After 55 hours and 27 minutes with the game, I have finally completed Hollow Knight: Silksong. No boss left undefeated, no tool left abandoned in the expanse of Pharloom. And at the end of my journey, I’m more certain than ever: Silksong doesn’t need to be easier.
That’s not to say it isn’t tough to beat – it definitely is – and I do think the game could be more accessible – including ways beyond a simple difficulty slider. But, as I spoke about briefly during the most recent episode of our podcast (when I had rolled credits on Act 2, but not yet achieved 100% completion of all in-game activities), I felt that the base challenge posed by Hollow Knight: Silksong was perfect from a gameplay and narrative perspective.
So perfect, in fact, that the experience surpasses the original Hollow Knight, and I’m not convinced Silksong needs to be made any easier than it was at launch. Though I would change two things.
Am I out of touch?
I think the biggest aid to me during my Silksong playthrough was that in the run-up to launch, I re-completed Hollow Knight before adventuring into Pharloom – managing to defeat the Radiance and a few pantheons by the time the sequel landed on my Nintendo Switch 2.
Hornet’s playstyle is a tad different from the little Knight’s, especially with her diagonal downward air strike, but re-exploring Hallownest reimmersed me in that world and its expectations in terms of combat and exploration. So when basic enemies started dealing two masks of damage nearly straight away, this didn’t feel utterly out of place as I was used to facing Team Cherry’s tougher foes.
I was also back in its personal brand of the metroidvania mindset.
The genre is synonymous with exploring and backtracking once new upgrades unlock alternative routes forward.
While this often revolves around movement mechanics – the classics of wall climbing, double jumping, and dashing that feature in both Hollow Knight titles – which enable acrobatics to enter previously unexplorable locales, Hollow Knight and Silksong take this idea a step further with combat challenges serving as semipermeable barriers until you return with the right tools or weapon upgrades.
For example, after a failed attempt at facing the Mantis Lords in Hollow Knight (which you can discover fairly early on your quest), friendly non-player character (NPC) Quirrel will appear to say that the Knight’s weapon is perhaps not the quality required to defeat them – pointing out that a stronger blade may make the fight a lot easier, which it certainly does.
This idea of ‘keep exploring until you’re ready’ persists throughout Hollow Knight and continues into Silksong. Rather than giving us an in-game reminder, Team Cherry had to provide a real-world one by saying that gamers can “mitigate the difficulty via exploration, or learning, or even circumventing the challenge entirely, rather than getting stonewalled” (via Eurogamer).
Perfect… apart from two small things
Here lies the first change I’d make to Silksong.
Take a Quirrel-like NPC – Sherma, Shakra, or Garmond and Zaza – and post them near a tough optional early-Silksong boss. Perhaps outside the Chapel of the Beast if the Savage Beastfly has bested the player at least once.
This Act 1 foe is very difficult if you find it too early, but return after you, say, discover the first nail upgrade, and the challenge shifts from one that feels insurmountable to one that’s still tough but much more manageable.
My other tweak would be to the Twisted Bud.
Its cry is the perfect (in all the wrong ways) blend of disturbing, upsetting, and annoying, and it can sit in your inventory for a while – especially if you aren’t aware of how to use it. Once you do discover where it goes, unless you’ve used a guide, it’s then very easy to lock yourself out of an ending. A result that’s frustrating to completionists.
I would like the bud to be silent unless you have the item highlighted. That way, you can more comfortably hold onto the item, as it spoiled a decent chunk of my Act 2 experience with its incessant moaning.
Everything else that seems to be annoying players, however, is what makes the game perfect.
The hidden traps and numerous lackluster rewards for exploration make the proper prizes feel so much more special, and play into the narrative of how harsh and out to get you the kingdom of Pharloom is.
Meanwhile, the slower trickle of resources – rosaries and shell shards – helps to keep Silksong engaging and its world more real.
In Hollow Knight, provided you’re able to somewhat consistently retrieve your shade’s geo before being felled again, there are plenty of points throughout the game where there’s no need to fight enemies because you have nothing left to buy.
Whereas Silksong constantly keeps you fighting to keep your pockets heavy – which I personally think makes exploration more enjoyable – and also avoids the slight incongruity of the first game, which had all enemies carrying money even if they were Hallownest’s more animalistic bugs. Here, sentient bugs can hold rosaries, and those other foes can drop shell shards.
And lastly, every boss was a delight
Each felt like its own unique monster with an engaging array of attacks to learn so you can dodge their deadly maneuvers and land your strikes – or find time to spam red tools with arguably the most busted crest in the game.
As you can imagine, I am firmly in the (quite popular) camp that Silksong is a masterpiece, and I believe its difficulty is an important aspect of this artwork – as vital as the gameplay, design, and music.
I’m chomping at the bit for more from Team Cherry. Thankfully, Hades 2 has landed at the perfect time to ease my pain from having no more Silksong, but I cannot wait to see what DLC’s being cooked up and face the challenges I’m certain it will bring.
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