New Glitch, Infinite Nail
5 years ago

Hey Hollow Knight speedrunners,

I've watched some recent speedruns of this game to make sure I didn't discover something that has already been uncovered before me. To my knowledge, I'm the first person to encounter this glitch, and I believe it could be very applicable to Hollow Knight speedruns and, if used in the right context, speed up boss-fights significantly. Here's a description of the glitch with a YouTube video linked below:

This glitch basically makes your empowered nail swing multiple times per second. To re-create this glitch, you will need to find a black barrier, have the empowered nail ability unlocked and also be able to dash while slashing with the empowered nail.

Instead of breaking these black barriers, you dash into them at a certain distance where the game registers you as still swinging, over and over. This should allow you to face-tank bosses and kill them in seconds, as I was able to get the glitch to carry over into different areas of the map. Sadly, you are not able to dash or wall climb with this glitch enabled.

Not sure if this can be combined with the float glitch, but if it can be combined with the float glitch there is no doubt it my mind this can make speedruns significantly faster. Will attempt to do more testing on this soon. Check YouTube description for a little more info. Feel free to leave me any questions you have. I was able to re-create this glitch 3 times.

Please keep in mind you are not able to dash or wall-climb with this glitch enabled. I believe any animation besides jumping cancels out this glitch, so this includes hard-landing animations, double jump, etc. but the float glitch might be compatible. I implore you to test that!

YouTube:

California, USA

Storage of nail arts has been known about for a long time, but I've never heard of it actually doing damage. I will try to recreate what you said, maybe it is to do with the current patch or that you touched a shadow dash gate.

California, USA

Do you have video of this actually dealing damage to enemies? Doesn't seem to work how you've said.

When I re-created it, it wouldn't do damage to the "bouncing flies" on this level OR carry over into another part of the map. I hadn't tried damaging an enemy before, so I apologize for that error (I just figured it would... probably shouldn't assume with glitches), but it did carry over into another part of the map the first time I tried it. Now it just wont work... I'm wondering if I did something else buggy while going through one of the load screens but no matter what I tried whilst re-creating it, I couldn't get the animation to carry over.

Also, in my original post I comment on "breaking the barrier", what I meant was passing through it with shadow dash. In order for this to work, you cannot have shadow dash by any means because you need the barrier to bounce you back.

I guess this glitch is pretty much useless since I can't get damage storage, only animation storage. I'm not a glitch hunter or anything but I figured with the bounce back on these walls I could discover something buggy, and I did. I posted too soon/quickly out of excitement without continuously testing. Still... I would love to know how I managed to get the animation to carry over into another part of the map.

Edited by the author 5 years ago

No video, that was just a really dumb assumption I made. Sorry about that, I really shouldn't be so quick to think a glitch will do something. I'm new to glitches, "glitch-hunting", etc. and I apologize for this error, won't happen again. Would love to see if someone could figure out how I managed to get this into another area of the map of course. Float glitch works in different areas of the map, maybe storing this animation somewhere else in the game could work.

So, new discovery - I was able to carry the animation over to a new area by storing the animation in what I'll refer to as the "inventory glitch". These barriers are super buggy so I actually also managed to store the damage from ONE empowered nail strike (ie. after moving away from the wall, I was able to strike an empowered nail hit without holding down the button [X]). This may already be common knowledge, not sure, but I have a feeling if I keep testing on these different walls (currently testing on the one in Fog Canyon), I can find a way to store the animation and the damage, which together could result in an infinite nail glitch. Took footage, will upload if soon if anyone is interested in my progress!

California, USA

Sure, doesn't hurt to show stuff

EdMurph likes this
Alaska, USA

could make boss clearing quicker if you succeed. goodluck.

EdMurph likes this
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