| Hollow Knight: Silksong | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Release Date | Gameplay & Story | DLC & Pre-Order | Review |
Hollow Knight: Silksong stars Hornet as she’s imprisoned and brought over to a new kingdom! Fight and find your way out and survive against all-new insect monsters! Read on to learn how it plays, what it’s about, and everything else we know so far.
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Hollow Knight: Silksong Gameplay
Hornet's kit is faster and more acrobatic than the original game's. Instead of the Knight's relatively heavy swings, Hornet fights with a needle-and-thread that emphasizes directional strikes, bounce/ricochet interactions with enemies, and aerial chaining. Enemies respond to that increased tempo, as many attacks and boss patterns are tuned to reward being quick on the feet.
As such, movement and traversal, too, are built around momentum and options for mid-air repositioning. Hornet has moves for rapid dashes, ledge grab and climb interactions, and uses her thread in ways that approximate limited grappling or tethering to terrain and foes.
Healing and resources, meanwhile, work differently from Hollow Knight. Silksong introduces new currencies and systems, including Rosaries (in-game currency) and Shell Shards (crafting materials) and reworks how healing is performed so that recovery is faster and more integrated into the action. Some items and craftable Tools consume or interact with these resources, and certain survivability systems can be upgraded or repaired using the said shards.
Players can collect materials and craft or repair tools that provide new ways to interact with the world and enemies. These tools are tied to traversal and combat utility, and some require maintenance or repair using the new resources.
Moreover, Silksong expands quest and optional content systems. Side activities are now tracked with a journal and the game divides quest content into categories (like gathering, hunting, and so on). The game's hub and NPC interactions support these tracked tasks rather than relying solely on implicit discovery, as in the first game.
Previews and documentation list a substantially larger roster of enemies and bosses compared with the previous title—40+ bosses and 200+ enemy types—and the world contains many more checkpoints or benches. Here, you can sit to replenish your health points, craft materials, and take a look at your inventory. With the game's faster pacing, death and respawn mechanics have been adjusted to fit the new Silk systems. Instead of a Shade, death now leaves behind a cocoon, and destroying it grants her full Silk.
For a more in-depth look, you can check out our breakdown of the gameplay from demos and trailers below!
Hollow Knight: Silksong Story
Hornet's story in Silksong begins with her being taken from the world the player knows and placed in a new kingdom called Pharloom. Accounts assembled from Team Cherry's public materials describe Pharloom as a kingdom "haunted by silk and song," and they state that Hornet is captured and brought against her will. How she arrived there after the multiple endings of Hollow Knight, which Team Cherry's Ari Gibson said are all "equally canon" in some way, is for the players to discover.
Once in Pharloom, Hornet has to confront its inhabitants and work toward reaching the Citadel at the kingdom's peak, where what awaits her is for players to find out for themselves.
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