We have waited for this for 6 years, during which we all climbed through the entirety of Path of Pain, exploring everything we could and learning the patterns of bosses just to play through Hollow Knight without taking damage. Played through the Pantheon with 4 masks, clawing at the game with a single point of HP… and we were not prepared.
Hollow Knight: Silksong is officially available now. No walkthroughs from influencers and content creators, no previews and impressions from the press, everyone got the game on day one. Considering there were no pre-purchases or pre-downloads either, Steam and PS Store crashed and burned under the attack from Hollow Knight enjoyers, 5 million which added the game to their Wishlist.
Despite the overload and crashes, over half a million players entered and played the game at the same time on the day of the release or shortly after. I was among those players, getting a chance to formulate my opinion that the game turned out to be… stuffy and even annoying at times.
Now, having caught my million of dislikes and thrown tomatoes, I want to explain why I think so. Let’s begin with our Hollow Knight: Silksong PC Review.
Essentially, Silksong is the good, old Hollow Knight but bigger and “better”. The combat is more varied and fast, just like the new protagonist, Hornet. The first Hollow Knight became the very model of a metroidvania, a beloved standard that the genre enjoyers meticulously compare other games with.
The sequel begins with a small plot cutscene: a procession bugs in monastic robes crosses a gloomy and dark desert area, delivering a cage bound with a magical seal, in which the motionless Hornet is locked. When they step onto the bridge over a huge chasm, a glowing butterfly lands on the cage, awakening the heroine’s powers.
The protagonist releases thin silk threads, breaking the bridge and pushing her guards, causing her to fall down. The fall subsequently breaks the cage, and Hornet finds her freedom – in the middle of an unknown forest covered with moss. And so begins a long journey through the lands of Farlum – a completely new area of the Hollow Knight universe, which was not included in the path of the hero of the first part.
The fandom is still arguing about what exactly is Silksong, a prequel or a sequel. The game has been carefully hiding important details for a long time, but most events and narrative nuances indicate that this is still a direct continuation.
This is where the plot itself begins, you get to the first village, meet pilgrims, learn about their problems and the path to the top, where you were taken and… Unfortunately, the further plot cannot be revealed without spoilers. And the plot in the game is worthwhile, so I strongly advise everyone who wants to know the history of Silksong to go through it themselves.
As in the first game, our protagonist, Hornet, can hit enemies with a variety of attacks, but she also has access to the newly-added special techniques, ranged attacks and throwing weapons.
Hornet has her own styles, which you have to find on a huge map. Each style changes the move-set of the heroine. As an example, her first Basic style has her hit diagonally down. The Internet has already exploded with anger and despair just from this … because in the game there are Flowers. The first, red ones, hitting which you can jump over the necessary parts of the locations, but the problem is to actually strike them.
Hitting diagonally is not very convenient in terms of overcoming difficult locations. You have 10 red flowers, under which there are thorns or an abyss – and … Your protagonist simply hits down, missing this flower, and now half an hour of your game flies into the trash.
But, upon changing the style to the one found at the very beginning of the game (by accumulating 500 beads, buying a key, opening the corresponding door and passing through the area filled with enemies), you can… TA-DA, get the familiar Hollow Knight style, which changes the direction of strike to simply down. Not flying diagonally in the direction Hornet is facing, but simply hitting downward.
Each style gives its own combo attacks, changing which you can both prepare for the necessary bosses, and for farming. Even just looking at the carefully drawn combo attacks in action is already quite nice! There are also consumables in the game that can be thrown at enemies: all sorts of kunai, mines and other things that can help you in difficult battles (of which there are a LOT). So equip your special abilities and let’s go forward.
The exploration takes place in a huge (no joke, it’s HUGE) world. Platforming, traps, enemies, bosses, backtracking abilities and other mechanics that are present in any modern metroidvania have made their way to Silksong as well. But Silksong’s approach to all these mechanics is to make you SUFFER.
Save points are benches on which you can not only save your progress, but also fill out the map, and put accessories in the style window, change a special technique or consumables. Sounds good, but the problem lies not in the quality, but in the quantity, of which there is entirely too few. Imagine the situation, you just passed a dozen large rooms filled with enemies, jumped on these damned red flowers and managed to avoid falling into the abyss, found a room with a boss… and died, because you see the boss for the first time, do not know his attack patterns and techniques, or are facing some mechanic for the first time, like the pesky vines activating traps. And you die. And die. And die again. And again. And again… And. Every. Time. You. Start. On. A. Bench. 10. Screens. Away. From. The boss or your place of death. Felt it?
Let’s press on.
Hornet initially has 5 masks. Each mask corresponds to 1 HP. The catch is that some enemies hit 2 masks at once instead of 1. Not the big and brutal monsters, no. But random ones. Here’s a small bug which knocks off 2 masks with 1 attack, or a kind of beetle – with the habits of a dog, which makes 5!!! attacks, and the last one always knocks off 2 masks. Or a huge Rhinoceros beetle, which makes a powerful circular attack – and knocks off your mask.
Some bosses hit 1, then 2 masks, like random enemies. And by the size of the enemies you will never guess their capabilities, and how much HP will be knocked off by an error in a battle with this enemy. The game is also full of Arenas with these very enemies. Usually 1-2-3 enemies are released against you, rarely 4 at once, but each arena has Waves. One, two, three…. sometimes even five or six.
Having gotten to one such arena, I sat there for a good half an hour, because they released not only flying monsters that teleported and hit with ranged attacks, but also wave after wave. What smart guy thought of making flying bugs have 7-8 HP? Moreover, the enemies fly, teleport, charge at you, shoot in 2-3 directions with spikes\thorns\poison. And you can attack them only once-twice between their attack patterns. I cursed those “doves”, the flying beetles in Act 1, and I cursed the flying/teleporting ants twice.
To be honest, I did not notice that there were more bosses in quantitative terms compared to the first part, but the fact that the bosses have become more diverse is undeniable. Although, it must be said that sometimes there is a reuse of the already completed bosses, and this is not very good. But if you look at it as a whole, the bosses are generally memorable.
Be prepared right away, somewhere closer to the middle of the game the bosses will become quite difficult, and there is no choice of difficulty in the game. Therefore, if you are not a fan of difficult games then Silksong is definitely not for you. The only thing that can help with bosses is a change of fighting style and accessories-assistants.
Let me remind you – I finished the pantheon with maximum chains enabled in the first Hollow Knight. Let me explain, this is a Boss Rush of ALL the bosses in the game, with one life and 1 hp. Lose, and everything restarts from the beginning. That is, each boss in the game must be defeated without taking damage from them, and they are strengthened to the maximum, and you have only basics, no great weapons or amulets.
And I am very unhappy with the battles in Silksong. The battles here are not difficult, no. They are stuffy. The game keeps the player in a constant state of hypertonicity. In a constant state of tension that never ends. Unlike Dark Souls and the first part of the Hollow Knight, these games gave this feeling, but knew when to stop. When to give the player a bit of rest. You could be given a powerful and tedious location that required concentration from you. But when it ended, the game let you breathe and calm down.
In Silksong, you will not find this state of rest after the boss named The Fourth Choir. You are constantly kept in hypertonicity. Remember the meme where the guy sits with his veins bulging? This is your game in Silksong.
You need to constantly maintain a single, unbreakable focus, otherwise you will just fly off to the bench god-knows-how-many-map-screens-minutes ago. And benches in the game can be free, paid one-time, or paid for EVERY use. Not to mention, the checkpoints are very far away from each other. In the 2nd act, this state reaches its apogee, when you get into some mechanism, or in the Choir, where a whole bunch of mobs is poured on you, mixed with puzzle jumps, huge platforming sections with traps. The game does not let you calm down and relax.
The game seems to be made for those who want to OVERCOME endless challenges, for hardcore fans. And I’m tired of seeing memes with Git Good and Skill Issue. It all comes down to a simple statement: unfortunately, I do not enjoy this level of sweaty gameplay. While playing Silksong, I understand that I’m getting tired, and I simply want to turn off the game, go read a book, draw, maybe watch a movie, whatever – I am simply tired of the constant stress and the amount of focus you have to keep.
The economy in the game is also not without flaws. In the first act, you can farm and find all the secrets and receive 2 HP at most. Which amounts to surviving a single extra strike from a random hard-hitting tiny bug. Everything else is lying around at the end of the game, piled up together. It gets to the point of absurdity, in the first part, leveling up and improving the nail was extremely simple, you needed to find some ore. That’s it.
In Silksong, you have to find oil. And to find oil, you need to find ingredients scattered all over the map, come to the NPC – get oil, and then receive a side quest within a side quest to upgrade your needle, Hornet’s weapon. The quantity and quality of side quests in the game are also not spectacular. There are an incredible number of them, but they are also incredibly STUFFY. But you need to close all these side quests… Seriously, you need to.
The distribution of resources in the game is extremely uneven. At first, you will wildly lack beads to buy anything, and then there will be nothing to spend them on. Instead of finding useful amulets at the beginning of the game (90 percent of the amulets in the game are useless crap), mask fragments and something useful like oils, you will instead find… rosaries with beads, or stones for crafting. Essentially, the initial currency.
In Act 2, the situation changes, there are almost no scales, because you pour them all into ranged attacks, into kunai, into bombs, etc., because you NEED them to kill enemies/bosses. On the other hand, you have so many beads that you can make a multi-kilometer bead rope of unspecified purposes, and still have some left over.
You can purchase the map from a separate NPC-cartographer, who still needs to be found. In one location, the Cartographer sells you 1-2-3 maps of adjacent locations, which will show you with a dotted line where and what can be found in those rooms. Further on, you will need to buy a special amulet from the cartographer, a compass, and another special amulet, a pen. For what, you ask? To see where you currently are on the map, and add what you had seen and where you had been to the map at the save point, bringing further details to the map bought from the NPC.
Builds in Silksong are based on two elements: Signs and Amulets. The first are conceptually interesting and unusual. Sign is an element of equipment that can be obtained for defeating bosses and exploring locations. Several elements depend on it: the animation of the main attack, the attack after the dash, and the attack in the air (this is how you can change the annoying diagonal dash available with the starting Sign). Each Sign also has a special property that is triggered when healing is applied. For example, it allows you to knock silk spheres out of opponents, the selection of which restores an additional amount of mana, or changes the standard heal to the vampirism effect.
In addition, Signs have a unique set of cells for amulets – on average 5-6 of them. Some are available upon receiving the Sign, the other must be unlocked using a special resource – Medallions. Each cell has a color, there are three of them: yellow, blue and red. Amulets have corresponding colors, grouped by conditional function: yellow ones usually help with exploration (for example, a compass that displays the character’s position on the map, or a magnet that attracts currency dropped by
enemies); blue ones modify various combat skills; and red ones are various consumable devices.
Also, one of the active abilities is placed in the cross. There are rather simple and straightforward ones, like a horizontal throwing spear or a strike with silk threads in the area around you. There are also more interesting ones, for example, parrying, which works much better and more effectively than a standard attack in the timing of an enemy’s lunge.
Paradoxically, despite all the listed drawbacks, Silksong can still be considered an excellent and even exemplary Metroidvania. It is damn nice to play while exploring every picturesque corner of the teeming world. It is gorgeously structured, the modified role-playing system, although it has become a little less diverse, is still pleasant. And the rebalanced battles of the sequel, each duel in which resembles a rhythmic dance, cause an influx of adrenaline and excitement.
The combination of decent graphics, cool audio accompaniment and the familiar plot presentation of the first part make you sit at the game for hours, nonstop studying hidden secrets and immersing yourself in the lore. It does not feel like a long DLC to the first part – this is exactly Hollow Knight 2, offering its own formula. The sequel does not seek to abandon its roots, but rather tries to partially rethink the original, betting on something new.
The game is smooth and responsive, but a little faster than the first part. Having gotten used to the controls and speed of Hornet, you can easily move around most of the map. New mechanics for backtracking are unlocked as you progress or complete side quests. For example, you need to collect needles from mobs to get the ability to hover in your armor, which will allow you to reach a new location, kill the boss faster, etc. Hovering, dashing, running along the wall, etc. – everything in the game is given on time, just when you get used to your previous abilities
.
The graphics in the game practically did not bring anything new, it is colorful, atmospheric and stylish, as is the first part. There are no dramatic changes… but they are not really needed. The picture is visually pleasing, and the levels are competently distinguishable from each other. The backgrounds have become a little more lively, birds will fly away from under your feet. A butterfly will fly by, the light will change its direction, or the grass will be crushed under the main character’s feet. Everything in the game is filled with such life and pleasant little details.
Silksong has more dialogues, both with the main characters and with secondary ones. But many of them seemed somehow too gray and unremarkable, except that I especially liked one of the friendly pilgrims, humming a viral song, which is simply impossible to get out of your head after the game.
Falrum is much more extensive than Hallownest, so exploring it takes more time. Even before the release, the developers boasted that the sequel would be significantly larger than the first game, and this is indeed the case. But alas, Falrum is too stretched out.
The music is well done. And yes, that boy with a triangle, humming a song that captured the souls of many, it seems to be a small episode, but how beautiful and sonorous it is. The sounds of the battle do not get boring, but pleasantly add zest to the necessary battles. Battles with bosses and their musical accompaniment pleasantly stimulate attention and raise the mood.
Each enemy provides its own challenge, you need to look for attack patterns, weakness points and their timing, I won’t even mention the Bosses.
Mods are already available in the game on PC, a mod for respawning next to bosses, a mod removing double damage, a mod for a constantly working compass… Players are already fixing what they don’t like. And Team Cherry nerfed the initial bosses of Hollow Knight: Silksong after player complaints. Moreover, Silksong ALREADY crossed the 5 million player mark in the first three days and brought in 50 million dollars on Steam alone. Hollow Knight Silksong took third place in Metacritic’s rating of the best games for 2025.
