Hollow Knight is my favorite game of all time. It’s tough though, and you will feel lost and “where the fuck am I supposed to go?”.
I recommend that new players install the mod manager and enable “free” Gathering Swarm and Wayword Compass charms mods. Frees up 2 charm slots for two QoL charms – those two free slots will make the midgame a tad easier.
Edit: The mod manager you want is called “Lumafly” (formerly Scarab).
Mind if I ask why you’re sticking with Debian for gaming? Debian’s awesome for servers because you want the stability; but for gaming, you generally want nice fresh packages, updated drivers, etc etc. I’d use Bazzite or Nobara – the former if you’re comfortable with immutable/atomic paradigm, the latter if not.