Some players can sometimes experience controller issues such as the controller randomly stopping and starting to work. This issue can be very a frustrating one, but luckily there are mods such as ButtonPromptSwitcher and ControllerFixes that could help (if you are experiencing a similar issue, I recommend you check out this steam forum).

There is also an Assembly-CSharp.dll that solves this issue. This modified assembly doesn't seem to change any of the games mechanics, and as implied from the steam forum, only changes one small thing. Should something like this allowed for a speedrun? Without mods something like this becomes the only way for runners like myself experiencing this issue to use a controller normally.

A modified assembly is currently not allowed, we're looking into this however. In the mean time, if Steam's native controller support isn't working, you can use software like Joy2Key to convert the input into keyboard. This is an odd problem, I looked at the forum and saw other people have had this issue. The weird part to me is that Xbox series X from what i read still uses xinput, which is the API used by 360 controllers and by Windows since 2005. Xinput is also what Hollow Knight has supported since release. I would double check your Windows version, as you maybe on an older version of Windows where the Series X wasn't supported fully. Also from what I've read this is an issue with wireless mode specifically. Check to see whether your controller is getting recognized as xinput or if its being converted to generic gamepad DirectInput which has issues with HK.

Ok, interesting. Would you know where I could find that out?

(Unrelated: I heard that there was an autosplitter that is being tested that would work for other operating systems other than windows. I have a friend that plays on mac, I was wondering if you had any knowledge about this?)

I would just look up Device Manager find the controller there and see what Windows says about it. For the autosplitter stuff I would join the discord. https://discord.gg/3JtHPsBjHD

Thanks, I'll check it out.

If I'm checking properly, the computer recognizes my controller as "Xbox Wireless Controller", which I assume implies that it's Xinput. But the fact that it's not working on hollow knight may be a sign that it's not. I think I might just use some remapping tool. Or if they start to allow this modded assembly.

Thanks for your help!