it is the reason this scores a true zero rather than a low number.
The endings are real, and there is more than one
Aggregated player-submitted times put the main story at around 27 hours, rising to roughly 42 with side content and 64 for full completion — over 100 if the expansions are included. The game has multiple distinct endings depending on what you have done before the final encounter.
That range is worth reading carefully. Twenty-seven hours is a real finish line, but the gap between it and the completionist figure is unusually wide, which tells you most of this game's content is optional rather than on the critical path.
The sequel, Silksong, widens that same gap: 28 hours to an ending against 65 for full completion, and again nothing sold inside the game.
What it costs
Nintendo's US store lists the game at $15.00 and Steam at $14.99 in the United States. Both come from a platform holder's own store rather than from press coverage — the Steam figure from its store API requested for the US region, which names the currency explicitly. An earlier check of the Steam page returned a euro-localized listing, which is why this page previously gave the Nintendo price alone.
Related games
- Balatro
Nothing sold inside · pressure 0
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Nothing sold inside · pressure 0
- Vampire Survivors
Sells extra content, not power · pressure 10
Sources
- 01Hollow Knight — Nintendo Switch store listingNintendo (platform store) ·
Full method behind these ratings: see our methodology.
Ratings are editorial judgments based on the sources cited above. They are not a guarantee of current pricing or mechanics, which can change after publication — check the source directly before making a purchase decision.