| Hollow Knight: Silksong | |||
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| Release Date | Gameplay & Story | DLC & Pre-Order | Review |
Hollow Knight: Silksong Review Overview
What is Hollow Knight: Silksong?
Hollow Knight: Silksong (or simply Silksong) is a Metroidvania game developed and published by Team Cherry. It serves as the highly anticipated sequel to the critically acclaimed Hollow Knight. The game launched on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One on September 4, 2025.
This time around, players assume the role of Hornet, a character from Hollow Knight, who begins her journey at the bottom of Pharloom, a realm described as "haunted by Silk and Song" after being imprisoned. To ascend to the kingdom’s peak and its shining citadel, Hornet must confront new foes and uncover the mystery behind the haunted kingdom.
Silksong retains the core Metroidvania mechanics of its predecessor. Like the Knight, Hornet utilizes tools for combat and exploration. Armed with a needle, her playstyle emphasizes agility, incorporating abilities like grappling and darting. In classic Metroidvania fashion, players will unlock new abilities throughout their journey, enabling access to previously unreachable areas.
Hollow Knight: Silksong features:
⚫︎ Revamped Combat and Movement
⚫︎ New Protagonist and Setting
⚫︎ Silk System for Healing and Abilities
⚫︎ Expanded Exploration with Multiple Towns
⚫︎ Crests and Tools
⚫︎ Quest System and Side Activities
For more gameplay details, read everything we know about Hollow Knight: Silksong’s gameplay and story.
| Digital Storefronts | |||||
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 Steam |
 GOG |
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 PSN |
 Xbox |
 eShop |
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| $19.99 | |||||
Hollow Knight: Silksong Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Hornet is Too Fun to Control Lore-Rich Story Revealed Through Exploring Amazing World and Sound Design It’s Just $20! |
Punishing "Walk of Shame" to Bosses |
Hollow Knight: Silksong Story - 10/10
The story of Pharloom is told not through long and explicit lines of dialogue, but through its ruins, statues, and the fragmented histories you uncover, and this subtlety makes discovering this new kingdom's past rewarding. The premise—Hornet’s capture and her arrival in a kingdom choked by silk—gives just enough of a setup to get you started with a clear goal without holding your hand. The true satisfaction, however, lies in piecing the game's lore. Each new area has its own mood and secrets, and I can already picture the two-hour video essays on the horizon.
Hollow Knight: Silksong Gameplay - 9/10
Hornet is incredible to control. She's quick and armed with enough tricks to make fights a test of reflexes and nerve. The thrill is real, but so is the stress. Silksong dials the difficulty up to a level that will rattle even veterans of Hallownest. Bosses hit hard and mob fights overwhelm. However, the run back to the boss/arena fights can feel more exhausting than the battles themselves. It's not that the challenge is unfair; the game is certainly beatable. The punishment for failure, though, sometimes feels like it. It's still a very fun game, but casual players may have to ready themselves for what's to come.
Hollow Knight: Silksong Visuals - 10/10
Pharloom is massive, and every corner of it feels hand-inked with purpose. Even on the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, art director Ari Gibson's vision creates spaces that are both somber and soothing. From mossy caverns and storm-battered cliffs to silken citadels, each area carries its own visual identity that sticks with you long after you’ve left. Even on repeat visits, you’ll catch small details—how a platform shifts under Hornet’s weight, or how light bends through strands of silk—that make the world feel constantly rediscovered.
Hollow Knight: Silksong Audio - 10/10
Silksong is held together by Christopher Larkin’s score, which once again gives this melancholy world a pulse. Quiet tracks hum in the background until they swell into strings or break into crescendos when a boss demands every ounce of your attention. The ambient touches, too, like the rustle of silk or the low rumble of distant quakes, make the spaces feel alive in ways you only notice once you’ve held the controller long enough for it all to set in.
Hollow Knight: Silksong Value for Money - 10/10
It’s rare these days to see a game packed this tightly with content and still priced at twenty dollars. Thirty hours will carry you through the main story alone, with side quests, hidden areas, and multiple endings waiting for you to take in more of the game's challenge. Add in the replayability and sheer polish of every frame, and it’s hard to imagine a deal this generous in today’s market. You could even do a challenge run, like the Steel Soul Mode, if you’ve got the guts to go through that pain.
Hollow Knight: Silksong Overall Score - 98/100
Silksong is everything you hoped it would be and a little meaner on purpose. It sharpens Hollow Knight’s foundation into a faster and more exhilarating adventure, where even the lowliest enemy feels like it has something to prove. The fights are brutal, the platforming mean, and the exploration seemingly never-ending, yet somehow it all clicks into something you can’t stop playing. If you’re patient enough to endure the bruises it’ll give your thumbs, you’ll find one of the most exhilarating platformers in years.
Silksong Review: Hornet’s Ascension is Painfully Beautiful
Writing a review about Hollow Knight: Silksong feels almost redundant. What am I really trying to do here? Convince you to buy it? This is the game that crashed digital storefronts the instant it went live. On launch day, Steam, PlayStation, and the eShop all folded under the sheer volume of people trying to buy it. Meanwhile, those who managed to slip through the cracks pushed the game past half a million concurrent players on Steam alone. In other words, if you’re reading this and are even just mildly interested in Silksong, odds are you’ve already got it sitting in your library.
If you still need convincing, you should get the game. It's one of the best of the year, and it's relatively cheap. This review is less about talking you into buying and playing it and more about sharing in the surreal fact that we’re actually talking about it at all. For six years, this game was a ghost that haunted every Nintendo Direct, every Xbox Showcase, every forum thread. Its absence became somewhat of a ritual. Fans joked, begged, and clowned on themselves while holding on to hope that Team Cherry wasn’t secretly trapped in some development purgatory. Six years, though, is an understandably long time for a game developed by only three people. By the time the release date was finally set in stone, the wait itself had become part of the story, almost as defining as anything the game could deliver.
I spent the weekend sprinting through Silksong’s caverns and battling bosses that demanded every ounce of focus. My hands are sore, my reflexes tested, and I’m pretty sure I’ve shaved a year off my lifespan from the stress, but I couldn’t be happier about the pain. This was suffering worth having, and I’d do it all over again.
An Entire New Kingdom to Weave Through
For all the lore that Hollow Knight carried as a self-contained masterpiece, you really don’t need to play it before diving into Silksong. This is a direct sequel, yes, but it’s also a game that knows many players will step into Pharloom without any context, whether they never finished Hollow Knight, got one of its multiple endings, or skipped it entirely. You can jump in cold and still have a full experience.
The premise this time is straightforward enough. Hornet is captured at the start of the game and taken to Pharloom, a land unlike Hallownest but just as corrupted. If the infection defined the first game, here it’s silk that has woven its way across the land, seeping into its foundations and binding its inhabitants to something they don’t entirely control. At the top of Pharloom stands the Citadel, where the being responsible for it all resides. Her presence in this kingdom is not by chance; they want Hornet’s silk and shell. What follows is her climb through Pharloom, uncovering its fractured societies and the threads pulling everything toward that center of power.
Of course, if you’ve played Hollow Knight, you know that Silksong’s lore is told through silence. It’s a Metroidvania, and like its predecessor, you are given little exposition about Pharloom’s past, its rulers, or its fall. You absorb it all through the game’s world. You notice how statues crumble in places of worship no one visits anymore. You stumble into homes that look abandoned but still carry the marks of its inhabitants. You fight enemies whose designs seem too deliberate to just be bugs gone feral. Every visual cue is a breadcrumb leading to a larger picture you’re assembling in your head.
Silksong thrives on this subtle form of storytelling. This game leaves space for the players to connect dots, to wonder what calamity struck here, why certain factions cling to survival, or how the strands of silk are reshaping not just the land but the people in it. It makes discovery its own form of reward. Every fragment is a piece of a larger puzzle, but the game never tells you exactly how the pieces are supposed to fit.
Of course, that also means Silksong’s story will be chewed over for years to come. Hollow Knight’s community was already famous for pulling threads and publishing video essays explaining the game’s lore, and Silksong will fuel that machine again. You can practically hear the thumbnails being drafted already. I’m looking forward to them, though, as Silksong is dense enough that even after finishing it, I know I’ve only skimmed the surface of its story.
Wishes Will Have You Backtracking—A Lot
Probably one of the biggest changes here are the side quests. This time around, there’s an entire system of quests, collectively called Wishes. They’re broken into three types. Gather quests ask you to track down trinkets across the map. Wayfarer quests send you off to locate certain items—or more often, certain unfortunate NPCs who’ve managed to wedge themselves in strange corners of the game’s world. Hunt/Grand Hunt quests have you track down enemies to defeat or collect whatever they drop.
These quests are largely optional. You can ignore a huge chunk of them if you want, with only a few being mandatory to progress the story, usually when they tie into traversal abilities that open up new routes. It’s not unlike the original game, where you’d end up doing specific tasks for lore or an equipable Charm, except this time, you’re given a quest log to keep track of your errands. This makes the process feel more structured. Instead of trying to mentally track who wanted what and where you last saw them, you have a proper record. You could always use a guide, yes, but this smooths over some of the backtracking you’ll be doing in such a massive world.
Of course, quests mean backtracking. Lots of backtracking. That’s part of the deal with Metroidvania. You’ll find yourself revisiting earlier areas just to check in with whoever sent you on the errand or just because you’re lost. You zigzag, double back, check the map, check the map some more, and eventually stitch the world together in your mind as a complete whole, and discovering just what’s in store for you here in Pharloom is part of what makes this game so much fun to play. And if you’d rather not hoof it at all, you can make use of the Bell Beast, one of the game’s fast travel systems.
The Sights and Sounds of Silksong
That sense of mystery the story leans on is only possible because Pharloom itself feels so vast and carefully stitched together. Six years of development time wasn’t squandered. This is a kingdom that sprawls outward in almost every direction, a land that feels massive even compared to Hallownest, and each area looks visually unique. You’ll begin in the damp greens of Moss Grotto, where moss presses in tight from all sides. Before long, you’re pushing through the heavier, darker greens of Shellwood. Later, the Blasted Steps whip you with its winds, and The Mist traps you in its haze.
These areas look, sound, feel, and move differently under your feet. Ari Gibson’s art direction elevates every inch of this world. Every time you revisit an area, you notice something new, whether it’s the way structures seem to have been reclaimed by nature or how bones bridges crunch ever so slightly under Hornet’s weight. The worldbuilding here, like in its predecessor, is ever so subtle, and it grounds the setting in a tangible sense of place. Pharloom looks both alien and familiar, a land that’s distinctly its own while carrying enough echoes of Hallownest to remind you of the lineage Hornet carries with her.
This is paired with Christopher Larkin’s music and sound design. His compositions remain understated. His melodies linger, and because of this, tones shift to unsettle or comfort depending on where you are. The ambient details stand out even more. A distant quake rumbling through your controller. The echo of Hornet’s grunt while she’s in an open space. The sharp snap of silk being torn or pulled tight. None of these stand out on their own, but together, they make Pharloom feel textured and reactive to your presence.
Silksong’s Switch 2 and Switch Performance
⚫︎ Note: Silksong running on the Nintendo Switch
We may not be getting the game on the Wii U like Team Cherry promised when they first announced Silksong as a DLC, but it is available on both the original Switch and the newer Switch 2, and if you’ve already bought it on one, you get the other for free.
Performance-wise, both versions hold their ground well. In handheld mode, the original Switch runs the game at a locked 720p and 60 frames per second, which is a godsend given the enemies you’ll be going up against in the game. The image, though, looks softer, and some background textures don’t have the same crispness you’ll see on stronger hardware. Regardless, the world still looks beautiful, and more importantly, still plays smoothly.
⚫︎ Note: Silksong running on the Nintendo Switch 2
The Switch 2, though, gives you options. In handheld mode, the game is locked at 1080p, 120 frames per second. If you stick with the standard mode when docked, you’ll get a lower 60 frames per second, but the visuals are sharper, richer, and loading between areas is a touch faster at 2160p. But you can also enter TV mode, which unlocks 120 frames per second at the cost of dropping resolution down to 1440p. The lower resolution is noticeable if you’re looking for it, but the trade-off feels worth it. The higher framerate feels smooth. Movement looks seamless, and the entire game feels more responsive in your hands.
I tried myself swapping back and forth just to test the difference, and both work, but one feels firmer and impossible to ignore once you’ve tried it. However, if you only have the original Switch, you’re not missing out in any fundamental way. Silksong plays wonderfully on both platforms, and no matter which screen you're staring at, Pharloom is still going to give you a hard time.
Hornet is Faster, With Great Abilities to Boot
You’ve probably already seen the memes, the forum rants, the long threads of players dropping the game; Silksong is difficult. Far more so than the first game. The common and apt comparison is that Hollow Knight was Dark Souls, while Silksong is Dark Souls 2. Bosses are vicious, regular enemies can hit harder than you’d expect, and dying is punishing enough that I don’t entirely blame those who’ve dropped the game after one fight too many left them staring at Hornet sitting on a bench.
I count myself among the humbled. Some of Pharloom’s regular mobs have enough aggression and speed, and if you manage to hit them while they’re parrying, you’ll be dealt with a punishing counterattack. The bosses are also unforgiving. They demand patience and quick reflexes, but the process is admittedly exhausting. A boss might chew through half your mask in seconds, especially since contact damage, too, can chunk two masks at once, and Hornet’s invincibility frames when she gets hit don’t last long.
It’s not uncommon to spend hours locked in the same arena, slowly memorizing each lunch, leap, voice line that tells of an incoming attack. By the time I beat some of the bosses, I felt less triumphant and more relieved. It's advisable to take breaks now and then; free your fingers from all the pain of dodging and platforming.
Part of why this difficulty feels so different is because Hornet herself isn’t the Knight from the first game. She’s taller, faster, and built for speed. Her jumps carry her higher, her mantle ability lets her climb ledges outright, and her sprint can cover ground in a way that feels alien if you’re coming straight from Hollow Knight.
You start with a familiar kit: standard directional attacks, the ability to swing at enemies above and beside you, and even downward strikes (though these are angled diagonally instead of directly downward like before). But as you play, her arsenal grows, and she becomes far more mobile and versatile than her predecessor ever was. In fact, she’s so versatile that she can heal herself mid-air, something the Knight could only dream of doing.
You’ll unlock a dash early on, which you can hold into a sprint. Later, you’ll get the ability to catch updrafts and float on her dress like a parachute, plus a grappling hook that lets Hornet hurtle to wherever her needle lands.
The speed of her movement makes platforming feel tense in a way that echoes the Path of Pain’s spike-filled gauntlets from the first game. Early sections ease you in, but mid-to-late game platforming can be brutal. Long strings of spikes, moving platforms timed to the millisecond, sequences that expect you to chain grapples, wall jumps, and pogo bounces (downward strikes to bounce off an enemy or hazard) without hesitation. I’ve bruised my thumb and my pride more than once, but when I finally cleared those stretches, the exhilaration more than made up for the humiliation.
It's Not Enough to Just Git Gud
Enemies have been tuned according to Hornet’s new movesets. They’re more aggressive, and designed to punish you for being indecisive. The fight against Lace, which those who attended Gamescom 2025 should be well aware of, is maybe an apt early game example. She darts across the arena, leaving you just enough time to register her movement before she’s already coming back around. She’s fast and relentless. But even outside named bosses, battles against multiple enemies at once feel like precarious dances. A single mistimed dodge and the whole performance collapses.
These mob arenas can sometimes be the hardest part of an area. These lock you in enclosed spaces and force you to endure wave after wave of enemies. One mandatory arena in particular had me stuck for nearly three hours. Not because I didn’t understand what to do, but because surviving the onslaught meant dancing around three enemies at once, each of them eager to drain masks just by brushing against me. I genuinely had more trouble with that encounter than with Silksong’s final boss, which feels absurd to admit but is absolutely true.
Most bosses, to be fair, follow the classic Hollow Knight formula: difficult at first, manageable once you’ve memorized their patterns. But that difficulty is compounded by the "walk of shame" that’s often longer than it should be. Death means respawning at your last bench and trekking back to reclaim your rosaries from a cocoon. And the trek back sometimes involves tricky platforming or enemies designed to chip away at your health before you even step back into the arena.
It’s one thing to lose a fight because you mistimed a dodge. It’s another to limp back into the arena already down two masks because a stray enemy got a lucky hit during the run-up. The tilt becomes real. You’re already frustrated, and then the game asks you to repeat the punishment just to try again.
The distance between benches and bosses can feel like cruelty layered on top of cruelty. It slows the rhythm of learning. Instead of being allowed to internalize a boss’s patterns quickly, you’re forced to re-prove yourself just to get another shot. On good days, it makes victories sweeter. On bad days, it feels like the game is testing your patience more than your skill.
Hornet's Tools Are as Sharp as She Is
You aren’t defenseless against Silksong’s cruelty, though. Like the Knight, Hornet, too, comes stocked with toys that make a difference in how you approach fights. First off, rosaries serve as Pharloom’s main currency. They’re used for just about everything—maps, pins, benches, even unlocking fast travel routes. They’re handed out generously enough after the first act that you’ll rarely feel poor. Unless, of course, you’re like me, who is prone to dying in the most inconvenient spots possible, cocoon full of rosaries tucked behind a mob you’ll never best on the way back. In that case, good luck.
Shell Shards act as a secondary economy, though they’re more of a consumable. You gather them from slain enemies or tucked-away parts of the environment, and they’re funneled directly into replenishing your Tools at benches.
Tools are some of the best aspects of the game’s combat. There are a handful of combat weapons that range from throwing pins to more eccentric utilities, like traps and spears. Some even echo Hollow Knight’s Glowing Womb in spirit by spawning multiple fly allies that attack enemies on sight.
Silk Skills, meanwhile, run on Silk, which functions like Hornet’s mana. They’re more kinetic than Tools, and offer offensive flourishes that make Hornet feel distinct from the Knight. However, you can only equip one at a time, and Silk doesn’t regenerate outside of combat, so you’re encouraged to experiment mid-fight, burning resources and adapting on the fly instead of hoarding them for a single heal.
All of these are tied together by Crests, Silksong’s version of a loadout. They dictate which Tools and Skills you can bring, but they also tinker directly with Hornet’s moveset. One Crest re-angles her downward strike diagonally, another brings back the Knight’s pogo bounce for a much shorter range.
Is Hollow Knight: Silksong Worth It?
Absolutely! One of the Best Games of the Year at Just $20!
As mentioned earlier, you probably don’t need me to convince you to pick up Silksong. Odds are, you already have it downloaded, preloaded, or at least hovering in your digital cart the second it went live. It’s one of those rare games whose reputation preceded it for years, and the even rarer case where the final product actually lived up to the anticipation. In fact, it’s not just one of the most anticipated games of the decade; it’s also among the best games of this year. It's easy to recommend a game with this level of polish and care.
What continues to baffle me is the price. Twenty dollars. Twenty. In an era where base games regularly launch at seventy, sometimes even eighty bucks, Silksong’s price tag feels like it’s mocking the rest of the industry. Team Cherry could’ve easily charged triple that and no one would have batted an eye. Instead, they went with the more accessible option. It’s no wonder I know people who’ve bought it twice, three times even, just to have it on different platforms or to toss a little extra support at the developers. I can’t even pretend I’m above that; I own it on both Switch 2 and PS5, because why not.
And this isn’t a short weekend game either. Thirty hours will get you through the main story if you’re cutting a straight line through Pharloom. But if you take the side quests, peel back the layers of lore, and maybe stumble your way toward the other endings that had me sitting slack-jawed at two in the morning, you’ll quickly clock in far beyond that. I’m only nearing forty hours myself, and I’m still uncovering new corners of the map, still fumbling through secrets I had no idea existed until I talked with other players who were discovering the game at the same time as me.
The climb to the Citadel is a hard, punishing, often humbling experience. But it’s also beautiful, fun, and rich in a way few games are. Let’s just hope we won’t be waiting six years for the DLC to release.
| Digital Storefronts | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steam |
GOG |
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| PSN |
Xbox |
eShop |
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| $19.99 | |||||
Hollow Knight: Silksong FAQ
Does Silksong have an Act 3?
Yes, Silksong has an Act 3. You can unlock it by completing the Wayfarer Wish called Silk and Soul before approaching the final boss.
Is Silksong Switch 2 Upgrade Pack Free?
Yes, if you get the game on your Switch, you'll be able to play it on the Switch 2 as well.
Game8 Reviews
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Hollow Knight: Silksong Product Information
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| Title | HOLLOW KNIGHT: SILKSONG |
|---|---|
| Release Date | September 4, 2025 |
| Developer | Team Cherry |
| Publisher | Team Cherry |
| Supported Platforms | PC (via Steam, GOG) PlayStation 5 PlayStation 4 Nintendo Switch 2 Nintendo Switch Xbox Series X|S Xbox One |
| Genre | Action, Metroidvania |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | ESRB Everyone 10+ |
| Official Website | Hollow Knight: Silksong Official Website |
@name yeah no way one is below or higher than the other. Their reasoning for giving a -1 for E33 is bullshit - saying not everyone may like the storytelling, the ending, and execution applies to SS too. Here I thought they’re just too strict with handing out 10/10s Eh these guys don’t even read their comments anyway so whatever
@Lmao SS and E33 tell stories very differently the two can't be compared. E33's story hould have gotten a 10/10 too yeah
Aint no way ya’ll gave SS a 10/10 story and E33 a 9/10 story I love silksong and played my heart out but let’s be real guys
What are those links?💀