When Hollow Knight launched in 2017, it redefined expectations for indie games. Its combination of intricate world design, expressive art, and unflinching difficulty made it one of the most celebrated Metroidvanias of the last decade. For years, anticipation for Silksong simmered until it became one of the most discussed unreleased games in gaming history.
After a lengthy wait, Hollow Knight: Silksong finally arrives. The result is a sequel that embraces evolution rather than revolution. It takes the foundation of its predecessor and builds upon it with a faster protagonist, more vertical exploration, expanded combat mechanics, and a world that feels larger, denser, and more varied. It is both familiar and daring — a game designed not to replace Hollow Knight but to stand beside it as its equal.
Visuals and Art Direction
Pharloom, the kingdom in which Silksong is set, is a striking departure from Hallownest’s subterranean gloom. Sunlit citadels, volcanic wastes, mossy caverns, and mechanical forges create an aesthetic of brightness and danger. Team Cherry’s art style remains unmistakable: hand-drawn environments layered with depth and animated with subtle flourishes.
Hornet herself is a showcase of detail. Her movements are graceful and sharp, her silken abilities leaving distinct trails that not only look beautiful but communicate function. Enemy design leans heavily into variety — insectoid, amphibian, and mechanical foes fill the world, each distinct enough to be memorable, each animated with fluid telegraphs that balance beauty with gameplay clarity.
Exploration is enhanced by visual signposting. Landmarks are more pronounced, background details more useful for orientation, and color palettes shift dramatically from one biome to another. It feels less claustrophobic than Hallownest, but no less atmospheric.
Story and Atmosphere
Hornet’s story is more personal and more present than the Knight’s silent journey in the original. Captured and transported to Pharloom, she must ascend through a kingdom in turmoil to confront forces threatening its order. Unlike her predecessor, Hornet speaks — a subtle but impactful change that grounds her in the narrative.
Storytelling remains characteristically oblique. Dialogues with NPCs provide fragments of lore, while environmental clues hint at the kingdom’s history. Pharloom’s cast is richer in personality than Hallownest’s — merchants, wanderers, and rulers each add texture to the world. Yet Team Cherry resists the temptation to overexplain. Mystery remains at the heart of the experience, ensuring that exploration feels like uncovering secrets rather than consuming exposition.
Gameplay and Combat
The greatest shift in Silksong comes from the change in protagonist. Hornet is faster, more agile, and far more acrobatic than the Knight ever was. Movement is fluid, defined by her ability to vault, climb, and weave across arenas with speed. Verticality plays a larger role in exploration, and many encounters are built around Hornet’s capacity to stay airborne, dart across platforms, and recover quickly from enemy strikes.
Combat is similarly transformed. Where the Knight’s nail strikes were deliberate and measured, Hornet’s needle-and-silk fighting style is rapid and precise. Every encounter demands aggression and rhythm, with silk strands serving as both resource and lifeline. Healing is now tied to silk, and while it is faster than the Knight’s Focus mechanic, it comes at the cost of potential offensive abilities. This constant trade-off forces players to think in the moment: should they heal to survive, or spend precious silk on a devastating counterattack?
Progression also evolves beyond charms. Hornet collects a range of tools, each with distinct applications in combat and traversal. These tools can be modified with rare crafting materials found throughout Pharloom, allowing for deeper customization and encouraging experimentation. Instead of stacking charms to define a build, players craft and refine a toolkit, making Hornet’s growth feel both organic and player-driven.
Boss battles are the culmination of these design philosophies. They are faster, more aggressive, and less forgiving than their Hallownest counterparts. Each encounter tests a different aspect of Hornet’s abilities: some demand aerial mastery, others relentless offense, and many require players to exploit her full mobility to survive. Victory feels exhilarating, precisely because the margin for error is narrow and success comes only after skillful adaptation.
Exploration and World Design
Pharloom itself is designed to emphasize vertical exploration. While Hollow Knight often funneled players horizontally through caverns and tunnels, Silksong builds its environments like layered towers, each area stacked with secrets above and below the main path. This gives the kingdom a sense of scale and density, rewarding curiosity with shortcuts, hidden bosses, and lore-rich encounters.
The map system has been refined with clearer icons and more useful markers, addressing one of the original’s more divisive design choices. Players still need to engage actively with cartographers and buy map upgrades, but backtracking feels more intentional thanks to improved signposting and better integration of fast-travel options.
Optional areas remain integral to the experience. They often present themselves as self-contained challenges — gauntlets of platforming, combat arenas, or intricate puzzles — that reward persistence with powerful tools, rare materials, or glimpses into Pharloom’s mysteries. The game constantly nudges players toward exploration without ever dictating the order of discovery.
Difficulty and Accessibility
It must be stressed: Silksong is not a gentle game. It demands precision, patience, and resilience. The placement of spawn points, particularly in non-boss platforming sequences, can feel punishing, forcing players to replay long stretches after a single mistake. For many, this tension enhances the thrill of survival; for others, it risks crossing into frustration.
Unlike many modern action-platformers, Silksong offers few accessibility concessions. There are no difficulty sliders, and the game expects players to adapt rather than adjust the challenge. This philosophy will delight purists who view mastery as the ultimate reward but may leave others longing for optional assistive features. Team Cherry has already responded to early feedback with patches that address spawn placement and certain quality-of-life issues, but its core design remains proudly unforgiving.
Sound and Music
Christopher Larkin returns as composer, and his score is as essential to the experience as the art and gameplay. Melancholic strings accompany quiet exploration, while swelling orchestral arrangements explode during boss encounters. The music not only underscores the emotional tone of Pharloom but also mirrors the player’s journey: lonely, tense, triumphant.
Sound design is equally meticulous. The clang of Hornet’s needle, the hiss of silk strands, and the chirps of enemies all carry clarity and purpose. Importantly, many sound effects double as gameplay telegraphs, giving players crucial information in moments of chaos.
Technical Performance
One of Silksong’s most impressive qualities is its accessibility on PC hardware. Despite its richly animated presentation, the game runs smoothly on modest systems, requiring little more than an entry-level CPU and midrange GPU. Framerates remain stable even in larger combat arenas, and loading times are minimal.
At launch, some players reported rare bugs — out-of-bounds exploits, occasional boss glitches, and graphical artifacts related to color banding. Team Cherry has been quick to deploy patches, and overall performance is excellent. The game scales elegantly across resolutions, maintaining crisp visuals on both standard monitors and high-refresh displays.
Final Verdict: 8.5/10
Hollow Knight: Silksong is not just a sequel — it is a confident evolution of a modern classic. By giving Hornet her own identity through movement, combat, and narrative voice, Team Cherry avoids simply retreading old ground. Pharloom feels alive with secrets, challenges, and dangers, and every corner of the kingdom rewards curiosity and perseverance.
The game’s uncompromising difficulty will divide audiences. For dedicated players, the steep learning curve, punishing spawn placement, and relentless bosses will feel like a call to mastery. For others, these same traits may transform awe into frustration. Yet this is central to Silksong’s design philosophy: triumph means little without hardship.
For those willing to embrace its demands, Silksong delivers one of the richest, most finely crafted experiences in modern gaming. It is a work of precision and passion, a worthy companion to its predecessor, and an instant landmark in the Metroidvania genre.
