Team Cherry has achieved the seemingly impossible: bottling lightning not once, but twice. Hollow Knight Silksong is nothing short of a masterpiece, not merely because it surpasses its predecessor in scale or ambition, but because it bravely steps out of Hollow Knight’s shadow to forge its own legendary path. This game’s immense scope pushes beyond its initial influences, delivering a definitive Metroidvania epic that demands players rise to its challenge. Rated a perfect 10/10.
Seven years is an eternity in the gaming world. Relationships can shift, philosophies evolve, and even the cells in our bodies are said to regenerate. For just as long, the gaming community has been collectively holding its breath for Hollow Knight Silksong, marked by its noticeable absence from countless Nintendo Directs and Gamescom ONL events. The internet became a chorus of clown noses and the persistent chant: “SKONG TODAY?” Well, finally. Today is Skong day.
The arrival of Hollow Knight Silksong is also tinged with a unique sense of letting go. Anticipation built to such a fever pitch over its extensive development that it didn’t just consume fans; it overshadowed the very idea of Hollow Knight itself. The reality is that the Metroidvania genre often follows such a strict blueprint that sequels must truly innovate to justify their existence. Take Ori and the Will of the Wisps: it enhanced the original’s superb movement with a more robust combat system, but fundamentally, it was an evolution of the familiar. Blasphemous 2 introduced deep customization and mechanical refinements, yet its polished aesthetics inadvertently cleaned away some of the gritty charm that defined its forerunner.
While “the same but better” isn’t inherently a poor goal for a sequel, Metroidvania games require profound substance to overcome the inherent repetition: explore, defeat a boss, gain a new ability, repeat. Rest assured, Team Cherry adheres to this core loop, but it also brilliantly inverts Hollow Knight’s established trajectory. Instead of burrowing deep like the Knight’s namesake stag beetle, Hornet’s arachnid instincts steer Silksong’s world towards exhilarating verticality.
Gravity has always been a platformer’s arch-nemesis, with spikes, lava, and bottomless pits lurking everywhere. But in Pharloom, gravity itself becomes a gauge of your progress. Team Cherry introduces this concept early on, where a daring leap across a Moss Grotto chasm might unexpectedly drop you into Bone Bottom. This harsh lesson returns hours later, when an accidental fall from the Whispering Vaults lands you squarely in the maggot-ridden, venomous pools of Bilewater. However, even if you strip away all objectives and narrative, the fundamental challenge of climbing a monumental tower remains clear.
While Metroidvania level design often leans into platforming abstractions, Silksong embraces these familiar themes—forests, volcanic regions, snowy peaks, and so on—but Pharloom’s world cohesion far surpasses Hallownest’s. Its lower reaches are essentially a grand graveyard, and the ascent out is paved with the remnants of pilgrims. The Citadel, towering above, stands as a testament to Team Cherry’s exceptional ability to weave storytelling through environmental exploration. Its grandeur, heightened by the choral magnificence of Christopher Larkin’s outstanding soundtrack, is dramatically undermined by the inherent greed and exploitation embedded within its very structure. Carcasses are tangled in the industrial gears of its underbelly, while benches demand the meager earnings of living workers for their use. The areas within the Citadel are more than just aesthetic choices from Team Cherry’s mood board; they are meticulously constructed with a clear purpose that echoes its in-world genesis.
Pharloom is considerably vaster than Hallownest, yet it offers only one additional fast travel point. This presents a challenge, especially since a larger map doesn’t automatically mean a better Metroidvania experience. One of the pure joys of a Metroidvania is that moment of realization after acquiring a new ability: “Finally!” you exclaim, “I can reach that elusive ledge!” In Silksong, there are so many unexplored ledges and untouched paths that it becomes difficult to keep track. This sense of triumph is often replaced by a subtle anxiety, a feeling that you’ve overlooked something crucial, much like the video game equivalent of worrying if you left the oven on.
This concern is less pronounced in the game’s first half, which is also the easier portion. The most difficult maneuver in a Metroidvania is often the “heel-turn,” when the player’s relentless forward momentum is skillfully redirected back upon itself. Silksong’s custom map markers, though helpful, are mere symbols without inherent meaning beyond what the player assigns. While this is typical for Metroidvania maps, it becomes a notable issue when applied to a map of this magnitude. Silksong would have greatly benefited from the screenshot-style pins, a brilliant innovation seen in Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown—one of the genre’s finest recent entries, offering an elegant solution to minimize unnecessary backtracking.
Naturally, a world of this size means that giving the player too much freedom can sometimes backfire. A challenging combat gauntlet, for instance, might be trivial with the right caltrops or a personal swarm of poison cogflies, but finding these tools first is essential. Conversely, a platforming sequence that’s technically manageable (if not emotionally so) could become a breeze once you’ve unlocked a specific traversal ability hidden elsewhere. In these situations, players are left with two conclusions: either the encounter is fundamentally unbalanced, or they must trust that Team Cherry has tucked away a key upgrade to ease their burden. Established Hollow Knight fans are more likely to place that trust, but Silksong doesn’t extend such a clear promise to newcomers.
That said, the perceived difficulty of Hollow Knight has often been subject to a collective amnesia, much like the fading memory of childbirth pain. Judging by the fervent discussions surrounding Silksong, one might mistakenly assume Hollow Knight was a serene experience akin to Yoku’s Island Express. The truth is, Hollow Knight has always been, and remains, a challenging game. Its struggle against “soulslike” comparisons wasn’t just due to its bleak, plague-ridden world; its combat-focused gameplay is relentless, particularly against its bosses and arduous gauntlet challenges.
Silksong’s difficulty undeniably steps up from Hollow Knight, but it feels like a natural evolution. Its occasional difficulty spikes often stem from being unprepared rather than poor design. Where most Metroidvanias traditionally gate progression behind locked doors, Team Cherry frequently throws them wide open, inviting players to use their own judgment about their readiness. This level of player autonomy isn’t entirely new to Metroidvanias, but it’s rare enough that I must consciously remind myself of it when I’m bogged down in the thick mud of Bilewater or constantly harassed by Muckroaches on Sinner’s Road. The choice to repeatedly tackle the same path is often my own, not one forced upon me by the game.
Combat encounters build upon each other, remaining deeply connected to the world’s design. The Citadel’s inhabitants are most effectively dispatched with a downward strike, subtly preparing you for bouncing off the myriad sprockets and springs within the Cogwork Core. The birds that swoop and attack Hornet in Greymoor provide muscle memory training for the intense fight against Moorwing. Moreover, Silksong’s enemies aren’t just targets to be hit until they fall. They serve as silk farms, rosary banks, makeshift platforms, and even living projectile launchers. Again, while not entirely groundbreaking for a Metroidvania, Team Cherry’s deliberate and careful enemy placement demonstrates exceptional attention to detail.
Silksong continues Team Cherry’s tradition of bosses with focused yet potent movesets that grow in complexity across multiple phases, but now you have more tools at your disposal. Crests and specialized tools replace Hollow Knight’s charm system, unlocking new depths of build variety and intricate synergies. I might equip one crest with utility-focused yellow tools for exploring the map and efficiently gathering currency. Another crest, held in reserve, could be loaded with damage boosts and quicker heals, perfectly tailored for boss battles. A third might be set up with explosive bombs and throwing rings, ideal for crowd control.
Seven years of development have also resulted in lavish attention to Silksong’s animation, which easily outshines Hollow Knight’s. Where the Knight’s minimalist movement reflected their vacant nature and Team Cherry’s initial budget constraints, Hornet bursts with dynamic mobility. Her pogo flips and swift turns are punctuated by a frantic skittering of her spindle-like legs as she struggles to remain upright under your command. This meticulous detail extends to Silksong’s entire world: the tattered draperies effortlessly sliced by Hornet’s needle, the processions of tiny red ants carrying rosaries and various trinkets, and even the flimsy protrusions that visibly dip under Hornet’s weight. These subtle touches may not fundamentally alter gameplay, but collectively, they immerse you in a world that feels wonderfully tactile and mutable.
The physical limitations of Hornet’s body make her feel deeply connected to her surroundings, a sentiment reinforced by her dialogue. She exchanges witty banter with antivillain Lace, encourages pilgrim Sherma to focus on aiding her suffering kin rather than seeking divine intervention, and delivers a sharp slap to any overly familiar bug that encroaches on her space. Her active participation in Pharloom’s people and politics makes Silksong’s narrative far more accessible. While Hollow Knight’s lore often required external videos for all but the most dedicated fans, Silksong’s tale of weavers and wyrms, mothers and daughters, and the earthly and divine, needs no outside explanation. It’s a sequel that genuinely enriches its predecessor, in some ways serving as a narrative correction to the cryptic, FromSoftware-esque storytelling that came before.
However, not all of Silksong’s narrative beats land equally. Where Hollow Knight featured a carefully curated selection of quests, its sequel presents literal bulletin boards filled with wishes to fulfill. The primary purpose of these extraneous tasks, beyond simply checking boxes, is likely to encourage players struggling with their rosary count to clear some weaker enemies for substantial funds in exchange for relatively minor chores—but they remain, at their core, chores. Of course, there are a few notable exceptions. The Great Taste of Pharloom includes a courier time trial, a charming callback to the Delicate Flower quest in Hollow Knight. Similarly, assisting an ascetic root-witch in Shellwood unveils a parasitic allegory of pregnancy that would fit right into a Bloodborne narrative.
Yet, these are mere bright spots amidst a laundry list of collectibles, rehashed bosses, and a convoluted system for saving your rosaries. Instead, what I truly cherish in Silksong are the incidental moments of sheer strangeness, which could only come from a team given the luxury of extended development. The flea caravan’s spa is overseen by a smirking pervert who observes Hornet from a balcony as she bathes. More unsettlingly, reloading your save after resting at the bench in Haunted Bellhart might find Hornet ensnared in Widow’s silken threads, twisted and bound.
Silksong masterfully plays with convention and expectation, though rarely to the detriment of the player. Admittedly, “rarely” doesn’t mean “never”—the explosive finale of Hornet’s confrontation with the Last Judge, while self-explanatory, still feels somewhat cruel in its inclusion. Yet, for the most part, the game is wonderfully playful. Even the infamous swinging axe trap guarding the sole bench in Hunter’s March isn’t a display of Team Cherry’s sadism, but rather a wry grin: a clever reminder of the world’s dangers and Hornet’s place within it. Even Silksong’s “ending” takes Hollow Knight’s premise—that defeating the final boss is just the beginning—and expands upon it, concealing an entire additional story act behind a Void-choked save file.
Hollow Knight Silksong stands as the finest Metroidvania ever created. Its only discernible flaw is the sheer scale of Team Cherry’s ambition, but within a genre so bound by rigid rules and conventions, it’s difficult to count this as a genuine criticism. Team Cherry’s masterful synthesis of level design, combat, and narrative elevates Silksong not only above Hollow Knight but also above its very genre. It’s best appreciated when savored like an open-world adventure—not with the relentless forward momentum of dashing through endless corridors, but with thoughtful contemplation and boundless curiosity. Even the most vocal complaints about arduous backtracking or sudden difficulty spikes fade once you take the time to explore every corner, unearthing new shortcuts, discovering new tools, and piecing together the magnificent puzzle box that is Pharloom. Hollow Knight established the gold standard for modern Metroidvanias. Silksong reveals what lies beyond it.