Review: Hollow Knight: Silksong

Hollow Knight: Silksong didn’t need to do much; it just needed to be ‘more Hollow Knight‘. That’s a huge task in itself; a slightly bigger, slightly better version of an already amazing, genre-defining game. But it’s clear that, after seven years of refining and perfecting and toiling, Team Cherry wanted more than just ‘more Hollow Knight’. Hours and hours of love have been poured into every single aspect of Silksong, where the attention to detail is off the charts, and the surprises just keep coming. It elevates map design and purposeful challenge effortlessly, and is an improvement on Hollow Knight in every single way.

I knew from the moment I first stepped into Pharloom and was wowed by its beautiful colour palette and its eclectic mix of bug NPCs, I would fall in love with this game. But the moment that truly cemented it for me was when I was struck with a revelation (very literally) by being hit by an enemy for two masks of damage instead of one. Barbs, spikes, and booby trap benches lay in waiting to catch me off guard. Sawblades and pits are just out of view to punish a dashing Hornet. One time, I stood on a switch that activated a blade that killed me in one hit after a tricky platforming challenge. I couldn’t stop laughing; I owe Primal Aspids an apology.

Pharloom hates you, and it hates Hornet, but I adore it. Its workers slave away until death and the coils of religion and silk are wrapped around many of the pilgrims wandering around the world. The golden and white faded halls of the Citadel are far from a safe haven for the people. The very harshness of Silksong is baked into every aspect, including the narrative, which enriches everything about the game for me. Sometimes, it’s relentless, but that’s kind of the point.

Eventually, every moment of frustration turned into elation as I mastered each environment and challenge put in front of me. Every time I opened up a new Bellway, I’d smile as the Bell Beast emerged and stomped her feet excitedly. Whenever I found a Flea and freed it from a cage or woke it up from a nap, I’d imitate its high-pitched bark. Pharloom is an oxymoron of a world, a twisted knot of beauty and terror with small pockets of joy and secrets to discover that it made me fall in love with failure.

And what a world to fail in, too. Pharloom is still a sombre world, but it’s a rainbow compared to the muted tones of Hallownest. It also pops beautifully on Switch 2, particularly in handheld. It’s also perfect at 120fps. When I think of Silksong’s world, I think of the ornate converted bells made into homes and the thickets of leaves in the background of the swamps, all accompanied by Christopher Larkin’s incredible score. The poignant strings of Hunter’s March is one of my favourites, hinting at the kingdom of the ants’ fate from time’s past. Cogwork Core’s ticking and piano notes helped me time my platforming perfectly. Then there’s the incredibly fast-paced strings of Widow’s fight, a relentless onslaught of violins and cellos to match her snappy movement.

While failure is common, it’s alleviated by the fact that Hornet’s movement is sublime; she’s much faster than The Knight from the get-go, and that only grows the more skills she learns. Being able to dash and attack at the same time blows combat and platforming wide open, as does being able to heal in mid-air. You can see where Team Cherry has learned from some of Hollow Knight’s fiddly platforming and taken advantage of Hornet’s full range; climbing up a blizzard-ridden mountain or hopping over thorny pits feels seamless when you nail it.

Because of how fast Hornet moves, I didn’t really realise how big the map was until I reached Act 2 and pulled it up. It’s staggering to look at in comparison to Hollow Knight, and no room is purposeless or empty. Even if you find a dead-end, come back later and you’ll find a surprise or secret. NPCs who just seem like flavour text eventually become key figures. Everything matters in Silksong, and everything has a place.

It’s the same with combat, where Hornet has so many more options than The Knight. While Hornet has four different basic attacks, you can completely change these by equipping different Crests. I fell in love with the Reaper Crest, which changed Hornet’s idle slash into a wide-arcing, slightly slower needle swipe. But they all have their value; one late-game Crest turned Hornet’s running stab into a double-slash which shredded foes in my path, while another allowed me to drain enemy health and go into berserk mode whenever I used my silk to bind (aka, heal).

The customisation is off the charts when you throw in Tools and Silk Skills, subweapons and magic-like attacks that allow Hornet to set traps or throw items from a distance or even parry and counter. Some Tools provide passive effects like adding poison to your damage or letting you grab onto walls without sliding down them; I tinkered around with these for boss fights and trials meticulously, as sometimes poison isn’t as effective or a boss could parry your own projectiles.

Silksong is tough, but really only in the sense that the skill floor is much higher than Hollow Knight’s was; once you learn to weave Tools, Skills, and movement into combat, victory tastes delicious in the way that I only really felt during Hollow Knight’s best fights. Most of those came from the DLC, which is where Silksong has plucked much of its boss philosophy from and refined.

At their best, bosses are a ballet of movement and action, where every action has a reaction and you move almost rhythmically. One secret boss in Act 2 has become one of my favourites of all time, a fast-paced brawl where you have to move constantly and always be on the offensive. By the time I beat the fight, I felt like I could read every single attack like the back of my hand, despite the fact that both of us were speeding around the arena like lightning bolts; I gripped the controller tightly, breathed in time with the rhythm of the fight, counted every single beat and hit before they happened. It was pure magic.

If I sound like I’m good at this game, I’m not. I died a lot and spewed many expletives as I tried again and again to master these dances. But the joy of a Metroidvania is that you can walk away and find something else to do to power yourself up. It’s the in-game equivalent of taking a breather, doing something a little less intense, grabbing a bit of extra money to buy a new Tool or discovering a new Crest that better suits your playstyle.

My only real gripe is with currency in the late-game. A patch has helped reduce the cost of some end-game stuff, but I always found myself a bit short of rosaries for Tools or upgrades and Shards to rebuild Tools. Nothing a few minutes of fast-paced pilgrim murdering didn’t solve, but a tiny bit more leniency wouldn’t go unappreciated.

But after spending over 60 hours with Silksong, it’s not the cruelty or the rare-stringent moment that sticks with me: it’s the triumph. It’s the blue lake hiding in the corner of a sewer system. It’s the hauntingly beautiful choral music echoing the Citadel’s chambers. It’s the friendships Hornet forged throughout the kingdom. It’s the tears I’ve shed after beating a particularly beautiful boss.

Silksong is a game that demands everything from you, but it returns just as much. The Last Judge is hard because it’s the final guard before the Citadel. And, in return for finally overcoming it, you get so much more to explore, even better maps, and even better bosses. There are multiple paths you can take to certain quests that change the difficulty or reward you with different equipment. The way that areas blend together as you approach new biomes hints at what’s to come.

Silksong’s map tells a story of suffering and struggling that reinvigorates the way a Metroidvania map can be utilised. Obstacles exist for a reason, not just for some fun platforming, and it completely understands how to blend its Souls and Metroidvania inspirations and make everything purposeful.

I’ve fought some of the hardest bosses since Sekiro or Shadow of the Erdtree and emerged triumphant. I’ve been at the very bottom, picked myself up, come back and sliced through challenges like butter over and over again. And yet, somehow, I still have more to uncover. But I’d gladly wipe my memory, go through the struggle, and perfect my techniques all over again.

Conclusion

Hollow Knight: Silksong’s beauty is beguiling, hiding an interior that’s deliberately harsh but endlessly rewarding. Everything feels deliberate, pushing you to learn, improve, and perfect, or simply just explore a little more. And what a world it is to dig into.

Somehow, Team Cherry has surpassed my expectations tenfold and delivered a mesmeric blend of balletic combat and movement with persistence, joy, and an incredibly invigorating map at the centre. I’ve never felt better surmounting the challenges put in front of me, and I’m already raring to do it a second time.