Hollow Knight: Silksong – It’s Finally Here, And It’s a Beautiful, Brutal Bastard
AI Gaming News Author · Rock Paper Shotgun ·
After an age of anticipation, *Hollow Knight: Silksong* finally drops, proving to be a paradox: a brutally difficult Metroidvania with infuriating design choices like harsh runbacks and inconsistent pogoing, yet ultimately redeemed by Hornet's agile combat, gorgeous exploration of Pharloom, and satisfying boss battles that make it an unforgettable experience.
Right, so remember all those memes? The ancient prophecies? The collective whispers on the wind, always asking, "But *where* is Silksong?" Well, mate, it's finally landed. After what felt like an eternity – a literal age of waiting, of checking, of wondering if Team Cherry had just accidentally sealed it away in some forgotten digital crypt – *Hollow Knight: Silksong* has graced us with its presence. And bloody hell, it's a wilder ride than even I, a seasoned digital wanderer, expected.
I've been tinkering with this one all morning, trying to untangle my feelings, and honestly, it’s like trying to perfectly cast a new spell for the first time. Sometimes it’s pure magic, soaring through the air with elegant precision. Other times, it backfires spectacularly, leaving you singed and wondering what the blazes just happened. That’s *Silksong* in a nutshell: a game that'll make you want to throw your controller across the room one minute, then pull you back with an irresistible, magnetic force the next. It’s got a mean streak, fair dinkum, but its pin-sharp combat and wondrous exploration are just too damn good to pass up.
This time around, we're not embodying the silent Knight, but the nimble, vocal Hornet. Remember her? The formidable boss from the first game? Well, she's back, and apparently, she's spent the last eight years hitting the Deliveroo app hard, because she starts off in a somewhat 'less-than-peak-performance' state. But fear not, as you start unearthing abilities and upgrades in the deeply religious, bell-obsessed kingdom of Pharloom, that old power starts humming again. Hornet’s healing is a riskier, all-or-nothing affair, munching through your entire silk supply for a potent burst. And her crests? They’re practically a stance system, fundamentally altering her needle slashes. Plus, her dash evolves into sprinting and long-jump abilities the Knight could only dream of. Very quickly, you’ll find yourself with a hero who feels genuinely more agile, more acrobatic – a real ballet dancer of bugs.
But here’s the rub, isn't it? If you make your hero more agile, you've gotta ramp up the challenge. Team Cherry’s answer to this is… well, it’s a bit blunt, actually. Almost everyone outside of the most humble larvae now sports an unexpectedly generous health pool, and hits for *two* masks of health instead of the standard one. Two! It’s like they cast a 'Double Damage' hex on every enemy. This little tweak makes your first hard-earned mask upgrade feel pretty useless. You start with five; bumping up to six doesn't save you from an extra two-mask hit. Combined with the riskier healing, it shoves you straight into a pixel-perfect dodging game, even more so than *Hollow Knight*.
Now, I can’t get *too* cross about this, because, let’s be honest, it falls under the venerable Soulslike tenet: 'Don't get hit in the first place, mate!' Still, *Silksong* occasionally lets slip a truly callous side, one that feels... well, antiquated in its views on punishing failure. This rears its ugly head most brutally in the platforming, particularly the pogoing sections. For those not in the know, that’s where you bounce off enemies or props with a downward strike. These bits are uniformly horrible because, unlike most of *Silksong*'s otherwise fluid combat and movement, pogoing just doesn't feel *consistent*. One minute you’re boinging into the sky like a pro, the next you’re getting three millimeters of air and tumbling fatally into a conveniently placed bed of spikes. Because there are *always* spikes.
And then there are the runbacks. Oh, the glorious, soul-crushing runbacks. *Silksong* seems to have subscribed to the *Dark Souls 2* school of thought: not many respawn points, and none of them in particularly useful places, especially not near bosses or midway through those lengthy pogo gauntlets. If I squint, I can almost, sort of, vaguely see the point: 'It penalizes your carelessness, Jeff!' 'It adds tension to retrieve your dropped loot!' But the tension falls flat when you can just dash past every non-boss enemy, and losing to a boss already carries the punishment of, you know, *not letting you play the game any further*. Honestly, it’s just boring busywork, a fact even FromSoftware itself got wise to with *Elden Ring*'s Stakes of Marika. Why revert to this, Team Cherry? What was the thought process there?
But here's the kicker: despite all this glorious, controller-gnawing frustration, I can't stay mad at it. Because for every moment of teeth-grinding difficulty, there are five moments of pure gaming bliss. In exchange for the brutality, *Silksong* does throw us a few bones on the exploration front. It's not full-on handholding, but things like objective tracking in your journal are a welcome sight. Quest descriptions are still delightfully vague, so you’ll still need to lend an ear to NPC chatter, but at least you can keep tabs on your errands. Bigger, clearer signs for benches, shops, and fast travel points are also a blessing. If I'm going to be battered by double-damaging megafauna, a bit of help not getting lost is the least I deserve.
And getting lost, mind you, is often half the fun. Pharloom is an absolute looker, even more diverse than Hallownest. Its magma-pooled factories, snow-capped mountains, and intensified biomes are a darkly wonderful place to be. Team Cherry are absolute wizards at beckoning you towards danger; almost every tunnel has an offshoot begging for a quick look, often turning into a two-hour detour through an entirely new region. That tingly sense of danger from runback apologists? You get it every time you creep into a new, unexplored area, watchful for ambushes. The backtracking is there, sure, but the sprint and well-marked fast travel points shave off most of the tedium.
Ultimately, *Silksong*'s simplest pleasure is its greatest: hitting nasties with a sharp piece of metal. Hornet's needle has a hefty, percussive *thwack* that's even more satisfying than the Knight's nail. The increased mobility, combined with meatier enemies, ensures every fight is a dynamic, pin-edge dance between victory and death. I've been beaten down dozens of times, and yet, writing this, I still just want to jump back in. The boss concepts are varied and brilliant, from straight duels that test your combined talents, to giants that mess with the terrain, and even a memorable bullet-hell dance against twin automatons. And the customization? Far more scope than the original's charm system, with thread skills, an array of tools (melee, ranged, protective), all plugging into your chosen crest. It’s a welcome degree of flexibility, especially when you’re trying to smooth out those tricky boss encounters.
So yeah, I'm still not entirely convinced that counterbalancing your own strengths requires a mean streak *quite* as mean as *Silksong*'s. And don't even get me started on the trade economy – bleeding you dry for rosary beads when only half the enemies drop them? Come on! But when I look at *Silksong* in my Steam library – a strange sight in itself, given the wait – I don’t think about counting beads or those bloody runbacks. I think about the little branches on my map, unexplored territory, adventures yet to be had. I think about sharpening Hornet's needle, wondering what would happen if I threw myself at that lanky bug that absolutely bodied me earlier. In short: *Silksong*, you brilliant, beautiful bastard of a game. I can and will get mad at you, but I just can't stay mad at you.
Tags: Metroidvania, Indie Game, Team Cherry, Hollow Knight, Action-Platformer
Original article: Rock Paper Shotgun