Hollow Knight: Silksong – Review

Sometimes the wait is rewarded

When I heard that Silksong was finally launching after a seven-year wait, I was so happy I started counting up my remaining leave days so I could book time off for it. At the same time, I felt a slight twinge of doubt, fearing that the small team wouldn't be able to live up to the colossal expectations.

After more than 40 hours in the company of this beautiful Metroidvania, I can say that the wait has been richly rewarded.

Leaving the nest

The story in Silksong is fairly ambiguous. You'll need some knowledge of the Hollow Knight universe to piece the events together, but it's clear that the action takes place some time after the first game. Hornet, the princess of Hallownest, is captured and taken to Pharloom by a group of fanatics belonging to the Citadel's holy cult. Once there, she manages to escape, then sets out to discover her origins and the reason she was captured.

She quickly discovers that the various insects she meets turn aggressive once they come into contact with magical silk threads, and she assumes that her ability to produce silk may be the reason she was brought here. In her attempt to find out more, she seeks out weavers like herself and ends up chasing a mythical creature to the highest point in Pharloom.

The premise is appealing and gives you enough context. If you want to learn more about the world around you and its inhabitants, you can do so by reading the various scraps of lore scattered through the levels or by talking to the locals. Unlike the Knight, the mute protagonist of the first game, Hornet can speak, and she has plenty to say!

Giving her a voice adds a new dimension to the main character and changes how you relate to your surroundings. Hornet keeps the same tough-warrior personality, and you'll get to know her better through her conversations with the many insects. You'll meet a lot of unusual characters over the course of the story, and the exchanges are often funny and welcome. I must confess I didn't expect such sharp dialogue in a game like this, but there were a few moments when I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the writing.

The narrative spans three acts, but you can see the game's first ending after the first two. If you want to see every possible variation, you'll have to move on to the final act, which means working your way through the whole of Pharloom. That might sound daunting to some of you, but don't worry: exploration is one of the game's strong points.

Pharloom, my beloved

It's a real pleasure to roam the new realm, so carefully drawn by the artists at Team Cherry. The visuals are exceptionally beautiful, and there's a ton of detail that makes exploring even more enjoyable. You'll see the moss give way beneath Hornet's feet as she treads on it, ants will carry off fallen objects (or even defeated enemies, in some cases), and plenty of background objects will sway or smash depending on what you do.

The map is divided into several biomes of fauna and vegetation, each with a theme that sets it apart from the rest. In the first game the goal was to descend as deep as possible into the desolate kingdom of Hallownest; now it's to climb the colourful Pharloom in the hope of reaching the summit.

The start of the story takes you through the lower reaches of the land, where you'll make your way through forests, rocky terrain and the occasional tribal setting. Later, you'll explore the citadel at the top and its surroundings, moving through royal halls, dusty libraries and assorted industrial areas. The final act introduces a few very special zones and reshapes a good chunk of the map.

Exploration feels very natural, and you'll often unlock shortcuts that make life easier. There are plenty of ways to reach your objective, and the best example is the move to act two: you can take the normal route and knock on the citadel's door, or you can pick a hidden path, beat a secret enemy and find yourself in its very heart.

One evolution over the original can be seen in the hubs, the recovery areas between battles, which are much better defined this time. Here you can buy various tools, chat to the locals or fulfil wishes. The latter are the equivalent of quests, and are generally main, side or episodic in nature. They not only break up the monotony that can creep in after a few hours, but also give you a reason to revisit areas you've already explored. An idea as simple as it is nicely implemented.

Weaving Tools

Hornet moves completely differently from the previous protagonist. She's far more acrobatic, thanks to the aerial dashes she can pull off and the fact that she doesn't lose momentum when she bounces off enemies' heads. These details make movement more fluid, and they also bring a steep learning curve for the uninitiated. Flexibility seems to have been the theme this time, and Silksong honours it by replacing the old system, which let you combine a number of charms that tweaked various attributes, with two new elements: crests and tools.

A Crest is the fighting style Hornet uses, and it changes her normal attack as well as her passive ability and the way she heals. There are seven such styles, and they're incredibly varied. For example, Reaper Crest brings a style built on slower attacks with a longer reach, Beast Crest lets you recover health by attacking enemies, and Shaman Crest turns all your normal attacks into shockwaves.

Complementing them are tools, which come in three types: red, blue and yellow. The blue and yellow ones are the equivalent of the first game's charms and give the player passive benefits. The blue ones lean towards the practical side of things, improving your energy pool or healing speed, while the yellow ones handle the logistics, being reserved for orientation and movement.

The big surprise, though, is the red tools: essentially gadgets you can use whenever you like, within the limits of your inventory. They range from knives and spikes to bombs and flying robots, and to stop you abusing them there is a small crafting system, in which you have to gather stone fragments to restock. These turn up fairly easily, by defeating enemies or finding mining quarries.

The energy-based abilities haven't been left behind either: they are now interchangeable and have doubled in number, ranging from precise horizontal strikes to devastating area-of-effect attacks. Traversal has been improved too: the dash and sprint now share a single button, there is a new glide, and another ability lets you throw your needle to latch onto an enemy or a wall like a grappling hook. Learning to use them well becomes necessary quite quickly, because the game will often test your platforming skills, and more besides.

Silk Issue

I'd like to tackle the game's biggest taboo: the difficulty. Yes, it's hard, very hard, and downright diabolical in places, and I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate everyone who conquered Hunter's March and Sinner's Row without breaking a controller. You'll be put in situations where you have to make do with limited resources, and you'll be dragged out of your comfort zone often. Over the course of my adventures, my emotions swung between frustration and satisfaction like a well-set metronome. The difficulty combines the sting of defeat with the urge to try a level again and again, in the hope that this time you'll win.

It becomes an almost compulsive need to get past the obstacle in front of you, and that's because every time you come back a little better than you were. Maybe you've finally learned an opponent's attack pattern, or worked out how to navigate a labyrinth, or reached the third wave of enemies in an arena and you're sure you can go further this time – there's always something pushing you to progress.

And perseverance is usually rewarded, either by tools that make you stronger or by an unlocked shortcut that gets you where you need to be faster. What's more, the difficulty isn't gratuitous: it's also a way of checking whether you're ready for what lies ahead.

The game sets challenges, especially in the first act, that test your abilities to confirm you really are prepared for what comes next. These take the form of either a very powerful enemy or a series of obstacles that demand skill. If you can't get past them, don't be discouraged; it just means you have more exploring to do before you try again.

As for the boss fights, my experiences were mixed, as they swing between the most original battles ever devised and the cheapest imaginable. I faced a pair of mechanical dancers who all but abandon the fight once one of them is beaten, which left me feeling slightly guilty. I also faced an acid-spitting frog, helped by henchmen and surrounded by toxic water, and felt no guilt whatsoever after beating it following 60 minutes of non-stop swearing.

When life gives you webs, make a masterpiece

The minor design issues weren't enough to dent my admiration for what I consider a defining game of the Metroidvania genre. It took me almost 30 hours to see the first ending, and I enjoyed every moment. I probably have another 30 hours ahead of me to see the true ending.

Silksong wins the respect of fans who have waited more than half a decade for this legendary title, by delivering a world far bigger, more colourful and denser than the original Hollow Knight, while improving every aspect that raised its predecessor to cult status.

Few products in this world are built with this much detail and passion, and the fact that you can pick it up for a modest 20 euros is a bonus on top of everything else. I'll dare to call it a digital masterpiece, and it belongs in the library of every games enthusiast.

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Played on: Nintendo Switch
Release date: 4 September 2025
Developer: Team Cherry
Publisher: Team Cherry