Highlights
- A fan-made crossover animation combining Hollow Knight and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse showcases the talent of the animator and captures the energy of a memorable moment from the film.
- The popularity of Hollow Knight and Spider-Verse has drawn fans to discover the works of talented artists they may not have heard of before.
- Fans eagerly await the release of Hollow Knight: Silksong and the conclusion of the Spider-Verse trilogy, but it remains uncertain which will come first.
When it comes to fan-made crossovers, there’s no limit to what fans can create, as one recently illustrated with a remarkable animation mashing up Hollow Knight with the film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. In doing so, they brought together two of the most influential IPs in their respective niches in a brilliantly executed way.
It goes without saying at this point that Hollow Knight has become one of the biggest names in the Metroidvania genre. Since it dropped in 2016, Team Cherry’s moody action-adventure game has won fans aplenty through its vast world full of secrets to discover, loads of memorable characters and enemies, and richly challenging gameplay. In a similar vein, when Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse released in 2018, it marked a huge shift in western animated movies with its heavily-stylized art style and animation, and its influence can be seen in a growing number of major films like Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, and, of course, its recent sequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
A YouTube animator known as NORI combined the two by recreating one of Into the Spider-Verse’s most iconic scenes in the world of Hollow Knight. Fans will immediately recognize the scene in question, being the bit where Miles Morales, finally coming into his own as the new Spider-Man, leaps from the side of a building and falls towards the city below. NORI’s Hollow Knight version swaps out Miles for fan-favorite character Hornet, who takes a similar leap of faith down into Hallownest’s City of Tears, all accompanied by a piano rendition of the scene’s original music in keeping with Hollow Knight’s more somber tone.
The skill behind NORI’s animation, and the way it captures the energy of one of Into the Spider-Verse’s best moments, has helped the video earn thousands of views and glowing comments on YouTube. It’s a testament to how beloved franchises like Hollow Knight and Spider-Verse can draw fans to the works of talented artists they might never have heard of before.
In Hollow Knight’s case, fan works like this can help make the wait for Hollow Knight: Silksong easier to bear. Four years have passed now since the highly-anticipated sequel starring Hornet was first announced, and thanks to the delays that Silksong has had, it’s still not known when Team Cherry will be able to release it. The wait hasn’t been easy for fans who’ve been champing at the bit to play as Hornet and see how the developer has evolved the Hollow Knight formula.
Spider-Man fans are in a somewhat similar predicament, as Across the Spider-Verse left Miles’ story on a major cliffhanger. Lucky for them, though, that cliffhanger is set to be resolved soon, as the upcoming Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse is slated to conclude the Spider-Verse trilogy in March 2024. Whether fans of Hollow Knight will be able to play Silksong before that, though, remains to be seen.
Hollow Knight: Silksong is in development for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.