Hollow Knight Silksong review - a Metroidvania masterpiece

Seven years is a long time. Couples counselors talk of the seven-year itch. Philosophers talk of seven-year cycles. The average age of a cell in the human body is purported to be seven years. And yet, Hollow Knight Silksong's existence has been defined by its seven-year absence at every Nintendo Direct and Gamescom ONL. In the vacuum of Team Cherry's silence, the honk of clown noses and the old refrain: "SKONG TODAY?" Finally. Yes. Skong today.

Hollow Knight Silksong's arrival comes with an accompanying sense of loss. Anticipation rose to such a fever-pitch over seven(ish) years of development that it not only subsumed fans, but overtook the very concept of Hollow Knight itself. The truth is that the Metroidvania formula is so rigid that sequels have to really work to justify their own existence. Ori and the Will of the Wisps introduced a more robust combat system to pair with the original's superlative movement, but it is, for all intents and purposes, more of the same. Blasphemous 2 introduced extensive customization and mechanical improvements, but its polished visuals sanitized the grime and grit that characterized its predecessor.

"The same but better" isn't the worst objective for a sequel, but Metroidvania games need more substance to sustain the repetition baked into the formula: explore, beat a boss, unlock double jump, profit. Make no mistake, Team Cherry follows that formula, but it also turns Hollow Knight's trajectory on its head. Instead of burrowing deep into the earth like the very stag beetle the Knight is modeled after, Hornet's spider sensibilities incline Silksong's world towards verticality.

Gravity has always been a platformer protagonist's greatest adversary - between spikes, lava, and the abyss, there's no end to the environmental hazards one can fall into - but in Pharloom, it becomes a marker of progress itself. Team Cherry delivers this lesson early on, when a leap of faith over a chasm in Moss Grotto lands you right back in Bone Bottom. It makes an uglier reprise hours later, when an inadvertent tumble from the Whispering Vaults lands you in the maggot-infested, poison pits of Bilewater. Generally, though, you can strip all the objectives, signposts, and thematic resonance out of Silksong and still understand the basic conceit of climbing a tower.

Metroidvania level design often leans into platform game abstraction, and while Silksong calls upon those all-too-familiar themes - forest, lava, snow, and so on - Pharloom's world cohesion eclipses Hallownest. Its lower echelons are a glorified corpse pit, and the road out of it is paved with the bodies of pilgrims; the Citadel above is a monument to Team Cherry's ability to weave storytelling through exploration. Its majesty, marked by the choral choir at the zenith of Christopher Larkin's spectacular soundtrack, is dramatically undercut by the greed and exploitation built into the structure itself. Carcasses are caught in the machinery of its industrial underbelly, while benches demand what meager wages the living workers earn to use. The areas within the Citadel aren't just plucked from Team Cherry's mood board; they are built with a purpose that reflects its diegetic construction.

Pharloom is significantly larger than Hallownest, yet it only has one additional fast travel point. This is a problem, not least because bigger does not equal better when it comes to Metroidvania map size. One of the singular joys in a Metroidvania game is the epiphany after you pick up a new ability. "Finally!" you exclaim, "I can reach that ledge!" In Silksong, there are so many ledges and paths not taken that it's difficult to keep track of them all. Instead, this moment of triumph is superseded by a latent anxiety that there's something you've forgotten, like the videogame equivalent of thinking you've left the oven on.

This is less of an issue in the first half of the game - but then, that's the easy part. It's the heel-turn that's the most difficult to pull off in a Metroidvania, when the player's relentless forward momentum is redirected back upon itself. Silksong's custom map markers are a signifier without a subject, a collection of miscellaneous icons with no meaning beyond what the player ascribes. This is no different from any other Metroidvania's map markers, but it becomes a problem when applied to a map this large. Silksong would have certainly benefited from the screenshot-style pins pioneered by Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown - one of the best iterations of the Metroidvania genre in recent years, and an elegant way to cut down on unnecessary travel time.

Obviously, a world this large means such a propensity to leave the player to their own devices can backfire. A combat gauntlet might well be painless if you have fistfuls of caltrops or a personal army of poison cogflies, but taking advantage of such tools requires you to find them first. Conversely, a platform challenge that's technically manageable (if not emotionally) could become a cakewalk once you've unlocked a traversal ability waiting elsewhere. In such instances, there are only two takeaways for the player: that either there's a fatal imbalance in the encounter, or trust that Team Cherry has a needle or two sequestered in its subterranean haystack to ease the burden. Established Hollow Knight fans are more inclined toward that trust, but Silksong offers no such promise to newcomers.

That being said, Hollow Knight's difficulty has been subject to the collective amnesia that's usually seen in childbirth. If you were basing your understanding on the public outcry following Silksong, you'd probably assume that Hollow Knight was a relaxing game on par with Yoku's Island Express. The truth is that Hollow Knight is (and has always been) challenging. It struggled to beat the soulslike allegations for more than just its dour portrait of a plague-stricken world; its combat-driven gameplay is uncompromising, particularly in the face of its bosses and gauntlet challenges.

Silksong's difficulty is a step up from Hollow Knight, but it's a natural progression from what came before. Its difficulty spikes are often a symptom of ill-preparedness. Where Metroidvanias traditionally block progression behind locked doors, Team Cherry routinely throws them wide open, inviting the player to use their own judgment as to whether they're ready for what lies on the other side. This degree of autonomy isn't entirely unprecedented in Metroidvanias. However, it's uncommon enough that I have to consciously remind myself of it when I'm stuck in the mire of Bilewater or getting endlessly savaged by Muckroaches in Sinner's Road. The decision to take the same path over and over is often mine alone, not one imposed upon me.

Combat encounters iterate upon themselves, but remain inextricably linked to world design. The Citadel's denizens are easiest to dispatch with a downward strike, an inadvertent practice for bouncing off the myriad sprockets and springs in the Cogwork Core. The birds that swoop and swipe at Hornet in Greymoor are a muscle memory exercise for the fight against Moorwing. Moreover, Silksong's enemies aren't just there to be hit until they die. They are silk farms, rosary banks, makeshift platforms, even pitcher machines for indiscriminate projectiles. Again, this is not a novel concept for a Metroidvania, but Team Cherry's intentionality with enemy placement reflects great care and attention.

Silksong continues Team Cherry's propensity for bosses with limited yet powerful movesets that ramp in complexity throughout multiple phases, but gives you more to work with during these encounters. Crests and tools replace Hollow Knight's charm system, plumbing new depths of build variety and granular synergies. I might load up one crest with utility-driven yellow tools to aid in map exploration and currency farming; another crest sits in reserve with damage buffs and faster heals that's tailor-made for boss encounters; yet another is primed with explosive bombs and throwing rings to disperse crowds.

Seven years of development have also seen lavish attention paid to Silksong's animation, which easily outstrips Hollow Knight. Where the Knight's economy of movement speaks to their vacant interiority and Team Cherry's own restrictive budget, Hornet is a blaze of dynamic mobility. Her pogo flips and quick turns are punctuated by a wild skittering of her spindle legs as she struggles to stay upright under the player's direction. This extends to Silksong's world at large. Consider the tattered draperies sliced to ribbons by Hornet's needle; the processions of tiny red ants that carry off rosaries and miscellania; even the flimsy protrusions that dip under Hornet's weight. These minuscule touches don't make a material difference to how Silksong plays, but cumulatively, they offer a world that feels tactile, even mutable.

The constraints of Hornet's body make her far more at one with the world around her, as does her dialogue. She trades taunts with antivillain Lace, urges pilgrim Sherma to consider what she can do for her suffering brethren rather than beseech a higher power, and delivers a swift slap to any overfamiliar bug that comes too close. Her involvement in Pharloom's people and politics makes Silksong's story eminently easier to follow. Where Hollow Knight's narrative is often relegated to lore videos for all but the most discerning fans, Silksong's tale of weavers and wyrms, mothers and daughters, earthly and divine, requires no such outside help. It's a sequel that enriches what came before, in some sense, a course correction from the FromSoftian narrative delivered through cryptic dialogue and non-sequiturs.

Not all of Silksong's story beats are equal. Where Hollow Knight had a highly curated handful of quests, its sequel has literal bulletin boards of wishes to fulfill. The purpose of these extraneous tasks, aside from ticking boxes, is likely to invite players struggling with their rosary count to take some time to clear a few trash mobs to accrue substantial funds for a relatively minor chore - but they remain, at base, a chore. Of course, there are a few exceptions. The Great Taste of Pharloom incorporates a courier time trial that is itself a throwback to the Delicate Flower in Hollow Knight. Likewise, assisting an ascetic root-witch in Shellwood unfolds a parasitic allegory of pregnancy that'd be right at home in Bloodborne.

However, these are the few bright spots among a laundry list of collectibles, rehashed bosses, and a roundabout way to save your rosaries. Instead, it's the incidental moments of weirdness in Silksong that I truly relish, which could only come from a team that's languished in development heaven. The flea caravan's spa is presided over by a smizing pervert who peeps on Hornet from the balcony as she bathes. More sinister, reloading your save after resting at the bench in Haunted Bellhart finds Hornet ensnared in Widow's silken threads, twisted and bound.

Silksong plays with convention and expectation, but rarely to persecute the player. Admittedly, 'rarely' is not the same as 'never' - the fatal explosion at the finale of Hornet's showdown with the Last Judge is self-evident, but its very inclusion is mean. Still, for the most part, it is playful. Even the infamous swinging axe trap rigged to the only bench in Hunter's March isn't a measure of Team Cherry's sadism so much as a wry smirk: a reminder of the world and Hornet's place in it. Even Silksong's 'ending' takes Hollow Knight's principle that beating the final boss is just the beginning of the end and builds upon it, hiding a whole additional story act behind a Void-choked save file.

Silksong is the best Metroidvania ever made. Its only perceptible flaw is the scale of Team Cherry's ambition, but in a framework so entrenched in rules and convention, it's difficult to justify as a strike against it. Team Cherry's masterful interplay of level, combat, and narrative game design elevates Silksong not only above Hollow Knight, but also its very genre. It's at its best when it's savored like an open-world game - not with the single-minded focus that comes with jumping and dashing through endless corridors of platforms and obstacles, but with contemplation and curiosity. Even the most egregious complaints about arduous runbacks or difficulty spikes are diminished once you take the time to poke and prod at the corners of its world and unearth a new shortcut, a new tool, a new piece of the puzzle box. Hollow Knight set the gold standard for modern Metroidvanias. Silksong shows us what's next.