Verdict
Team Cherry has achieved the seemingly impossible: capturing magic for a second time. Despite immense anticipation, Silksong stands as a true masterpiece. It isn’t merely an expansion or improvement on its predecessor; it’s a game that forges its own identity, evolving into a definitive Metroidvania epic. Its vast scope pushes genre boundaries, inviting players to conquer a world brimming with challenges and wonder.
Seven years. It’s a duration often associated with change and anticipation, from relationship milestones to philosophical cycles. For the gaming world, seven long years have passed with Hollow Knight Silksong‘s presence haunting every major announcement, fueling endless speculation and the infamous “SKONG TODAY?” meme. But now, the wait is over. Today, “Skong” has finally arrived.
Hollow Knight Silksong’s arrival comes with an accompanying sense of loss. The sheer hype built over its extensive development almost overshadowed the game itself. This intense anticipation highlights a critical challenge for any Metroidvania sequel: how to innovate within a genre known for its strict formula. While games like Ori and the Will of the Wisps enhanced combat and Blasphemous 2 offered customization, many sequels often feel like “more of the same,” or risk losing the essence of their predecessors.
While “the same but better” is a valid approach, Metroidvania games thrive on substance to justify their inherent repetition: explore, defeat a boss, gain a new ability, repeat. Team Cherry adheres to this core loop but masterfully twists it. Unlike the original’s downward journey, Silksong shifts its focus, drawing on Hornet’s spider-like agility to push exploration towards breathtaking verticality.
In platformers, gravity is often the deadliest foe, with countless environmental traps eager to send you plummeting. However, in Pharloom, gravity cleverly doubles as a gauge of your advancement. This dynamic is introduced early on; a daring jump across a Moss Grotto chasm might send you spiraling back to Bone Bottom. Later, an accidental fall from the lofty Whispering Vaults can plunge you into the dangerous, maggot-ridden Bilewater pits. Ultimately, even without explicit objectives, Silksong’s fundamental design elegantly conveys the overarching goal of ascending a grand tower.
While many Metroidvania titles feature abstract environments, Silksong’s Pharloom boasts a world cohesion that far surpasses Hallownest. It presents familiar themes like forests, lava, and snow, but each area feels interconnected and purposeful. The lower regions of Pharloom are a somber grave for pilgrims, while the towering Citadel above stands as a testament to Team Cherry’s skill in weaving narrative through exploration. The Citadel’s grandeur, amplified by Christopher Larkin’s magnificent choral soundtrack, is sharply contrasted by the underlying themes of greed and exploitation. Workers’ meager earnings are demanded for basic amenities, and unfortunate carcasses are ensnared in its industrial mechanisms. Every location within the Citadel isn’t just a scenic backdrop; it’s deliberately designed to reflect the lore and history of its construction.
Pharloom is notably larger than Hallownest, yet it surprisingly offers only one extra fast travel point. In the Metroidvania genre, bigger isn’t always better, and this vastness can sometimes feel like a drawback. The classic Metroidvania joy of discovering a new ability and realizing, “Finally, I can reach that elusive ledge!” is often replaced in Silksong by a subtle anxiety. With countless unexplored paths and hidden ledges, it’s easy to feel like you’ve forgotten something vital, a nagging feeling akin to wondering if you’ve left the oven on.
Such a vast world, combined with the game’s tendency to let players discover things on their own, can occasionally lead to frustration. A tough combat sequence might be trivialized with the right tools, like caltrops or companion cogflies, but only if you’ve managed to find them first. Similarly, a daunting platforming section might become effortless after acquiring a new traversal ability from a different area. This design choice leaves players with two interpretations: either the encounter is unfairly balanced, or they must trust that Team Cherry has hidden the necessary solutions within Pharloom’s labyrinthine depths. Veteran Hollow Knight players might extend this trust, but Silksong doesn’t explicitly offer this reassurance to newcomers.
It’s worth noting that the original Hollow Knight’s difficulty is often subject to selective memory. Based on the buzz surrounding Silksong, one might mistakenly believe its predecessor was a leisurely stroll akin to Yoku’s Island Express. The reality is that Hollow Knight was, and remains, a demanding game. Its combat-focused gameplay was relentless, especially during boss battles and challenging gauntlets, and it often earned comparisons to soulslike titles for more than just its bleak, plague-ridden setting.
Indeed, Silksong’s difficulty is a step up from Hollow Knight, but it’s a logical evolution. Its notorious difficulty spikes often stem from a player’s lack of preparation. Unlike many Metroidvanias that gate progress with locked doors, Team Cherry frequently leaves paths wide open, entrusting players to gauge their readiness for the challenges ahead. This level of player autonomy, while not unheard of, is rare enough that it required conscious effort on my part to internalize during frustrating encounters in areas like Bilewater or Sinner’s Road. Often, the choice to repeatedly tackle a difficult section without seeking alternatives was my own, rather than a forced progression.
Combat in Silksong evolves constantly, with encounters thoughtfully integrated into the world’s design. For instance, the Citadel’s enemies are vulnerable to downward strikes, subtly preparing players for bouncing off sprockets and springs in the Cogwork Core. Similarly, the aggressive birds in Greymoor serve as crucial training for the Moorwing boss battle. Moreover, Silksong’s enemies aren’t just there to be hit until they die. They function as silk sources, rosary banks, temporary platforms, and even projectile launchers. While not entirely new to the Metroidvania genre, Team Cherry’s deliberate and intelligent enemy placement truly stands out.
Silksong continues Team Cherry’s signature boss design, featuring adversaries with potent, escalating movesets across multiple phases. However, players now have a richer toolkit. The new crest and tool system replaces Hollow Knight’s charms, introducing deeper build variety and intricate synergies. One might equip a crest with utility-focused yellow tools for exploration and currency collection, while another is reserved for boss fights, packed with damage buffs and quicker heals. A third could be customized with explosive bombs and throwing rings, perfect for crowd control.
The seven-year development cycle has clearly allowed for meticulous attention to Silksong’s animation, which significantly surpasses that of Hollow Knight. While the Knight’s minimalist movement reflected a sense of emptiness and the original game’s budget constraints, Hornet bursts with dynamic energy. Her pogo flips and swift maneuvers are accompanied by a vivid skittering of her spindle legs, conveying her struggle and agility under player control. This level of detail extends throughout Silksong’s world. Observe the tattered fabrics shredded by Hornet’s needle, the busy trails of red ants carrying off valuables, or the delicate platforms that bend under her weight. These small, intricate touches don’t fundamentally alter gameplay, but together, they create a wonderfully tactile and responsive world.
Hornet’s physical design naturally connects her to the world, a connection further amplified by her engaging dialogue. She exchanges witty remarks with the antivillain Lace, encourages pilgrim Sherma to take action for her struggling kin instead of relying on higher powers, and even delivers a quick swat to any bug that gets too comfortable. Her active involvement in Pharloom’s society and political landscape makes Silksong’s narrative far more accessible. Unlike Hollow Knight, whose lore often required dedicated fan analysis, Silksong’s story of weavers, wyrms, mothers, and daughters—of both earthly and divine struggles—is clear and self-contained. It’s a sequel that genuinely deepens the existing lore, offering a welcome departure from the cryptic, FromSoftware-esque storytelling of its predecessor.
Not every narrative element in Silksong hits the same mark. While Hollow Knight featured a select few, meticulously crafted quests, its successor bombards players with literal bulletin boards full of requests. These additional tasks, though perhaps intended to help players accumulate rosaries by clearing minor enemy groups, ultimately feel like tedious chores. There are bright spots, however: “The Great Taste of Pharloom” offers a courier time trial reminiscent of Hollow Knight’s Delicate Flower, and aiding an ascetic root-witch in Shellwood unravels a compelling, parasitic allegory of pregnancy that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Bloodborne game.
These few compelling quests are exceptions among a lengthy list of collectibles, reused boss encounters, and convoluted methods for saving rosaries. What truly shines are Silksong’s moments of delightful oddity—details that only a team granted ample development time could create. For example, the flea caravan’s spa features a peculiar, smirking figure who watches Hornet bathe from a balcony. More unsettling, reloading a save after resting at the bench in Haunted Bellhart can find Hornet entangled in the Widow’s sinister silken threads, twisted and bound.
Silksong often subverts conventions and expectations, but rarely with the intent to punish players. While exceptions exist—like the rather cruel fatal explosion at the climax of Hornet’s fight with the Last Judge—the game is predominantly playful. The notorious swinging axe trap guarding the only bench in Hunter’s March isn’t a display of Team Cherry’s sadism, but rather a wry wink, a subtle reminder of Hornet’s vulnerability and position within the world. Even Silksong’s “ending” expands on Hollow Knight’s philosophy that defeating the final boss is merely the beginning, concealing an entire additional story act behind a Void-choked save file.
Simply put, Silksong is arguably the finest Metroidvania ever crafted. Its sole discernible drawback might be the sheer scale of Team Cherry’s ambition, yet within a genre so bound by rules, this ambition is hard to fault. The brilliant synergy between its level design, combat, and narrative elevates Silksong not only beyond Hollow Knight but beyond the genre itself. It truly shines when approached with the contemplative curiosity one would give an open-world adventure, rather than the relentless focus on platforming and dashing through corridors. Even frustrations over long backtracking sections or sudden difficulty spikes fade when you take the time to explore every nook and cranny, uncovering new shortcuts, vital tools, and hidden pieces of its intricate puzzle. Hollow Knight established the modern Metroidvania benchmark. Silksong has now redefined it, showing us what’s next.