Hollow Knight Endings: How to Get Each One
The files hold 5 ending cinematics, and the achievement list names four of them: The Hollow Knight, Sealed Siblings, Dream No More, Embrace the Void. Two come from the same fight with the Hollow Knight, the third from the Radiance, the fourth from the Godhome pantheons. The fifth cinematic has no name in the sheet.
- Ending scenes5Cinematic_Ending_A to E
- Named by achievements4The Hollow Knight, Sealed Siblings, Dream No More, Embrace the Void
- Decided by one flagA or Bafter the Hollow Knight, flag gotShadeCharm
- Radiance fightEnding CDream_Final_Boss
People ask "how do I get each ending" and expect five tidy recipes. The game files give me less than that and more than a guess: the achievement sheet names four endings in its own words, and the scripts of the last arenas show where the story forks. I give you that, and I mark what I could not read.
On this page
The endings at a glance
The names and the "how" column are the game's own achievement texts. The scene column is the cinematic scene the files hold for it.
| Ending | Name | The game's wording | Cinematic scene |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | The Hollow Knight | Defeat the Hollow Knight and become the Vessel | Cinematic_Ending_A |
| B | Sealed Siblings | Defeat the Hollow Knight with Hornet by your side | Cinematic_Ending_B |
| C | Dream No More | Defeat Radiance and consume the light | Cinematic_Ending_C |
| D | Embrace the Void | Ascend the Pantheon of Hallownest and take your place at its peak | Cinematic_Ending_D |
| E | No name in the sheet | No achievement text in the files | Cinematic_Ending_E |
Endings A and B: the Hollow Knight
Both start with the same fight. The arena is Room_Final_Boss_Core, and the Hollow Knight's Hunter's Journal entry reads: "Fully grown Vessel, carrying the plague's heart within its body." When the fight ends, the arena's corpse script plays a dream-focus sequence and then asks one question, labelled "Ending?" in its states. The question tests the flag gotShadeCharm. One answer goes to "To Ending A" and loads Cinematic_Ending_A; the other goes to "To Ending B" and loads Cinematic_Ending_B.
The achievement for B says "Defeat the Hollow Knight with Hornet by your side", and the one for A says "Defeat the Hollow Knight and become the Vessel". The flag is named for the shade charm, and the Void achievement reads "Remember the past and unite the Abyss", so my reading is that B is the Void Heart ending and A is the one without it. That is my reading of the script's strings, not a full decode of its branches.
- Decide whether you want the Void Heart. The charms hub lists Kingsoul, the charm it grows out of.
- Reach the fight room Room_Final_Boss_Core through Room_temple and the atrium room before it (the atrium has a bench).
- Beat the Hollow Knight. The corpse script then branches on the flag.
Ending C: the Radiance
The Radiance's arena is the dream room Dream_Final_Boss, a dream room with no place on the pause map. Its control script ends the fight by setting the "final boss killed" data and loading Cinematic_Ending_C. The Hunter's Journal entry for the boss reads: "The light, forgotten."
The game's own achievement text gives the road to it in numbers: Awakening asks you to "Collect 1800 Essence and awaken the Dream Nail", and the next Seer step asks you to "Collect 2400 Essence and hear the Seer's final words". The Dream Nail item changes its text when awoken: "The power of the Dream Nail has fully awoken, allowing entry into certain protected memories." The arena's script also reads a counter called guardiansDefeated; I did not decode how it is used.
- Get the Dream Nail. Its item text says it can collect Essence, and the whispering root layer shows the dream trees.
- Awaken the Dream Nail at 1,800 Essence, as the Awakening achievement says.
- Fight the Radiance in Dream_Final_Boss. When it ends the script loads Cinematic_Ending_C.
Endings D and E: Godhome
Ending D is the one the achievement ties to the top of the Godhome pantheons: "Ascend the Pantheon of Hallownest and take your place at its peak". The files hold the final pantheon door (GG_Door_5_Finale and GG_End_Sequence), and the four lower pantheons have their own achievements: Master, Artist, Sage and Knight. The 112% formula counts those four but not the fifth, which is why the checklist stops at four.
Cinematic_Ending_E exists as a cinematic scene, but no sheet gives it a name or a requirement, and the scripts I read load only A, B and C by name. I will not guess its trigger.
What the files do not tell me
- The door to the Hollow Knight. Scripts hold its conditions (the flag finalBossDoorUnlocked exists); I did not decode them.
- Why Ending B shows Hornet. The achievement says so; the corpse script's strings do not.
- The trigger for Cinematic_Ending_E. No text sheet names it.
Save before the fork
Both A and B come out of the same fight, so a save from just before Room_Final_Boss_Core lets you see both.
About these numbers
These pages read the game files of build 1.5.78.11833 (2021). Steam now has 1.5.12620 (March 2026) with fixes and no new areas; PinDrop has not re-read that build.
Everything here is read from build 1.5.78.11833: the achievement sheet, the scene list and the strings of the arena scripts.
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Sources
PinDrop is fan-made and not affiliated with Team Cherry.