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INDIE VIDEO GAME REVIEW - Hollow Knight - Silksong

It’s not every day you play a game that you love so much that you’d replay the first game in a series, yet that’s how good Hollow Knight: Silksong is. Creating a sense of wonder in any piece of art is always special, and I do not overstate that this game is a work of art. 

Musically, in graphics, in lore, in mechanics, no aspect of this game isn’t amazing and absolutely top shelf. It is also not a game for everyone, but due solely to its difficulty. If you don’t enjoy the idea of a game where you will die hundreds of times, don’t pick Silksong up. If you don’t like the prospect of having to face a boss upward of fifty times until you hone your strategy and luck out to get the win, don’t play this game. If you don’t like the idea of platforming, that may cramp your hands because it is demanding if you want to get 100%. Again, don’t play this game. 

If, however, you’re up for a challenge in every sense of the word, buckle up; this is one spectacular ride.

What began as downloadable content for Team Cherry quickly transformed into a massive world. Being a Metroidvania-type game, you acquire skills, lives, runes, abilities, and all sorts of things that will allow you to explore an ever-expanding world. In short, if you think something may be nearby, look up, look down, and hit pretty much any wall that’s close by. You will be stupefied at the number of times that you will find a new room or a whole new area. Oh, and even when you’re rounding up the last bits of items in the game, please note, don’t underestimate any enemy. Big or small, you can get mowed down if you’re sloppy, which is something I appreciate.

Like its predecessor, Silksong has tight controls where, if you fall down a chasm, get hit, or fail at any task, you feel like it’s your fault and that you need to correct mistakes.

Does the game offer some brutal areas that will punish the smallest mistake? Only one correction on that last sentence, it’s not some. The game will humble you quickly and often. Fortunately, for the most part, there are accessible save points (with some glaringly frustrating exceptions, I’m looking at you Hunter’s March and Bile Water).

There are also several modes of play courtesy of several crests you pick along the way, though I suspect you’ll find one style that gels with how you play and stick to it. That was the Wanderer Crest for me. In terms of sidequests and hidden objects, there is definitely no shortage there.


The lore is much like the first game, though Hornet having much more dialogue was a welcome change for me and something some people haven’t cared for. As a character, she’s compelling and a proper badass, while her story has a LOT of implications for this world and what we’ve already played. It is rich, dense, and I will admit that some of the hints to find areas, items, or next steps were a bit too obscure, and I had to look up enough help to get past the hump. Like other games I’ve played, I recommend this approach if you get stuck, meaning only look up what you’re stuck on. Though I also recommend exploring another area because where you least think you’ll find something, you’ll be consistently rewarded. Also, make sure you buy all the tokens to mark things on the map that look suspicious…as well as the boss fights that break you down to revisit later when you power up enough to pass them. 

Oh, and there are a LOT of boss fights. I mean a LOT. I read somewhere that it’s 48 boss fights…I think there are more, and if you count sections with mini bosses, that number goes up further. I knew to pass a boss, check a nearby section, fight another boss, go up two screens, left one screen, up another screen, and another boss fight.

This is not a bad thing, by the way. I’m just laying it out there so it doesn’t come as a surprise. I’m also saying this so that you save often and use prayer beads (the game’s currency) as often as you can or to make bracelets (a way to ensure you don’t lose all your beads), because if you have the beads loose and get KOd, your beads are saved in a cocoon that if you don’t retrieve, you will lose them permanently…and this can happen often enough for you to curse any gods in the game.

Graphics wise, I can’t say Silk Song is a huge step up in terms of visuals. I can merely say it’s loyal to the art style and explores a new world in fascinating new ways, with new textures, colors, and experiences. The amount of variety in enemies, habitats, and pretty much everything is staggering, and writing this, I still can’t believe basically three people designed this game. It is gorgeous, runs exceptionally well, and crashed on me only once in over 100 hours of gameplay. It consistently surprises in every aspect. The music, the lore, the areas, the enemies, the moves, the items, the main quests, the side quests, every single thing in this game is a love letter to gaming, and like I said at the beginning of this review, it makes me want to play the first game again. Why? Because if I were able to conquer Silk Song with 100%, I can do anything in Hollow Knight (he believes foolishly).

I’ve seen a lot of people complain about the difficulty. Fair critique, but I recommend pushing yourself further because, unlike Cuphead, I always felt like I could do the thing if I only did things right. Cuphead is brutal and rewards perfection and memorization of sequences. Silksong rewards creativity, caution, and patience. It does so CONSISTENTLY. I don’t know how many times it took for me to get closer or beat a boss or section was to just settle down and not rush. Instead of going for three hits, hit once, parry, dodge, heal, and reset. Aggression consistently had me messing up with very, very, VERY few exceptions…and I don’t mind. Is it hard? Yes. Is it impossible? Not by a long shot. It took me 100 hours to beat this game. Do you think it was because I was exploring for that long or because I had to retry plenty of fights or areas dozens of times, white knuckling and with elevated blood pressure? Oh, and that’s not an overstatement.


If you get invested, your BP will rise, and your focus will be honed almost to the level of Hornet’s pin.

I rarely, if ever, buy games right when they release. With Silksong, I dove in headfirst, paying full price, and all I can say is that $19.99 for this masterpiece is a steal. Team Cherry has done something extremely special, and I suspect that for 2026, one of my first games will be to replay the original Hollow Knight and maybe replay Silk Song. If that’s not a testament to greatness, I don’t know what is.

START PLAYING THE GAME HERE ON WHATEVER PLATFORM YOU USE

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