Breaking down Hollow Knight’s new PS5, Xbox Series and Switch 2 upgrades as both a tech refresh and a quiet act of game preservation, plus what it all might mean for the long wait on Silksong.
Hollow Knight has spent nearly a decade quietly sitting in “modern classic” territory, but until now it never truly had a version that matched how people actually play games in 2026. Between ultrawide monitors, 120 Hz TVs, handheld powerhouses and a looming Switch successor, the original release was starting to feel historically important yet technically stranded.
The new wave of upgrades for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2 finally drags Hallownest into the present. Team Cherry hasn’t just bumped resolution and called it a day. Across console and PC, the studio has treated Hollow Knight like a preservation project as much as a patch, smoothing over old edges, making smart UI changes and quietly future‑proofing a game that people will still be discovering ten years from now.
Resolution, frame rate and the modern display problem
Two things defined the original Hollow Knight tech experience for a lot of players: 60 fps as an ideal rather than a guarantee, and 16:9 as an assumption. Both of those have been directly challenged by the latest updates.
On PC, the recent patch finally adds proper support for 16:10 and 21:9 aspect ratios. Instead of community hacks or GPU‑level workarounds, ultrawide users now get native presentation that respects the game’s exquisite art. Combined with new dithering and color‑banding options, it means Hollow Knight scales up gracefully to big OLEDs and wide gaming monitors in a way the 2017 build never quite did.
On consoles, the focus has been consistency. The current‑gen versions lock in a rock‑solid 60 fps across PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Switch 2, eliminating the small hitches and stress points that could crop up in late‑game fights or busy areas on older hardware. Given how much Hollow Knight’s combat relies on precise animation timing and readability, it is an upgrade that feels more like a design fix than a visual bonus.
Resolution has been lifted to match. Where the original Switch version topped out at 720p, the Switch 2 Edition pushes to a much sharper image in both handheld and docked modes, and the big‑box consoles now output crisp high‑resolution video that flatters the hand‑drawn backgrounds and subtle parallax. This is not a flashy remake, but it is the first time Hollow Knight genuinely looks like it belongs on a high‑end living‑room screen without caveats.
UI and quality‑of‑life: small changes that matter in a metroidvania
The 1.5.12459 update that shipped alongside the Switch 2 Edition does not read like a headline feature list, yet almost every line item targets the friction points players have learned to live with for years.
The most immediate one is pausing. Hollow Knight now fully pauses when you dive into inventory menus. On paper, that sounds trivial. In practice, it turns any charm rearrange or quick inventory check from a small risk into a moment of real breathing room, particularly helpful for new players and speedrunners routing complex charm sets on the fly.
Map panning has also been made smoother. Hallownest is dense and layered, and the original map screen could feel a little stiff when you were trying to mentally chart a route several screens away. The change is another quiet nod to the reality that people are still mapping and remapping this world in 2026, and that any friction you remove there pays dividends across dozens of hours.
Then there are the visual refinements. The new dithering effect and options to reduce color banding are preservation features disguised as toggles. Hollow Knight’s art style leans heavily on smooth gradients and soft lighting. Those can fall apart under compression or on larger HDR panels, revealing harsh bands where there should be a misty glow. With the new settings, players can tune their presentation so that Hallownest’s mood survives the jump to contemporary displays.
Bug fixes and balance tweaks round things out. A longstanding softlock in the City of Tears Grub room is gone. Grey Prince Zote’s stagger bounce height has been reduced, which makes that already chaotic fight slightly less erratic while preserving its spirit. Sly’s Great Slash collider has been adjusted so its hitbox matches the visual sweep more honestly. Even Salubra’s Blessing, which now deactivates once you reach max Soul, has been nudged to behave more cleanly.
None of these are headline‑grabbing on their own. Together, they are the kind of maintenance work that keeps a classic playable instead of merely admired.
Platform‑specific perks: PS5, Xbox Series and Switch 2
Treating Hollow Knight as a cross‑gen product in 2026 means acknowledging that each platform now has its own strengths. Team Cherry’s upgrades lean into that without fracturing the experience.
On PlayStation 5, the native version delivers the expected fast loading, high‑resolution 60 fps output and deep backward compatibility with existing PS4 owners via a free upgrade in most regions. The boost to consistency is most visible when transitioning between densely layered areas or reloading after repeated boss attempts. The DualSense’s haptics are used sparingly rather than as a gimmick, mirroring the game’s restrained approach to sound and animation.
Xbox Series X|S players get a native build as well, improving on the already solid backward compatible experience. The new version lines up with the rest of the current‑gen suite at a locked 60 fps, with higher resolution and cleaner effects. On Series S in particular, Hollow Knight now feels less like a boosted last‑gen title and more like a first‑class citizen. Combined with its continued presence on Game Pass, this turns Hallownest into one of the most accessible metroidvanias in the console ecosystem.
Nintendo’s story is the most dramatic. The Switch 2 Edition tackles the original port’s two main weaknesses: resolution and performance. Side‑by‑side comparisons show far sharper image quality on Switch 2, both in handheld mode and when docked to a 4K display, along with a steadier frame rate that holds up in particle‑heavy fights and dense city scenes. Loading is snappier thanks to the handheld’s modern storage pipeline, and the whole package finally feels like a native match for the game’s pacing rather than an impressive compromise.
Importantly, the upgrade path respects early adopters. Existing Switch owners can move to the Switch 2 Edition at no extra cost, avoiding the awkward split where a preserved version of a classic ends up locked behind a second purchase.
Hollow Knight as a preservation case study
Viewed together, the current‑gen console releases, the Switch 2 Edition and the ultrawide‑friendly PC patch form a quiet but clear statement: Team Cherry expects Hollow Knight to be played, not just remembered.
Supporting 16:10 laptops, 21:9 ultrawide monitors and new console hardware reduces the risk that the definitive way to experience the game is stuck on a specific year’s worth of devices and community mods. Fixing long‑standing bugs and gently retuning outlier encounters keeps the design legible for new players who are coming in after years of patch notes, speedrun tech and community knowledge have filtered into the wider discourse.
It also respects how players actually behave. People bring their favorite games forward when they upgrade their PCs, when they move from a base console to a mid‑cycle refresh, when they switch ecosystems entirely. By meeting them there through free upgrades and platform‑appropriate enhancements, Team Cherry turns Hollow Knight into a living reference point for the genre instead of a historical artifact trapped on aging hardware.
What this signals for the long wait on Silksong
Any update to Hollow Knight in 2026 inevitably invites one question: what about Silksong? The new patches do not answer that directly, but they do send a few useful signals.
First, the fact that Team Cherry is investing in native PS5, Xbox Series and Switch 2 versions of the original strongly suggests that multi‑platform parity is a priority for the studio. Silksong was already targeting a broad launch window. Having a mature, proven tech stack that runs cleanly across current hardware gives the team a firmer foundation for that sequel, especially if it pushes further on density, mobility and combat complexity.
Second, the preservation‑minded nature of these updates implies that the developers are thinking about Hollow Knight not as a one‑off success but as the bedrock of a larger, long‑term series. Features like ultrawide support and modern display tuning are exactly the kinds of items you want locked in before you finalize a sequel’s art direction and interface, because they free you from designing around old constraints.
Finally, there is a community messaging angle. Releasing a substantive update to the original game just as the next generation of consoles and handhelds solidifies is a way of saying that Hallownest still matters in the present tense. It keeps the conversation alive, gives returning players a reason to replay and newcomers a technically robust entry point, and sets expectations that when Silksong does arrive it will be treated with the same long‑tail care.
None of that shortens the wait. It does, however, suggest that the time has not been idle. The same attention to detail that is now smoothing over Hollow Knight’s rough edges is likely being applied to its successor in parallel.
A classic that finally fits the hardware around it
With its current‑gen console versions, Switch 2 Edition and modern PC patchwork, Hollow Knight is no longer a great game in spite of its technical profile. It is simply a great game that finally fits the screens, controllers and expectations of the era it now inhabits.
The upgrades are not spectacular in the remake sense, but they do not need to be. Higher resolution, a truly stable 60 fps, better UI behavior and a handful of smart visual options are enough to make returning to Hallownest feel fresh without erasing what made it special. More importantly, they ensure that the version of Hollow Knight most people will play from here on out is also the one that best represents what Team Cherry set out to build.
For a game that helped redefine its genre, that kind of careful, practical preservation may be the most important upgrade of all.