Hollow Knight has seen a multitude of updates for one and a half years, where four of them came with free additional contents. These four content packs even got their own name: Hidden Dreams, The Grimm Troupe, Lifeblood, and finally Godmaster.
These are completely interwoven with the base game, where you probably won't be able to tell that certain things got added retroactively if you play it now for the first time, but the Hollow Knight Wiki provides an excellent overview of everything. So, let's take a look at all of these updates individually, because it's an interesting case study of how to add content to an Action Adventure title similar to Zelda and Metroid.
A commonly used mechanic for this is the Dream Nail, which lets you enter dream worlds. This was already used in the base game to introduce additional boss fights and areas, where the DLC follows this example. In case of Hidden Dreams it adds two new dream bosses, the White Defender and Grey Prince Zote.
The latter only appears if you have saved Zote twice in the early game, a character with an attitude problem, who thinks he is the greatest of all time. His delusions reach Bretta, another character you've saved, who turns from a fan of the Knight into a fan of Zote. So, you're actually entering her dream and gradually have to ruin her image of Zote.
The White Defender on the other hand is a stronger version of the Dung Defender, a fellow knight of Hallownest and one of the few bosses who isn't infected. After his defeat, he rests in a secret cave made out of dung and dreams of himself as the best.
What makes these two fights special, compared to other dream bosses in the game, like the Lost Kin or the Soul Tyrant, is that they can be repeated for even stronger variants, which deal more damage. The White Defender has five versions and the Grey Prince Zote has a total of ten, where the latter also tanks more in addition. And this feels completely excessive.
Since this was the first content update, Team Cherry probably wanted to give players a little more to do than just two new bosses. But in the picture of the complete game it's just too much if you truly want to clear everything. It later also became completely redundant with the final content pack, Godmaster, which lets you replay all bosses in varying difficulties, including one-hit killers. With that in mind, there was really no need to stretch these two new boss fights out like that...
At least the White Defender is a lot of fun to fight against. Especially the music and the sounds he makes, while drumming on his chest like Donkey Kong, are so motivating that you may just keep going. It's a really cool boss. The same can't be said about the Grey Prince, which is one of those cases where Team Cherry has overdone it a bit with the difficulty. Plus, the whole idea is like turning a completely smug Tingle into a monster that will annihilate you with ease. Luckily, you have the option to keep this entire fight completely out of the game...
Easier Travels
The two new bosses aren't the only thing that came with the update, which has also added the Hidden Station and them Dreamgate ability. The additional Stag Station is near the White Palace and I can't imagine going through the game without it, because then there's no quick route back to the Abyss. And this is a place that you will need to visit multiple times, at least when you're attempting the endgame. I've used this station more than some of the others, so it certainly was a useful addition.
Equally convenient is the Dreamgate, which allows you to place a portal almost anywhere in the world. You can return there at the cost of a single Essence, which isn't much and certainly worth the time saved. It's especially useful for bosses that require you to backtrack a dangerous path on each try, like the Hive Knight (who got later added in the Lifeblood update) or the Traitor Lord. So, not only does this save time, but also frustration.
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