Everything you need to know about Hollow Knight: Silksong

Images via Team Cherry

A new video game just came out recently that people have been anticipating for years. It’s called Silksong. It was originally supposed to be the DLC to Hollow Knight, but because of how many levels and mechanics the developers (also known as Team Cherry) added into it, Silksong ended up becoming its own standalone game. Due to how long it’s been in development, it gained a lot of popularity. The longer it took to come out, the more fans started to get restless. Eventually, people assumed it just wouldn’t come out at all. Theory videos started getting views, memes were being made frequently, all of that. But finally, after 7 long years, Silksong dropped on multiple gaming platform shops.

Before we get into that, however, let’s answer a question. What took Silksong so long to be released? Because of how silent Team Cherry was when developing the game, people assumed they were stuck in the process, having trouble because of studio size, or even scrapping the idea entirely. Around when the date of release was announced, however, they explained that the reason the process was so drawn out was because they were just having too much fun trying to fit as many details as possible into the game. Team Cherry wanted the game to be exactly what they envisioned, and it led to the game just taking a while. “We’ve been having fun,” a member quoted, “This whole thing is just a vehicle for our creativity anyways. It’s nice to make fun things.” 

The game must have been really fun, because so many people all over the world had it wish listed on online game stores that when it released people flooded online shops, mass-buying it and causing storefronts such as Steam, Xbox, Playstation, and even the Nintendo E-shop to crash and shut down. In a way, this delayed Silksong even more. Nintendo Eshop was down for around 30 minutes, while Steam was down for hours. Luckily, soon everything was fixed and people were able to purchase the game. Things similar to this have happened before with other games, for example, Deltarune (Chapters 3 and 4 were released on June 5th) which had also caused Steam to crash for over an hour, though it varied for different timezones. 

The gameplay for Silksong involves mechanics very similar to Hollow Knight. It’s a fast paced platformer game where you have to explore to progress through the story. You play as the former princess of Hallownest, named Hornet. The story follows her after she is kidnapped and transported to a new land, also known as Pharloom. Pharloom is a distant kingdom with a large citadel in the center, ruled by the forces of silk and song—hence the name, Silksong. 

You can collect different crests, which gives Hornet different abilities. You have a lot of freedom in the game, being able to basically go anywhere you want to. All of the enemies have different movesets, and Hornet is able to strike them down with her needle weapon while jumping, dashing, and more. There are also boss battles, which give you better rewards than defeating regular enemies.

Personally, I really love Silksong. The art for it is stunning. When playing Hollow Knight for the first time, I thought that the art was great. When playing Silksong after its debut however, it was so much better. The details that the developers put into every single aspect of the game makes it fun, despite the difficulty, of which pretty much everyone notes it being much harder than its predecessor, Hollow Knight. There are secrets in almost every room, new and recurring characters, and more. Overall, other’s opinions on the game have been great, the overall rating on Steam as of now being 9/10. There are so many small things that really show that the amount of time Team Cherry put into it was definitely worth the wait. 

Speaking of “wait,” however, due to the overwhelming amount of people wanting to play Silksong, many indie game creators have made the decision to push back the release of their games so they won’t be overshadowed by it. Some of these people have received backlash for this decision, but ultimately it's because of many different reasons that mostly have to do with marketing and the fact that their game will have to compete for attention with one of the most anticipated indie games in a long time. 

In conclusion, Hollow Knight: Silksong is a great game despite having taken so long to release, and I think it’s definitely worth playing. It definitely didn’t disappoint in its quality compared to the first game. The art, gameplay, story, characters, and relevance to Hollow Knight makes it a fun playthrough if you’re a fan of Hollow Knight.