Hollow Knight: Silksong is a masterful, daring follow-up that’s destined to be misunderstood for years to come

Long-awaited metroidvania game Hollow Knight: Silksong is already proving to be a victim of its own success.

The unbearable hype surrounding its storefront-destroying launch, combined with the simultaneous release into the eager hands of both critics and players, has created a uniquely voracious narrative.

There’s a sense that one must devour Silksong all at once, or else risk being left behind and out of the loop on what is surely one of the biggest gaming events of the decade so far.

The problem is, Silksong is not a game to be binged. It’s a sprawling, complicated, and brilliant sequel that demands patience above all else. Only then does it fully reveal itself as a game that’s much more than the conversations around difficulty^[2] would have you believe.

Not even two weeks into its life, developer Team Cherry’s Silksong has largely been misrepresented and mislabelled as an impossibly difficult and sadistic continuation of 2017’s brilliant Hollow Knight. Of course, Silksong is a very challenging game; I agree with that wholeheartedly. It’s so much more than that, though.

As the dust settles, and now looking back on my first completed playthrough, I believe it’s going to take years for the collective player hivemind to truly unpack exactly what Silksong does well, and where it falters.

Rough starts and Bellharts

I made the decision to play the first five hours of Hollow Knight alongside those of Silksong’s. This is where the two games differ most drastically. Hollow Knight is much more generous with checkpoints, resources, and clear tutorial sections than Silksong.

Enemies hit hard from the get-go in the sequel, while Hollow Knight gives you some softball encounters to practice on before its first proper boss fight. These are very different games, diverging from one another almost immediately and taking very different paths towards completely different conclusions.

The opening hours of Silksong are likely to be where players find the most friction. Enemies frequently deal two full health segments of damage, though you’ll have more freedom in how you heal thanks to main protagonist Hornet’s increased speed and aerial options. Instead of a simple down attack, Hornet dives in diagonal needle drops. This in itself requires hours to master, and it’s made very clear that bouncing between enemies without touching the ground is the strongest strategy available to you at first.

Your main special resource in Silksong is the silk meter, which is primarily filled by hitting enemies. Upon collecting enough silk, you’ll need to make a quick decision: heal, or unleash a special attack to hopefully end a fight earlier. Risk vs reward is hammered home again and again in Silksong, and it’s the first few hours where you’ll need to experiment with how you want to play. Eventually, you’ll get to the first town area, learn how to purchase items from merchants, and the currencies that you’ll have to focus on seeking out.

Rosaries are the main ones, but they’re also lost upon death, wrapped in a cocoon that must be retrieved in order to get them back. Shell Shards are somewhat supplementary, used to craft tools and open up your combat options.

My wallet is filled with moths

The economy between Rosaries and Shards is a tricky one to make the best use of. Silksong doesn’t give you many opportunities to get Rosaries consistently until a few hours in, while Shards aren’t particularly useful until you’ve bought tools and crafting kits from later merchants.

Tools become vital against flying enemies, bosses, and mobs of enemies, leading to one of the game’s key frustrations. To craft tools, you need Shards. To reliably purchase Shards, you must earn Rosaries, which come from exploring or, more reliably, killing enemies.

Many of the difficulty spikes I hit in Silksong completely cleared out my tools. I’d then have to travel elsewhere to farm Rosaries just to have enough tools to have another go at what was besting me. It’s reminiscent of the awful Blood Vial farming required for some bosses in Bloodborne, taking the player away from the action for repetitive bouts of repeated enemy hunting.

Unfortunately, this never really goes away in Silksong, and if anything, it becomes more common as you progress. The Shard vs Rosary reward balancing is ever so slightly off, making certain areas more and more difficult to progress through.

Shall we take a detour?

Silksong offers the same approach to problem-solving as seen in Elden Ring^[3] and its expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, in that you’re supposed to go and find something else to do when a perceived skill wall presents itself. Silksong’s map is vast, and much of it is completely optional.

Many times, I’d find myself throwing Hornet into the same repeated encounter, as I grew increasingly tired of losing the same fight over and over. At a certain point, however, it clicked that I simply needed to open up the map, look for new paths, and follow them forward. Every single time I did this, I happened upon something that made my build stronger – be that secret bundles of Rosaries, new move sets and upgrades, or non-player characters (NPCs) that could be brought into particular fights alongside Hornet. I developed a mantra to live by: if a section took me more than five tries, I needed to go somewhere else.

Once I opened myself up to Silksong’s non-linear progression paths, I started to meet less friction. Side quests are smart new additions that gently nudge players towards points of interest: An old town built into caves of gold, silver, and bronze bells; a decrepit medical wing filled with Lovecraftian horrors and a few allies to meet; a new encounter at the starting village that changes its topography and makes use of music to deliver sorrowful worldbuilding.

Kicking over a log in the woods

Playing Silksong makes me feel itchy; I’m not sure how else to describe it. Anyone else who spent their childhood wandering around rain-soaked woodland and muddy river banks will know the feeling. You find a rotten piece of wood, roll it over, and jump back at the writhing cities of grubs, bugs, and spiders you’ve unearthed.

Stepping into every new area always feels like a log turned over. You’ll hear the scritch-scratch of tiny legs from somewhere in the shadows. Tiny gnats will whine nasally as you approach. There’s a griminess to Silksong’s initial zones that’s made all the more potent by the golden gleam and religious opulence of late-game areas.

All of this is achieved in a 2D game, mind you. Somehow, Team Cherry has managed to make even the simplest passages feel thick with dirt, fog, and dust. Light is expertly used to add extra volume and scale to the standard side-scrolling formula used in other modern Metroidvanias.

In comparison, the map is one area where there’s been the least innovation. You still need to purchase them before you’ll see certain areas; there’s still a Compass that takes up a Crest slot, and pins can be used to mark key information.

Given the added variety and scale of Silksong, it’s unfortunate that the map isn’t really up to the task of leading you through the game. There frankly needs to be more information on NPCs, added options for pin types, and a reworking of the way the compass works to measure up to the changes made in this sequel.

Sting like a Hornet

Playing as Hornet is a wildly different experience when compared to the silent Knight of the first game. Hornet has dialogue. She’s confident, empathetic, and sternly protective of her personal space. There’s also a concerted effort to contextualize Hornet within the world of Pharloom. You get the impression that she has a personal connection to the bugs you meet, and a genuine desire to help them.

I’m impressed by how well-rounded Hornet is as a protagonist, which makes the combat and boss fights all the more impactful. Silksong is once again filled with an expansive lore and world history. Having Hornet be a part of that lore is a master stroke that elevates the sequel above the first game.

Let’s dance

Silksong is at its best when you’re fighting a boss. Every single one is memorable: equal parts deadly and stunning, with clear design motifs bolstered by bespoke musical accompaniment. Many of the boss battles are intricately choreographed affairs. One early game fight with a needle-wielding foe plays out like a synchronized dance routine, all death-defying dives and sparking slashes of sharpened steel.

I’m struggling to remember another game that’s so filled with best-in-class bosses as Silksong. With enough patience and a bit of time spent exploring for upgrades, none of them feel unfair. The loop of slowly learning patterns and then executing daring counters is what all great boss fights are about. Silskong delivers again and again and again in this respect. I can’t wait to jump back in and face the gauntlet of bosses with new tactics, builds, and strategies, and there isn’t a single boss I’ll be skipping in a second playthrough.

Silksong is every bit the sequel that Hollow Knight deserves. It’s the spoils of a team going the extra mile. It’s challenging, yes, but take your time and explore the vast world of Pharloom, and you’ll be rewarded with yet another masterpiece. I can’t wait to see what comes next from Team Cherry, as it’ll never be a team that settles on delivering ‘just more Hollow Knight’.

Should you play Silksong?

Play it if…

Don’t play it if…

Accessibility

Silksong offers the option to turn off camera shake and customize HUD size. There are audio sliders for individual tracks, and you can remap controls. This is a very limited offering, with no color blind, difficulty, or repeated button input options available.

How I reviewed Silksong

My first playthrough of Silksong lasted 36 hours, and I spent a while doing every side quest available before the final boss fight, not counting courier missions. I still haven’t explored the two final sections of the map, and there are plenty of secrets and locked doors I didn’t get to before the end of the credits. I played Hollow Knight back in 2018, completing the main story and some of the first DLC. I intend to go back and play Silksong a second time, focusing on a different Crest, and making use of a completely different set of tools.

I played Silksong on Nintendo Switch 2^[4], making use of the 120Hz mode when docked. The Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller^[5] was perfect for this game, though d-pad users may want to go for an alternative controller (the d-pad on the Pro 2 is very subpar when compared to other options like the 8BitDo Ultimate^[6]).

I ran Silksong on my LG UltraGear 4K gaming monitor^[7] (27GR93U), making use of the extra refresh rate options. Generally, I played Silksong docked, though I did play about five hours handheld.

First reviewed September 2025

References

1. ^{^} Find out more about how we test. (www.techradar.com)
2. ^{^} the conversations around difficulty (www.techradar.com)
3. ^{^} Elden Ring (www.techradar.com)
4. ^{^} Nintendo Switch 2 (www.techradar.com)
5. ^{^} Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller (www.techradar.com)
6. ^{^} 8BitDo Ultimate (www.techradar.com)
7. ^{^} gaming monitor (www.techradar.com)