Static Hollow tells one story across eight chapters. You don't need to read anything to follow it: the Watcher tells you where to go, the needles it hands you point there, and the papers left on lecterns fill in what happened before you arrived. This page is the whole path in order, for when you've lost the thread.
How the story is told
- The Watcher. A tall black figure with glowing eyes, named only "???" in the game. It never attacks. It turns up at each turning point, says a few words in chat, and points. Everything it says is collected on its own page.
- Title cards. The big moments put words across your screen, like THE FLESH WAKES / the flower made it and CHAPTER FIVE.
- Trackers and needles. When you need to collect parts, a tracker along the top of the screen counts them. When a new place wakes, the Watcher hands everyone a needle: a compass that only ever points there.
- Papers and tapes. Almost every place has a journal, a log or a notice on a lectern or in a chest. The Laboratory's tapes are voiced. All of them are on the lore pages.
- Cutscenes. The biggest moments take the camera: the Device's last flight, the Omni Ray, the Watcher taking the Omni back, the late show at the drive-in, signing off, the Chorus speaking (It Speaks, The Mind, It Runs), Front Row, the Watch, the First Reel, Curtain Up, the last show and its credits, the Hub and ENOUGH, and the rig. In the modpack they play since 1.47.1 (Entity Culling used to stop them).
- Music. Since 1.55.0 none of Minecraft's music plays. The world keeps track of how far its story has got, and its music follows: the further along, the more often it's the chapter's own piece. See the soundtrack.
The whole path, in order
Wake the Forsaken Altar
Chapter one
Every world has one, 500 to 1000 blocks from spawn. Follow the blue smoke, then right-click the altar with an empty hand. The nine creepypastas start hunting everyone in the world.
Take nine heads
Each creepypasta always drops its head the first time you kill one. After your ninth kill the Watcher tells you about a church that isn't on any map.
Raise the Hollow Saint
In the cathedral, put one head of each of the nine on the pedestals round the Hollow Reliquary and right-click it. Kill the Saint and the Watcher's beam drags it down to hell.
Go through the Breach
Chapter two
Where the Saint fell, a red wound tears open in the ground. It leads into the Void, to the Breach Altar on a floating island.
Wake the Breach Altar
Every creepypasta is dragged back down. In their place come five killers and four things from the woods. The Watcher tells you where they live: the Murder Mansion.
Feed the Mending Altar
One head from each of the new nine on the trophy pedestals. The Watcher sews them into the Mended. Kill it for the Rusted Garden Key.
Open the glasshouse
Chapter three
The key opens the Botanic Gardens. Find the Gardener's clothes before you wake him, then kill the Gardener at his flower.
Go down the root
Three days later a green rift opens over the dead flower. Wear the Gardener's Weeds and go through into the Bloom. Break the Binding and run: ten seconds.
The Great Bloom rises
It comes up the root and through the glasshouse, and takes the gardens' place for good.
The Flesh wakes
Chapter four
Ten seconds later, what the flower was holding down punches up out of the ground east of the gardens, and starts to spread.
Collect the reactor's three parts
The Rear Assembly from a truck in Rosemont, the Core from the Laboratory's pool, the Front Assembly from Shelter No. 4, past its Warden.
Build the Rosemont Device
Wire the three parts in the Assembly Cradle, or bring them to a Forsaken Altar and let the Watcher build it. Carry it to the Bloom. The Flesh lets you pass.
Kill the Gardener twice more
The Bloom spits the Gardener, Reborn back up at you, and when he dies it grows him back again.
Launch the Device
The Watcher tears the Bloom open. Set the Device on the launch mark, arm it, run. It goes off inside the Bloom, and the Bloom changes.
Build a gun that talks to the sky
Three places wake. Bring back the power source parts, have the Watcher infuse the core, and build the Orbital Railgun. Three more places wake for the Ray Gun's parts.
Call down the Omni
The Watcher turns the Ray Gun into the Omni. Fire it at the changed Bloom and SENTINEL comes down out of orbit. Then the Watcher takes the gun back and goes to rest.
Ten days later
The Watcher finds you wherever you are, with a warning: the parasites came from somewhere else.
The static comes
Chapter five
Static Hound packs at night. One villager in every village hollowed out. Parasites that get into you and grow.
Take Relay 6 off the air
Climb the mast, cut the tethers, and kill the Amalgam at its foot. It leaves the Relay Core.
Run the last reel
At the Starlite Drive-In, kill Afterimages for four frames and hold them off the projector to the end.
Signing off
Hold the reel over the tear and go down into the Null Static Zone. Cut the Carrier loose and kill it. The screen at the drive-in shows one line: SIGNING OFF.
The outbreak, and the End shut
The Carrier carried them all the way out. The Watcher comes to tell you the parasite's numbers are going off the charts, and shuts the End. From now on the outbreak is worse.
The Hive
It speaks through five of its pure forms, and the Watcher hands you a needle to the Hive. Tear open the four nerve nodes and bring the Chorus down to a quarter. It runs, deep, and leaves a fragment of itself.
Down into the Deep
Follow the fragment's whispers to the Sinkhole, down the Burrow to the Throat, and into the Deep. Kill the Deaf King for his ear-stones.
The Chorus, whole
In the Warm Heart it rises out of the blood. Kill it for good. It leaves the Last Voice, and the Watcher tells you about a seal he made.
Break the seal
Chapter six
Carry the Last Voice into the End. The seal breaks ("...don't."), and out past the obsidian stands the Door at the End of the World.
The Stalls
Sneak past the Audience and the Ushers' lamps in the Stalls, step onto the front aisle and bring down the Crowd. The Watcher was in the front row. He goes through the screen.
The Watcher's Vault
The Last Ticket opens the seam. In the Vault, take his three kept things to the Watch, kill the Projectionist, and see his first reel.
What he kept out
Through the black door to the other side. Stay out of the Viewer's eye while he runs the projector, until it's held and shown itself. The credits roll.
The Hub
Chapter seven
"...not yet." His hand takes you to the Hub. His speech is cut short: ENOUGH. The First Signal breaks in. Jump.
The Dead Water
Chapter eight
Falling, he tears a portal open under you, onto a rig in the Dead Water. The Remote breaks in your hand. Mend it with a Static Leviathan's Signal Organ, and keep out of the Black Below, where the Undertow is.