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Hollow Knight: Silksong is reportedly already about a third of the way to the original’s total sales, with Steam leading the charge

by admin September 17, 2025

Hollow Knight: Silksong has sold 3.2m copies on Steam alone since its release, according to analyst estimations.

Ahead of its release, Silksong was the most wishlisted game on the platform with 4.8m wishlists. It seems the majority of these have converted into full sales. That’s all led to large numbers of concurrent players – Silksong reached a concurrent player peak of over 587k two days after release, making it the 17th most played game on Steam.

These sales are according to analysis from GameDiscover in its latest newsletter, which adds Silksong has sold around 500k copies each on PlayStation and Switch (both consoles), as well as reaching 1.5m downloads on Xbox Game Pass.

Hollow Knight: Silksong Review – Beautiful, Thrilling And CruelWatch on YouTube

Of course, part of that success is down to the popularity of the original Hollow Knight. According to GameDiscover’s data, there’s a 78.78 percent overlap in audience between the two games, with 22 percent of all Hollow Knight players on Steam buying the sequel.

The original game sold 15m copies, with sales skyrocketing due to extended hype around Silksong.

Another part of that success is the game’s price – it came in cheaper than many expected, causing debate across the industry around the appropriate cost of indie games.

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September 17, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

Hollow Knight: Silksong Review – Punishing Grandeur

by admin September 16, 2025

Hollow Knight: Silksong is an exemplar of its form. Games like Metroid and Castlevania helped establish the fun of an exploration and platforming adventure filled with upgrades that open up new paths to progression, and Team Cherry’s second Hollow Knight game takes that concept to a profound level of depth, sophistication, and scope. Pacing issues and a punishing approach to forward progression prevent a full-throated endorsement to every type of player, but those with significant patience can uncover a true masterpiece.

While there are some scant references to the prior game, players should be comfortable thinking of Silksong’s story as a standalone installment, in which a warrior princess bug named Hornet is taken against her will to a distant kingdom called Hallownest. After escaping, she seeks to uncover the reason for her kidnapping and the secrets of the place, gradually unfolding a story of ancient mysteries and the decayed remains of a sovereignty governed through the powers of silk and music. The worldbuilding is immaculate, from the visuals of a land that has fallen into ruin to the beautifully written dialogue between characters that fleshes out the fiction.

The environmental storytelling is backed up by rewarding exploration and traversal. Silksong’s world is truly vast, with an interconnected network of biomes that each contribute new threads to the web of understanding, from abandoned halls of long-forgotten experiments to clockwork machinery that drives the kingdom’s waning functions. Hidden paths abound, and the gradual unlocking of new shortcuts and areas that appear through the acquisition of abilities makes for a satisfying loop.

Several platforming sequences are highly challenging, demanding split-second pad/stick control for long and unforgiving stretches. I relish those challenges for their design and canny pathing, but the distance between rest points does little to contribute to that enjoyment. Instead, I found the insistence on extremely long checkpoint placement hampered the sense of pacing in several instances, since I was forced to repeatedly redo early and manageable sections just to get a chance to practice and perfect the later ones.

While combat encounters are frequent and demanding, they are tuned to reward careful attention and clever use of resources. Over the dozens of hours it takes to reach even the first of several endings, I consistently felt a sense of evolving control over the onscreen action, which is enhanced by several distinct crests, each of which alters movement, attacks, and available abilities in subtle but important ways. The distinct playstyles are yet one more way that Silksong layers in nuance.

I was especially fond of many of the bosses, which often have a wide variety of interesting movesets to learn and evocative visual themes that set each apart from the rest. In particular, bosses like Lace, Phantom, and the Cogwork Dancers feel rhythmic and intense, like impactful duels between master combatants.

While the boss battles themselves are a rewarding challenge, I can’t say I was always a fan of the extreme damage each dealt, often ending individual attempts in mere seconds, or the sponge-like health pools of most, which sometimes feel like a chore to work through, even after nailing the mechanics of the fight. The frequent insistence on long, gauntlet-like runbacks to retry a given battle exacerbates those issues, which reads more like an unnecessary time sink, rather than a fun addition to the difficulty.

Like many great games, all of Silksong’s systems, difficulty, and storytelling feel intentional and crafted to be as they are. Even as particular frustrations held back some measure of my potential enjoyment, I simultaneously marveled at the care that has gone into each detail of Silksong’s measured unraveling of plot and gameplay. Even beyond the credits, hours and hours of optional endings, additional zones and bosses, and new plot elements wait to be brought to light by a devoted player. It’s a truly immense game filled with hard-won moments of discovery and revelation.

Musicians know the feeling of a piece that is woven with complexity, which takes longer to learn than most, but brings commensurate satisfaction upon mastery; Silksong is the video game equivalent, sitting ready to be played and adored, but only after appropriate levels of devotion and persistence.

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September 16, 2025 0 comments

Hollow Knight Silksong finally gets release date, out next month

Game Reviews

Hollow Knight: Silksong’s second patch detailed, but don’t expect any balance tweaks

by admin September 16, 2025

Team Cherry has detailed what’s planned for Hollow Knight: Silksong’s second patch, but don’t expect any balance changes as with the first.

“Where the first patch dealt mainly with critical issues,” the studio said in the patch notes, “this next one focuses on a few still remaining, while also cleaning up some bugs around specific tools”.

This second patch is now live in Steam’s public-beta branch, with further tweaks expected before full release on all platforms – it’s currently unknown when that will be.

Hollow Knight: Silksong Review – Beautiful, Thrilling And CruelWatch on YouTube

Silksong’s first patch made the early game a little easier, with a couple of bosses having “slight difficulty reduction”. The second patch has no such changes – instead it’s almost entirely bug fixes around certain enemies, bosses, and tools.

Check out the full patch notes below.

Added Dithering effect option in Advanced video settings. Reduces colour banding but can slightly soften the appearance of foreground assets. Defaults to ‘Off’. Updated Herald’s Wish achievement description to clarify that players must both complete the wish and finish the game.
Fixed Savage Beastfly in Far Fields sometimes remaining below the lava.
Fixed rare cases of Shrine Guardian Seth getting out of bounds during battle.
Added catch to prevent Lugoli sometimes flying off screen and not returning during battle.
Further reduced chance of Silk Snippers to get stuck out of bounds in Chapel of the Reaper battle.
Fixed various instances of dying to bosses while killing them causing death sequences to play messily or out of sync.
Fixed Shaman Binding into a bottom transition causing a softlock.
Cocoon positions in some locations updated to prevent it spawning in inaccessible areas.
Fixed Liquid Lacquer courier delivery not being accessible in Steel Soul mode.
Fixed some NPCs not correctly playing cursed hint dialogues in certain instances.
Fixed Pondcatcher Reed not being able to fly away after singing.
Fixed Verdania memory orbs sometimes replaying layered screen-edge burst effects.
Fixed the break counter not working for certain multihitter tools eg Conchcutter.
Fixed Volt Filament damage multiplier not applying for certain Silk Skills.
Fixed Cogflies and Wisps inappropriately targeting Skullwings.
Fixed Cogflies incorrectly resetting their HP to full on scene change.
Fixed Curveclaw always breaking on the first hit after being deflected.
Fixed Plasmium Phial and Flea Brew sometimes not restoring as intended at benches.
Various other smaller tweaks and fixes.

What do you make of Silksong’s difficulty? And what’s your opinion on runbacks to bosses more generally in games? Have your say in our discussion: have boss runbacks had their day?

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September 16, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Hollow Knight: Silksong player melts its hardest bosses with an endless fountain of tools: ‘I think I unlocked easy mode’

by admin September 16, 2025

The Strongest Build in SILKSONG [SPOILER FREE] Architect Crest Silkshot Railgun Silksong Build – YouTube

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I’ll admit, I wasn’t as creative with my build in Hollow Knight: Silksong as I’d like to admit. I found one of the early weapon upgrades and kind of stuck with that for the next 30 hours.

It got the job done, but it was nowhere close to the power of YouTuber Syrobe’s “easy mode” build where you have an endless supply of powerful tools. Before I explain how it works though, you should know that it requires fairly late-game unlocks to put together. I’d wait until you’re several hours into Act 2 before attempting this.

The heart of the build is the Architect Crest which has the unique ability to repair your tools on the fly. Normally, you have to rest at a bench to do that, but this Crest gives you the option to forgo healing yourself to replenish your tools in the middle of combat.

Tools are extremely powerful in Silksong and no other Crest lets you spam them like this one. The only drawback is that you can’t equip any of Hornet’s high-damage skills with it, but the amount of tools you can fling out more than makes up for it.

You can pretty much equip any tools you want, but Syrobe recommends the Tacks, Silkshot, and the Voltvessels. He adds in the Pollip Pouch so every hit applies a poison DoT on enemies and Quick Sling to double the amount of tools you throw at a time.

Nothing in the game can survive you laying traps all over the place and shooting everything down with buckets of laser beams and silk bullets. Bosses run into them and get ripped apart while you sit back and watch. Watching Syrobe tear through waves of enemies in seconds looks like he has cheats on.

He has a separate, spoilery video where he melts the last two bosses in the game in under a minute. Both fights took me much longer because I spent most of them dodging around and hitting the boss with my little sword.

Acquiring all the stuff might take you a while. Syrobe goes into detail on where to track it all down, but here’s a quick list of what you need and where to get it:

Architect Crest – Buy the Architect’s Key and unlock a room in the Underworks
Quick Sling – Found behind a false ceiling in Bilewater
Pollip Pouch – Complete the Rite of the Pollip quest in the Wormways
Tacks – Complete the Roach Guts quest in Sinner’s Road
Silkshot – Bring the Ruined Tool from Bilewater to the top of Mount Fay
Voltvessels – Found in northeastern Memorium

“I think I unlocked easy mode, I don’t know what everyone else is doing,” Syrobe said after humiliating one of the final bosses with a room full of traps. Here he is casually watching a boss get shredded while I remember each and every attempt I made in my own playthrough where I—a fool—chased the boss around with my sword. If only I had known about the devastating power of tools.

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September 16, 2025 0 comments

Hornet against a gloomy underground cave backdrop

Product Reviews

Hollow Knight Silksong review: a daring, experimental, and breathtakingly beautiful sequel

by admin September 16, 2025

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Long-awaited metroidvania game Hollow Knight: Silksong is already proving to be a victim of its own success.

The unbearable hype surrounding its storefront-destroying launch, combined with the simultaneous release into the eager hands of both critics and players, has created a uniquely voracious narrative.

There’s a sense that one must devour Silksong all at once, or else risk being left behind and out of the loop on what is surely one of the biggest gaming events of the decade so far.

The problem is, Silksong is not a game to be binged. It’s a sprawling, complicated, and brilliant sequel that demands patience above all else. Only then does it fully reveal itself as a game that’s much more than the conversations around difficulty would have you believe.

Review information

Platform reviewed: Nintendo Switch 2
Available on: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X and Series S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch, PC
Release date: September 4, 2025

Not even two weeks into its life, developer Team Cherry’s Silksong has largely been misrepresented and mislabelled as an impossibly difficult and sadistic continuation of 2017’s brilliant Hollow Knight. Of course, Silksong is a very challenging game; I agree with that wholeheartedly. It’s so much more than that, though.

As the dust settles, and now looking back on my first completed playthrough, I believe it’s going to take years for the collective player hivemind to truly unpack exactly what Silksong does well, and where it falters.

Rough starts and Bellharts

(Image credit: Team Cherry)

I made the decision to play the first five hours of Hollow Knight alongside those of Silksong’s. This is where the two games differ most drastically. Hollow Knight is much more generous with checkpoints, resources, and clear tutorial sections than Silksong.

Enemies hit hard from the get-go in the sequel, while Hollow Knight gives you some softball encounters to practice on before its first proper boss fight. These are very different games, diverging from one another almost immediately and taking very different paths towards completely different conclusions.

The opening hours of Silksong are likely to be where players find the most friction. Enemies frequently deal two full health segments of damage, though you’ll have more freedom in how you heal thanks to main protagonist Hornet’s increased speed and aerial options. Instead of a simple down attack, Hornet dives in diagonal needle drops. This in itself requires hours to master, and it’s made very clear that bouncing between enemies without touching the ground is the strongest strategy available to you at first.

Your main special resource in Silksong is the silk meter, which is primarily filled by hitting enemies. Upon collecting enough silk, you’ll need to make a quick decision: heal, or unleash a special attack to hopefully end a fight earlier. Risk vs reward is hammered home again and again in Silksong, and it’s the first few hours where you’ll need to experiment with how you want to play. Eventually, you’ll get to the first town area, learn how to purchase items from merchants, and the currencies that you’ll have to focus on seeking out.

Rosaries are the main ones, but they’re also lost upon death, wrapped in a cocoon that must be retrieved in order to get them back. Shell Shards are somewhat supplementary, used to craft tools and open up your combat options.

My wallet is filled with moths

(Image credit: Team Cherry)

The economy between Rosaries and Shards is a tricky one to make the best use of. Silksong doesn’t give you many opportunities to get Rosaries consistently until a few hours in, while Shards aren’t particularly useful until you’ve bought tools and crafting kits from later merchants.

Tools become vital against flying enemies, bosses, and mobs of enemies, leading to one of the game’s key frustrations. To craft tools, you need Shards. To reliably purchase Shards, you must earn Rosaries, which come from exploring or, more reliably, killing enemies.

Many of the difficulty spikes I hit in Silksong completely cleared out my tools. I’d then have to travel elsewhere to farm Rosaries just to have enough tools to have another go at what was besting me. It’s reminiscent of the awful Blood Vial farming required for some bosses in Bloodborne, taking the player away from the action for repetitive bouts of repeated enemy hunting.

Unfortunately, this never really goes away in Silksong, and if anything, it becomes more common as you progress. The Shard vs Rosary reward balancing is ever so slightly off, making certain areas more and more difficult to progress through.

Shall we take a detour?

(Image credit: Team Cherry)

Silksong offers the same approach to problem-solving as seen in Elden Ring and its expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, in that you’re supposed to go and find something else to do when a perceived skill wall presents itself. Silksong’s map is vast, and much of it is completely optional.

Best bit

(Image credit: Team Cherry)

The Needolin is an upgrade that turns Hornet’s needle into a musical instrument. You simply hold down a button, and Hornet plays along to nearby or ambient music. It’s used to unlock secret doors, interact with NPC events, and even open up new paths that are linked to the final ending of the game. It’s very ambiguous as to what the Needolin can interact with, so experimenting while exploring becomes its own intriguing side quest. I bet there’s even more the Needolin can do, and it’s going to take players years to find out all of its hidden functions.

Many times, I’d find myself throwing Hornet into the same repeated encounter, as I grew increasingly tired of losing the same fight over and over. At a certain point, however, it clicked that I simply needed to open up the map, look for new paths, and follow them forward. Every single time I did this, I happened upon something that made my build stronger – be that secret bundles of Rosaries, new move sets and upgrades, or non-player characters (NPCs) that could be brought into particular fights alongside Hornet. I developed a mantra to live by: if a section took me more than five tries, I needed to go somewhere else.

Once I opened myself up to Silksong’s non-linear progression paths, I started to meet less friction. Side quests are smart new additions that gently nudge players towards points of interest: An old town built into caves of gold, silver, and bronze bells; a decrepit medical wing filled with Lovecraftian horrors and a few allies to meet; a new encounter at the starting village that changes its topography and makes use of music to deliver sorrowful worldbuilding.

Kicking over a log in the woods

(Image credit: Team Cherry)

Playing Silksong makes me feel itchy; I’m not sure how else to describe it. Anyone else who spent their childhood wandering around rain-soaked woodland and muddy river banks will know the feeling. You find a rotten piece of wood, roll it over, and jump back at the writhing cities of grubs, bugs, and spiders you’ve unearthed.

Stepping into every new area always feels like a log turned over. You’ll hear the scritch-scratch of tiny legs from somewhere in the shadows. Tiny gnats will whine nasally as you approach. There’s a griminess to Silksong’s initial zones that’s made all the more potent by the golden gleam and religious opulence of late-game areas.

All of this is achieved in a 2D game, mind you. Somehow, Team Cherry has managed to make even the simplest passages feel thick with dirt, fog, and dust. Light is expertly used to add extra volume and scale to the standard side-scrolling formula used in other modern Metroidvanias.

In comparison, the map is one area where there’s been the least innovation. You still need to purchase them before you’ll see certain areas; there’s still a Compass that takes up a Crest slot, and pins can be used to mark key information.

Given the added variety and scale of Silksong, it’s unfortunate that the map isn’t really up to the task of leading you through the game. There frankly needs to be more information on NPCs, added options for pin types, and a reworking of the way the compass works to measure up to the changes made in this sequel.

Sting like a Hornet

(Image credit: Team Cherry)

Playing as Hornet is a wildly different experience when compared to the silent Knight of the first game. Hornet has dialogue. She’s confident, empathetic, and sternly protective of her personal space. There’s also a concerted effort to contextualize Hornet within the world of Pharloom. You get the impression that she has a personal connection to the bugs you meet, and a genuine desire to help them.

I’m impressed by how well-rounded Hornet is as a protagonist, which makes the combat and boss fights all the more impactful. Silksong is once again filled with an expansive lore and world history. Having Hornet be a part of that lore is a master stroke that elevates the sequel above the first game.

Let’s dance

(Image credit: Team Cherry)

Silksong is at its best when you’re fighting a boss. Every single one is memorable: equal parts deadly and stunning, with clear design motifs bolstered by bespoke musical accompaniment. Many of the boss battles are intricately choreographed affairs. One early game fight with a needle-wielding foe plays out like a synchronized dance routine, all death-defying dives and sparking slashes of sharpened steel.

I’m struggling to remember another game that’s so filled with best-in-class bosses as Silksong. With enough patience and a bit of time spent exploring for upgrades, none of them feel unfair. The loop of slowly learning patterns and then executing daring counters is what all great boss fights are about. Silskong delivers again and again and again in this respect. I can’t wait to jump back in and face the gauntlet of bosses with new tactics, builds, and strategies, and there isn’t a single boss I’ll be skipping in a second playthrough.

Silksong is every bit the sequel that Hollow Knight deserves. It’s the spoils of a team going the extra mile. It’s challenging, yes, but take your time and explore the vast world of Pharloom, and you’ll be rewarded with yet another masterpiece. I can’t wait to see what comes next from Team Cherry, as it’ll never be a team that settles on delivering ‘just more Hollow Knight’.

Should you play Silksong?

Play it if…

Don’t play it if…

Accessibility

Silksong offers the option to turn off camera shake and customize HUD size. There are audio sliders for individual tracks, and you can remap controls. This is a very limited offering, with no color blind, difficulty, or repeated button input options available.

How I reviewed Silksong

My first playthrough of Silksong lasted 36 hours, and I spent a while doing every side quest available before the final boss fight, not counting courier missions. I still haven’t explored the two final sections of the map, and there are plenty of secrets and locked doors I didn’t get to before the end of the credits. I played Hollow Knight back in 2018, completing the main story and some of the first DLC. I intend to go back and play Silksong a second time, focusing on a different Crest, and making use of a completely different set of tools.

I played Silksong on Nintendo Switch 2, making use of the 120Hz mode when docked. The Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller was perfect for this game, though d-pad users may want to go for an alternative controller (the d-pad on the Pro 2 is very subpar when compared to other options like the 8BitDo Ultimate).

I ran Silksong on my LG UltraGear 4K gaming monitor (27GR93U), making use of the extra refresh rate options. Generally, I played Silksong docked, though I did play about five hours handheld.

First reviewed September 2025

Hollow Knight: Silksong: Price Comparison

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September 16, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Hell Is Us Dev Is A Little Salty Over Hollow Knight: Silksong’s Shadow Release

by admin September 16, 2025

After years of anticipation, Team Cherry only gave the video game industry and players two weeks notice that Hollow Knight: Silksong was about to arrive on September 4. While a handful of indie games were moved away from that date, Rogue Factor had already staked out the same release date for Hell is Us six months earlier. Now, Hell is Us’ creative director is sharing his belief that Silksong’s shadow drop negatively impacted Hell is Us’ sales, and he doesn’t sound happy about it.

Jonathan Jacques-Belletête acknowledged that Team Cherry had the right to pick any date it wanted to during his appearance on the Friends Per Second podcast (via This Week in Video Games). However, Jacques-Belletête feels that the decision to do so on such short notice was “a little callous.”

“When you know you’re that big, I think a shadow drop is a bit like–‘wow,'” said Jacques-Belletête. “As the ‘GTA 6 of indie’ … to shadow drop something like this is a little callous.”

According to Jacques-Belletête, discussions were held between Rogue Factor and publisher Nacon about delaying Hell is Us. But there were too many complicating factors, including the need to refund any pre-orders that had already been placed.

“We decided to keep the date, and I’m happy that we did,” added Jacques-Belletête. “We’re still much bigger than some of the smaller ones who would have gotten a lot more affected and who decided to change their dates. Changing the date of Hell Is Us would have been a pretty big [endeavor].”

Jacques-Belletête went on to note that he believes Silksong’s release hurt Hell is Us’ sales, but also acknowledged that he doesn’t currently have the sales numbers available to illustrate that point.

As for Silksong, it debuted with a massive concurrent player count on Steam during its first weekend. A common complaint about the game is that it’s too difficult, and mods designed to make Silksong easier were released almost immediately. Team Cherry subsequently released its own patch to lower Silksong’s difficulty.

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September 16, 2025 0 comments

Hollow Knight: Silksong launch breaks global game storefronts

Esports

Hollow Knight: Silksong’s surprise release date was “a little callous,” says Hell is Us lead

by admin September 15, 2025

Hell is Us’ creative director, Jonathan Jacques-Belletête, has described Team Cherry’s surprise reveal of Hollow Knight: Silksong’s release date just two weeks before its launch as “a little callous.”

As reported by This Week in Videogames, Jacques-Belletête appeared in the most recent episode of Skill Up’s Friends Per Second podcast, where he discussed his and Rogue Factor’s experience releasing soulslike Hell is Us on the same day that Hollow Knight: Silksong was released, having had only two weeks’ notice that both games would release on September 4, 2025.

“We all jumped on our phones really quickly, with our publisher [Nacon] and all sorts of things like that,” Jacques-Belletête said, describing the moment the studio discovered Team Cherry had unexpectedly announced Hollow Knight: Silksong’s long-awaited release date in a trailer posted on August 21, 2025.

“I mean, they’re allowed to do what they did; there’s no laws or rules against that,” he continued. “And I don’t want to say: ‘they caused this to us or somebody else’. I don’t really care about that. I don’t want to get into that type of debate.

“But when you know you’re that big, a shadow drop is a bit like ‘wow.’

“As the GTA 6 of indie – and I know now this term gets thrown left and right, but in the industry that’s already how we were calling such a game – to shadow drop something like this is a little callous.”

Hell is Us was first announced in April 2022, with a release window slated for the following year. In October 2023, Rogue Factor announced the game was delayed until 2025, with its final September 2025 release date revealed during Sony’s State of Play livestream in February 2025.

After learning about Team Cherry’s plans to release Hollow Knight: Silksong on the same day, Rogue Factor “decided to keep the date,” said Jacques-Belletête. “And I’m happy that we did.”

“We’re still much bigger than some of the smaller [studios] who would have [been] a lot more affected and decided to change their dates,” he continued. “Changing the date of Hell is Us would have been a pretty big endeavour.”

When asked whether changing Hell is Us’ release date would have been feasible, Jacques-Belletête explained that “the real pain in the ass” of doing so was that the studio would have had to reimburse and refund player pre-orders.

He did clarify, however, that the decision to keep the date was not “just” because of this.

“We were also like ‘no, I think we can get through the storm’. But it was a thing.”

“That day, a lot of emails, texts, and messages went back and forth between a lot of people, between us and our publisher,” he continued. “It was a real thing.”

Hollow Knight: Silksong surpassed half a million concurrent players following its launch, while Hell is Us’ all-time peak concurrent player count stands at 4,431 (according to SteamDB).

When asked whether he believes Hollow Knight: Silksong’s release impacted Hell is Us’ performance, Jacques-Belletête said: “I can’t prove it, I don’t have any specific numbers, at least not at this time. But, I mean, for sure. For sure it did.”

Jacques-Belletête did emphasise, however, that “it’s not just Silksong” that had an impact on Hell is Us’ release, pointing to Bloober Team’s Cronos: The New Dawn, released on September 5, 2025, as an example of another title released during the same period. “It was busy.”

“That’s the thing nowadays, getting a window where you’re pretty much alone is almost impossible,” Jacques-Belletête continued.

“15 years ago, kind of the mid to end of the summer was always a dead period. But there’s no such thing anymore. It’s constant madness.

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September 15, 2025 0 comments

Esports

Every Hollow Knight: Silksong boss already beaten without taking a hit

by admin September 15, 2025

A skilled player has managed to beat every boss in Hollow Knight: Silksong without taking damage, as seen in their YouTube video.

If you’ve been playing Hollow Knight: Silksong, chances are you’re already familiar with how frustrating the new release can be at times. The game itself is notoriously brutal, to the point where a portion of players have resorted to using mods to make their playthrough easier.

While it’s safe to say a lot of us are struggling, a YouTuber who goes by the name CrankyTemplar clearly isn’t. In fact, they’ve already managed to overcome an extremely hard feat, defeating all the bosses in the game without taking a single hit.

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It’s only been a little over a week since the game was released, but this player showed they were more than ready for the challenge.

Hollow Knight: Silksong player beats every boss without a scratch

CrankyTemplar started uploading videos of them beating separate Silksong bosses, and just recently, mixed them all into one nearly two-hour compilation.

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From the early game bosses to Seth, a boss that was designed by a fan who passed away, he managed to include them in the video and showcased how he’s able to deal with them flawlessly.

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In the majority of the fights, Hornet can be seen only using her needle with the Clawline ability. The YouTuber also used a mix of tools to get through some of the trickier fights.

While many ran to the comments to compliment the creator following this video, they did claim they went through some frustrating “runbacks.” So, this hitless attempt wasn’t exactly a flawless run, given that something like this “usually involves quite a bit of tries to succeed [sic].”

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Still, they claimed that the title is a fantastic game and were glad to play it. Additionally, noting that there’s definitely room to improve with these boss fights, they said they’ll look forward to trying Steel Soul mode community-created challenges in the future where a single death means a complete do-over from the start of the game.

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September 15, 2025 0 comments

Esports

Silksong boss honors Hollow Knight fan who lost cancer battle

by admin September 15, 2025

A Hollow Knight fan who passed away from cancer has been immortalized in Silksong as a full boss fight, NPC, and sidequests.

Hollow Knight: Silksong released after years of anticipation, serving as the follow-up to Team Cherry’s 2017 breakout hit. The original game became one of the most acclaimed indies of all time, praised for its challenging combat, sprawling world, and striking art style.

The sequel built on that legacy, breaking records at launch across Steam and Nintendo Switch. Critics praised Silksong’s expanded combat and massive new areas, though Team Cherry later patched the game to make certain early bosses easier after player feedback. Even with these adjustments, the game remains one of the toughest releases of the year.

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The deeper meaning behind Seth’s boss fight

One of Silksong’s most emotional encounters is Seth, a boss with a real story behind his creation. Six years ago, a young fan named Seth shared on Reddit under the alias big_boi878 that he was fighting Ewing sarcoma and wished to meet the developers of Hollow Knight. Team Cherry not only spoke with him, but went further and gave him the chance to design his own character for the sequel.

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Seth revealed at the time that he had named the character after himself, promising fans unique lore and gameplay. He even said the team promised him a code on day one so that he could experience fighting his own boss.

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Sadly, he passed away in 2019 before Silksong’s release, but his creation remains in the game. Players can face Seth in Eastern Greymoor, where the fight is paired with ethereal music and continues into a questline across the map.

Beyond the battle, Seth is also remembered with a special mention in the credits. Fans have praised the tribute as one of Silksong’s most moving moments, ensuring that his creativity and story live on inside the game he loved.

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September 15, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Hollow Knight: Silksong review | PC Gamer

by admin September 13, 2025

Nothing prepared me for the Sisyphean exercise that is playing Hollow Knight: Silksong. Part of that is my bad for skipping the original Hollow Knight—I thought I’d have plenty of time to try it before Silksong ever actually came out. But now it’s here and I’ve spent over 25 hours with the videogame equivalent of sticking your hand into the Dune pain box.

Need to Know

What is it? A 2D action game with challenging combat and platforming
Release date: September 4, 2025
Expect to pay: $19.99
Developer: Team Cherry
Publisher: Team Cherry
Reviewed on: RTX 5090, Intel Core i9 12900K, 32GB RAM
Multiplayer: Yes
Steam Deck: Verified
Link: Steam

Silksong may be one of the most painful 2D action games I’ve played, and the worst part? I inflicted that pain on myself by pressing forward until I’d seen just about every inch of the bug-inhabited land of Pharloom. And that’s saying something; despite being a 2D game, Team Cherry has stuffed enough levels, characters, and quests into Silksong to fill a 3D world. It never ends: Lift up a rock and you’ll find a boss eager to be your newest archnemesis or an obstacle course of spikes and blades that are about as rewarding as scratching a mosquito bite.

Silksong makes you feel like a fool for playing it in the first place. From the moment you start a new game and bring Pharloom into existence, it’s agony for everyone involved. Every bug is out to get you or struggling to eke out their own hardscrabble existence.

This diabolical commitment to knocking you on your ass in a world where everyone’s been knocked on their ass for the last few decades is what impresses me the most about Silksong. Not even a game as punishing as Elden Ring outright refuses to loosen its grip around your neck. There comes a point in every FromSoftware game where you earn the right to play with your food, often by finding a character build that works for you. Silksong, on the other hand, will let you upgrade your weapon so that eventually you might deal out as much damage as the enemies have been doing to you since Act 1.

I may be bruised and sore from the experience, but I’m happy to say that for all the pain Silksong put me through, it was worth it. Team Cherry made a whole game about getting to your car without your keys and it’s phenomenal, unflinching in its vision to fully consume you until you can see the mazes of Pharloom when you close your eyes.

Harmony

(Image credit: Tyler C. / Team Cherry)

I will kill anyone who dares complain about precious Sherma and his calming lullaby.

As much as I find the term inadequate for describing what’s truly special about Silksong, calling it a soulslike has some merit. Combat-wise it doesn’t quite fit, but the construction of Pharloom rivals (and echoes) that of Lordran in Dark Souls. Not only is it intricate and interconnected, but it’s warped by its tragic history. You can open the map and draw a line from the golden citadel all the way down into the stagnant, maggot-infested pools of Bilewater to understand exactly where the rot began.

Every shortcut and secret area contextualizes the horrors you face in the bigger, sadder picture. A pristine dining room in the upper chambers of the citadel hides a kitchen caked in dust and decay, and just below that, in a secret room, lies the tangled corpse of a centipede pontiff. There’s always something just out of view or lingering in the background that draws your eye, and those details always kept me hungry to see more. By the end of the game, I couldn’t tell what was more exciting: the fact that I somehow dug my way into an entire zone I hadn’t explored yet or the questions that new place raised about what’s really going on with Pharloom’s biggest mysteries.

There are plenty of bright spots on the journey through hell, like the little towns you can help rebuild and the bugs you meet in them. I ran so many errands for the group of bugs living in giant bells that they gifted me one of my own. I will kill anyone who dares complain about precious Sherma and his calming lullaby.

(Image credit: Tyler C. / Team Cherry)

Hornet, and the characters she runs into, are a splash of cold water in this gloomy dream. There are bugs of all shapes and sizes who welcome you with warm greetings, sweet melodies, and sometimes a bit of deception. I met a whole caravan of nomadic fleas with french mustaches, a bartender beetle, and a ladybug carny who charged me for target practice.

The wide cast of weirdos kept me sane when I was losing my grip from being repeatedly squashed by a metallic bug with a bell chained to her arm. Hornet’s tendency to soften from cold-blooded warrior to empathetic survivor when confronted with a bug-in-need or a fluffy flea added a tender counterpoint to the most abrasive moments. Even the fact that she speaks at all helps Silksong temper its overwhelming despair and it made me eager to talk to every bug I could find.

The thrill of playing as Hornet is what really anchors Silksong as a brilliant action game above all else. Skipping and dodging around enemies becomes a delicate dance that grows more and more intricate as you pick up new moves. I was merely poking at enemies in the first few hours of the game and by the end I was tossing out spike traps and silk missiles while bouncing between bugs like a pinball. When I wasn’t getting clobbered, it felt like the tables had turned and suddenly I was the boss with the unfair, unpredictable attacks. Silksong sets the bar for mastery so high that you can only reach it for short bursts, but it’s a carrot worth chasing when pulling it off is so unbelievably satisfying.

In those glorious, fleeting moments, I was able to take a step back and appreciate how creative Silksong’s boss fights can be. I almost wanted to stall during a duel with a glitzy butterfly on a stage full of explosive fireworks and spotlights so that I could enjoy the absurdity of it just a few seconds longer. And despite my waning patience when I was locked in a room with two mechanical dancers who mirror each other’s moves, I had to admit it was a clever way to learn how to stay focused on a single target while making me feel like I was part of the dance—which would prove useful for many bosses down the line. Again and again its commitment to cruelty had a purpose. This phenomenon continued until the final hours of the game.

Stubborn

(Image credit: Tyler C. / Team Cherry)

Most of Silksong is fair despite being unrelenting, and I suspect playing it in a compressed amount of time exacerbated the moments of pain. At the same time, there are sections, particularly the ones you’re forced to repeat every time you attempt a boss, that threaten curdling. One of the worst ones shows up near the beginning and forces you to pogo your way past rabid worms and flies with sniper rifles just to have a chance at seeing the boss again.

Silksong doesn’t always get the balance between effort and reward right. Some games will make you find an access code to unlock a safe with a key in it—Silksong will make you fight with your bare fists through four waves of flies with crowbars to get a key that unlocks a door leading to more flies with crowbars. You’re not even guaranteed to get anything after defeating a boss. For the first half, you’ll be lucky to find a bench to rest on that isn’t trying to kill you or take your money.

It’s an evocative choice to fill the game with checkpoints that you have to pay for to underline the disparity between the upper and lower halves of Pharloom, a clever bit of friction tied to the bleak state of the world. It’s also a choice to stack that on top of a system that empties your wallet if you die too much—and you will when just about every enemy and spike trap can knock out your health bar with a few mistakes. For as beautifully drawn as its tunnels and cathedrals are, not all of them made the climb worth it. Silksong, especially in the first half, requires you to take a blood oath on the promise that experiencing the entire thing will pay off.

(Image credit: Tyler C. / Team Cherry)

Silksong will beat you, burn you, rub your face in the dirt, and then dazzle you with another piece of a haunted clockwork world.

I may be bruised and sore from the experience, but I’m happy to say that it does, in fact, pay off. There were frustrating points in Silksong where I was reluctant to hand it to Team Cherry, but I’m still processing the shock that it managed to exceed my expectations after listening to people scream about Hollow Knight over the last seven years. I can’t tell you if the hype was worth it, because that hype exists on message boards and YouTube channels and Discords, not in the game I booted up on Steam every day for the last week. But I can tell you that Silksong glows with a level of precision and imagination that’s hard to find anywhere else.

It’s too good to let the brutal difficulty hold it back, or to hold me back from seeing all of it—even if I wish there were at least some options to tone down the nastiest punishments. Silksong will beat you, burn you, rub your face in the dirt, and then dazzle you with another piece of a haunted clockwork world, confident the sight will elicit a bloody, jagged-tooth grin. When that happens, the pain will fade away and you’ll press forward into the unknown, ready to endure whatever it throws at you just to stick around a little longer.

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September 13, 2025 0 comments