Hollow Crown review: a kingdom you learn by heart
A connected world in two layers, combat with one brilliant idea and a story that trusts you. Our game of the year so far.
Hollow Crown begins with a funeral. The king is dead, his three children are missing, and you are the gravedigger who finds the crown in the mud. You put it on. Nothing happens. Then everyone you meet starts to kneel.
Fifty-two hours later, we finished one of the best action role-playing games of the last five years.
A kingdom in layers
The kingdom of Vael is one connected world. There is no map screen with icons. There are roads, and signs, and people who give you directions that are sometimes wrong.
The world is built in layers. On top is the surface: farms, a walled city, a forest, a coast. Under it is the old kingdom, a second map of tunnels and halls that mirrors the first. Every well, every cellar and every tomb is a door between the two. After ten hours, you start to see the pattern, and the world becomes a puzzle you carry in your head.
