What Is Never Grave, the Hollow Knight-Like Game Coming From Palworld's Publisher in 2026?

Hollow Knight has, unsurprisingly, spawned a new breed of metroidvania action-adventure games, especially on Steam, where it would seem that you can't swing a cat without hitting a side-scroller inspired by Team Cherry's genre-defining IP. Here to add to that ever-growing pile of Hollow Knight-likes is Never Grave: The Witch and the Curse, a roguelike metroidvania from none other than Palworld developer Pocketpair.
Never Grave: The Witch and the Curse follows the titular witch as she makes her way through a series of procedurally generated levels. Well, the player doesn't actually play as the witch herself; they play as a magical hat that has possessed her. This narrative premise sets the stage for the rest of the game's mechanical depth, which revolves around gear, base-building, and a unique possession mechanic that even facilitates multiplayer functionality. Indeed, Never Grave is shaping up to be a fairly content-rich roguelike experience, which could make it appeal to a different sort of player when it comes to Steam and consoles later this year. If no one else, Hollow Knight and Palworld fans should take notice, however.
Let's jump straight to the elephant in the room: Never Grave looks a lot like Hollow Knight at first glance. Pocketpair has obviously accumulated something of a complicated reputation thanks to the Pokemon-Palworld debacle, and some may be wondering if Never Grave will fall victim to the same plagiarism discourse or legal trouble. Setting aside the discussion of Palworld's similarities to Pokémon, drawing comparisons between Hollow Knight and Never Grave isn't actually as easy as you might think.
For one thing, Never Grave is more of a roguelike than a metroidvania. Metroidvania staples like ability-based exploration do come into play, but the game is designed to be a procedurally generated roguelike, which is arguably incompatible with traditional metroidvania systems a la Hollow Knight. Metroidvanias only really work in persistent, carefully crafted worlds. The run-die-repeat formula of the roguelike genre stands in stark opposition to this.
In terms of moment-to-moment gameplay, there are certainly a few Hollow Knight parallels, but in the same way that games like Dead Cells or Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus have Hollow Knight parallels. It's a side-scrolling, 2D action game focused on melee combat and platforming, but the comparisons mostly end there. One could certainly argue that some enemy types and environments have a touch of Hollow Knight DNA, but such similarities are cursory and perhaps even incidental. Put simply, no: Never Grave is not a Hollow Knight knock-off by any reasonable estimation. That doesn't mean that it has nothing to prove, though.
Like Palworld, Never Grave's most intriguing aspect is its hodgepodge of genre and mechanical influences. It has standard action-platformer fare—you can dodge, block, attack, and jump as core abilities—but it also draws upon other genres, like party games and survival games, to deepen its gameplay loop. It's through these systems that Never Grave is most different from Hollow Knight, but also most akin to other games, in parts.
The obvious parallel to the hat-possession mechanics, which allow the players to take control over defeated enemies and objects, is Super Mario Odyssey, a platformer whose possession abilities set a gold standard for the concept. The four-player co-op system also has shades of 2D Mario titles, where other players can join a host and engage in sandbox-style traversal and combat options. And the blend of metroidvania, roguelike, and action-combat has been done before as well, with Dead Cells being perhaps the most suitable overall comparison to Never Grave. In addition to these elements, Never Grave will feature base-building between runs, a concept found in all manner of roguelike games from Hades to Cult of the Lamb.
None of this is meant to suggest that Never Grave is wrong or insufficient for taking cues from these titles, but the similarities are worth noting, if for no other reason than they indicate Never Grave's competition. Palworld made waves in the multiplayer survival space, due in part to its thoughtful combining of various genre staples and disparate ideas, so Never Grave could succeed with the same logic.
Pocketpair might only be publishing Never Grave, but it's nevertheless a worthwhile detour for the company. Pocketpair is at risk of becoming defined by Palworld and its associated legal issues, so diversifying its release portfolio with something like Never Grave could wind up having a beneficial effect overall.
It's still multiplayer-oriented, but Never Grave's gameplay goals are much more close-ended and well-defined than Palworld's, which could attract a different demographic. Indeed, the roguelike-metroidvania mashup is a significant departure from Palworld's open-world survival and third-person conventions, and while it still wears its influences on its sleeve, Never Grave has a strong chance of being a more original-feeling project. One thing's for sure: Pocketpair could use a new hard-hitting title, not only to prove itself as more than the Palworld publisher, but also to appeal to a different sort of gamer. If you're the type of gamer that Never Grave has in its crosshairs, then keep an eye out for it when it launches this March.