Your Everyday Nerd

Silksong is undoubtedly one of the best games I’ve ever played. Ari Gibson, William Pellen, and Jack Vine are auteurs in their craft. With Hollow Knight’s monumental critical and financial success, these three earned the opportunity to take as much time as needed to create Silksong.

Long development time is often cited as a taboo in the modern games industry. Modern gamers are all but spoiled at the expansive offerings released every year. Even so, waiting for a hotly anticipated game becomes a chore for some and a soapbox of criticism for others.

“Why is it taking so long?” “Isn’t this a sequel? Can’t they just reuse certain assets?” “What if they’re not using that time wisely?” “What if the game never comes out???”

These concerns stem primarily from the anxiety of fans. What they’re really asking is, “What if the hype isn’t worth it?”

Cyberpunk 2077, Starfield, and even that good old classic, Duke Nukem Forever, are key entries where fans of previous franchises and developer teams have been burned all too quickly by empty promises and intense hype cycles. Gaming, is of course, an entertainment vehicle that is deliberately commoditized and marketed to consume your time in the most pleasant way possible.

Games are art, but they are also products, and when profits are prioritized, their artistic merits are not necessarily people’s primary concerns.

Cyberpunk 2077 was a full priced game that was in development for nearly a decade. It had been in the public view for much of that development time, while being marketed to hardcore fans of both the Cyberpunk aesthetic and CD Project Red’s previous successful franchise, The Witcher. No game could deliver on that hype, but especially not a game that when delivered, performed poorly on every major console and most PC setups.

Who do you then place the blame on? The developers? The fans? The marketing? The execs?

Quite frankly, you can blame everybody in this situation, but I think the primary culprit is the system that governs the creation of games.

In a perfect world, everybody at CD Project Red working on Cyberpunk 2077 would enjoy their work, they would be great at what they do, they would have looser deadlines to encourage creativity and polish, and the marketing team would leave them alone until they were very close to release.

I think that’s one of the reasons Nintendo does so well. Many of their games (with a few exceptions), are shown to audiences only a few months to a year before release date.

“A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad”

Nintendo legend, Shigeru Miyamoto, may not have actually said this quote^1, but it’s still a pretty damn good quote and I argue is the basis of Team Cherry’s development philosophy.

So was Hollow Knight: Silksong worth the hype?

Mostly!

(Spoilers for Hollow Knight and Hollow Knight: Silksong incoming…)

For fans of Hollow Knight’s environmental storytelling, polished visual presentation, and carefully constructed soundscapes – Silksong is a towering achievement. The sequel includes a vaster array of areas, almost double the amount of original enemies, and just as many memorable NPCs as the original.

Just like Hollow Knight, Silksong’s Metroidvania-style exploration leads to many secrets and hidden pathways. While Act 1’s primary objectives can be approached in a linear fashion, the player can just as easily explore a large number of mostly optional pathways.

The combat is more dynamic and fluid with Hornet’s acrobatic mobility making The Knight feel a bit rigid in comparison. Her move set is expanded and interchangeable via the Crest system. Numerous tools are scattered throughout Pharloom, and although they initially feel like a 1:1 to Hollow Knight’s Charm system, Silksong’s Crests and Tools allow much more player expression and experimentation. You’ll still probably have your favorites, but at least on the first playthrough, no one build felt immediately more powerful than the other.

Every boss in Silksong is more mechanically interesting than at least half of Hollow Knight’s roster. That’s not to say that all of Silksong’s bosses are amazing, or that half of Hollow Knight’s bosses are not good. Rather, I’d say that Silksong’s bosses naturally feel like a step up in complexity to those in Hollow Knight. A good chunk of Hollow Knight’s earlier bosses feel like a tutorial to its later bosses, in the way that Hollow Knight’s later bosses feel like a tutorial to Silksong’s bosses.

Complexity and difficulty are buzzwords when it comes to discussing this game, and that is appropriate, but I don’t want my review to dissipate into yet another discussion on difficulty in video games. Silksong is difficult, but that’s not the only thing there is to discuss about Silksong.

I think this video sums up my thoughts on the discussion thus far:

I highly recommend watching it in its entirety, but here’s a specific quote from The Other Frost that is quite possibly the best way of expressing difficulty in games:

“It is possible to critique this game without using the word difficult, but it’s still the best word. Because the best way, in my opinion, to describe Silksong is by pointing out that there’s two ways to use the word difficult… There’s the first way, where I’ll say something like, “It’s a little difficult.” “It’s kind of difficult.” “Oh man, that was difficult.” And then there’s a second way – “Okay, now you’re just being difficult.”

Silksong’s three act structure is genius and frustrating. After Hollow Knight’s “true ending”, it wasn’t a surprise that Silksong would incorporate some kind of similar event. Yet, Silksong became incredibly surprising when its third act blew Hollow Knight’s one secret boss out of the water.

Act 1 is a beautiful beginning. Exploring Pharloom and its many secrets was equal parts haunting and exhilarating. New areas, new enemies, new bosses – all these could be approached just by stumbling around. If one activity proved to be a bit too difficult, it was easy to change course and check out another part of the unexplored map. The gameplay loop is Metroidvania at its best.

Everything in Act 1 is setting you directly up for Act 2. The Citadel, I had assumed, would host the final boss of the game and be another standard sized area on Silksong’s already massively growing map. Little did I know, The Citadel would be its own large map of smaller areas with its own surprises. The melancholic Choral Chambers is distinctly different from the horrifying Whiteward or the gruesome Underworks. It’s an expansive part of Pharloom with many other bosses, NPCs, and secrets.

The standard ending of Act 2 can be accomplished exclusively within the confines of The Citadel, but if you’re adventurous enough, you can head back out into the wilderness and search for additional areas you may have missed in Act 1.

I can’t understate just how huge this game is. In my playthrough, I happened upon a place called Bile Water via a pathway in Sinner’s Road early on. Since the place was called “Bile Water”, I made the quick decision to turn around and leave it for future Zach. Hours later, in the midst of Act 2, as I was exploring a bit of Songclave, I found a secret pathway that led me once more to Bile Water. I was honestly appalled. I broke a hidden wall somewhere, made my way through a steep pathway, and fell into a pond of muckmaggots. I instinctually quit to the menu and booted back into the game to return to my previous bench in Songclave expeditiously.

I wasn’t about to let the game force me into any area. I decide when I want to explore Bile Water. Not the other way around.

Many hours later, after defeating the final boss of Act 2, and exploring the likes of Blasted Steps, Mount Fay, and the Sands of Karak, I finally made the trek to Bile Water. Needless to say, it was exactly the kind of hell hole you would expect a place named Bile Water to be.

In spite of Bile Water’s difficulty (or difficulties), I’m impressed that I found my way to this place twice and could still save it for a later date. Up until I was ready to embark on Act 3, Bile Water, and many of Silksong’s other areas, were entirely optional. Unlike many modern games, that pester you with notifications and insist you to follow the traveled path, Silksong lets its world exist totally unbothered if you come across its many secrets or not. Bile Water is a sucky place to find yourself in, but it was cool to discover nonetheless.

The first two Acts of Silksong are near perfection to me. Exploration exceeded my expectations. The world reached a level of interconnectedness that I haven’t felt since the first Dark Souls. Bosses were as engaging as some of the best of Hollow Knight’s gallery. The world was at odds with me, yet my agency never left. I could consistently choose my next path and tackle each obstacle on my own terms.

At this point in my Silksong journey, the game’s difficulty was irrelevant to me. Of course the game was a bit hard. I expected that.

Unfortunately, things took a bit of a turn in Act 3.

Let it be known, I love this game. I am an advocate for many of its systems and artistry. I want to see more devs have the opportunity to work this hard and this long on the game that they want to make.

Even so, I regrettably found Act 3 to be a bit of a slog. It wasn’t so much of a slog that I wasn’t able to persevere and beat it. I have finished everything the game has to offer, except for 4 out of the 8 Mementos, an optional courier quest, and a couple of cosmetic items for Hornet’s Bellhome. I fully intend to do these at some point, probably after the DLC is released, but as of now, I need a break from Pharloom.

On paper, I absolutely adore the idea of Act 3. In Hollow Knight, there comes a point in the game’s final section when the world becomes slightly, but also irreparably altered. The Forgotten Crossroads, the first area in the Knight’s journey, changes into The Infected Crossroads. Pathways become blocked and enemies do more damage, including exploding upon death. It’s a neat way to mix things up, though I’ll be honest, it also takes a reliable early game path and makes it a frustrating obstacle.

Hollow Knight isn’t the first time a game has done something like this. I remember the first Dark Souls, if you allow a certain NPC to live, he irreparably ruins the game’s central hub. It’s a cool piece of environmental storytelling, but it’s also an incredibly inconvenient obstacle.

Silksong does the same thing for Act 3, but on a much larger scale. After trapping Grand Mother Silk in a “soul trap”, she and her daughter Lace are thrusted down below into the Abyss. As a result, the entirety of Pharloom is infected by the Void, a gooey substance that buffs enemies’ abilities and health pools. Again, on paper, I love this idea. Not only is it a cool way to raise the stakes of the narrative after Act 2, but it’s also a great way to reference aesthetics from the first Hollow Knight and change up the world in a substantial way.

Unfortunately, aesthetics aside, this also makes the game more difficult in a not so fun way. For starters, the exploration side of Silksong’s gameplay loop is mostly complete here. There are still secrets to find, but you’ll be combing through areas you’ve previously already explored, only this time, all of the enemies are frustrating.

These Voided Enemies, as they’re referred to, sit in the camp of artificial difficulty to me.

I think about the classic ‘Should Dark Souls have a difficulty slider?” argument, and for years I’ve picked the side that respectfully answers back “No. Dark Souls should not have a difficulty slider.” I fully believe that the intentional difficulty in Dark Souls is a deliberate decision by the developers and is fully baked into the world’s level design and boss patterns. To remove the difficulty, or even finesse it, would take away a core part of the experience. This isn’t a new opinion whatsoever, but it’s one that I’ve held when playing FromSoftware’s future title, Elden Ring, and Team Cherry’s Hollow Knight.

Even outside of these kinds of games, I don’t really like difficulty sliders. I want to play the game the way the developers intended. Oftentimes, difficulty sliders only do two things: Buff Enemy Health and Increase Damage done to the player. I’ve always seen this as an artificial way to make your game more difficult.

The sole reason difficulty sliders exist is to make the game easier for players who don’t want to (or are not able to) interface with the game’s mechanics OR to increase the challenge for players who have became extremely familiar with the game’s mechanics. As someone who rarely replays games, I don’t find the need to adjust a game’s difficulty in either direction.

Even so, I find myself weirdly okay with Silksong having a difficulty slider. It feels heretical to utter such a phrase, but Act 3’s insistence in buffing normal enemies feels the exact same as playing Doom (2016) on Ultra Violence mode.

One of the key positives of many Metroidvanias, is the slow, but assured power fantasy of it all. You may start out with very little abilities, but by the end, your magnitude of power has risen so much, that early areas are simply no match. Act 3 of Silksong defies this genre’s tenant by making early game enemies just as difficult as the game’s brand new enemies.

On one hand, it’s a neat way to spice things up. On the other hand, it feels downright disrespectful.

And this is where that quote from The Other Frost felt so apt to me. In Dark Souls or Hollow Knight, there are a few key moments that keep you on your toes so to speak. Both games have mimics, friends that turn into foes, and tricks that remind you that this place is not to be trusted.

Silksong has taken these moments and turned them into full set pieces. Bile Water, the previously mentioned hell hole, is a sadistic maze of horrible enemies, a putrid status effect, and environmental hazards galore. Even a sign pointing you to a bench cannot be trusted, for as soon as you sit on said bench, you fall into a pit of maggots. Even the area’s boss, Groal the Great, is the opposite of great, as before you can fight him, you must first fight his many waves of scoundrels.

Mandatory combat gauntlets are spread throughout Pharloom, forcing you to fight many of the game’s enemies in a small room. While I appreciate the idea of expanding on Hollow Knight’s Colosseum of Fools, I do not appreciate the execution. Most of Silksong can be conquered with a needle and a dream, but these combat rooms felt like an excuse to make Hornet’s tool arsenal more useful.

Hornet’s tools, while fun to play around with, never felt like a viable strategy. Shards are too inconvenient to pick up and Rosaries are too sparse to spend on a non-renewable resource. This meant that many of Silksong’s more frustrating combat rooms took me many attempts, because I did not want to use up my tools until I was able to beat most of the room without them.

Difficulty in Silksong undeniably came in those two previously mentioned flavors. I love the way the game handles its boss fights and general progression. I don’t mind the platforming segments and I’d be okay with the combat rooms, if there wasn’t so many of them. Silksong is difficult in the same way Dark Souls and Hollow Knight was before it.

But Silksong is also difficult in a way that is tedious. Runbacks, a limited economy, and an unbalanced reward system makes it hard to defend all of the game’s choices. For most of the game, I was able to put up with this, but by Act 3, the cracks were more noticeable, especially in regards to the Voided enemies.

After 119 hours, I finished Act 3 and 100%ed Hollow Knight: Silksong. I love this game, but it also frustrated me in ways that I wish it hadn’t. It’s also a huge game with a lot of offerings, and despite slowing down with my progress, it still felt like a bit of a hurdle to get to the finish line.

Above everything though, my primary concern is that many players will never be able to engage with some of Silksong’s best content. But it’s hard to know what to say to those players who can’t make it to the finish line.

I’ve never liked the phrase “git gud”. I find it to be disrespectful to those who have really tried to meet the game where it’s at and neglectful to those who simply don’t have the time, energy, or ability to make it that far.

I’m also not huge into using mods to change the game that we have. I find that to be disrespectful to the developers and the people who spent countless hours making this game complete.

I know Team Cherry has made a couple of adjustments with some patches since the game released and the game will change a bit once DLC is released, but I also couldn’t in my right mind ask them to change any of the core mechanics here.

It’s a tough game. I quite enjoy it, but it can be frustrating at moments and I’m not sure where we go from here. I just hope that Team Cherry’s next game is a wee bit more accessible when it comes to accessing content without forgoing of its more mechanically challenging moments.

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1: https://www.acriticalhit.com/solved-miyamoto-quote-late-game-bad-forever/