The Hollow Knight mod Pale Court launched a few days ago after years of work by dozens of modders, and it is so big and beautiful that this fan-made DLC legitimately looks official.
The release date trailer dropped last month – ahead of the July 1 launch, the new trailer for which has been flagged by YouTube for some reason – and demonstrated just how ambitious the Pale Court really is. The mod, which you can download here (you'll need the Scarab mod manager too), focuses on "Hallownest's greatest champions" in a boss rush tournament arc. "Challenge the legends and take your rightful place amongst them," the trailer says.
The focus is on five main bosses, with whispers of a secret extra one, but Pale Court also comes with a boatload of new content that ripples out across the original game. There are new charms, for one, and players quickly worked out that some of them might be a little overtuned. There's new art and music which fits right in with developer Team Cherry's style, as well as new dialogue as well as some voice work.
The background art and boss behavior are top-shelf. Especially given Hollow Knight's established love of boss rushes, it's easy to picture this as an official DLC. Even with stiff competition like a voice acting mod featuring over 100 actors, Pale Court is one of the biggest Hollow Knight mods ever, and it's been received well by the community so far. If you told me Team Cherry quietly added some new bosses to help tide players over until Hollow Knight: Silksong, I would honestly believe you (and wonder how the devs found time to make them).
You can watch one heavily modded player pummel new boss Fierce Dryya below.
Radiant Dryya (pale court spoilers ig)from r/HollowKnight
There's also already a less-modded and hitless run against Kindly Isma, too.
After seemingly reaching a state of enlightened peace, the Hollow Knight community has been surprisingly chill since Silksong's painful but unsurprising delay.
