Hollow Knight: Silksong (2025)

Endless Mode has put out a few really great Silksong articles, and this one today from Moises Taveras is no exception:

Silksong Reminds Us that There’s Room for Tough Games

Hollow Knight is a hard game, and Silksong handily inherits the mantle from it and pushes the player even further, but I think even this short-and-sweet descriptor flattens what they actually do. It would be more apt to describe either title as rigorous, and I don’t believe this to be some great sin on either game’s part. I think there’s space in the world, and in games culture, for tough art, and it hurts to see audiences want to chip away at that and soften it.

What sets titles like Hollow Knight and Silksong apart is that these games are unafraid to be work. In a world filled with casual and passive experiences, art like that should be valued! They are unafraid to ask things of their audience, much like the Souls games of From Software’s oeuvre, and to expect results. In turn, you get the privilege of being able to read it. You can parse its language and eventually become fluid in it. You may even become masterful at it. But at the very least you become learned.

Alllllright.. so Silksong is kind of aggravating me. Granted I Played the original about 5 years ago in my pre-kid days, so perhaps my patience has waned.. but first the bug selling maps disappears for some reason, and then I get lost in the next area, and now I’m stuck in this boss room where the bug lady shows up during the fight and these flying f-ers hit me EVERY SINGLE TIME with their throwing spears. It’s so overstimulating I can’t focus on anything.

I wait until the very last second to move out of the way and they hit me 100% of the time, and, though I can’t bother to even check because I can’t take my eyes off screen for a nanosecond, they hit me for double damage? From full health to dead in about 8 seconds.. but I end up in survival mode just dodging projectiles that hit me every single time anyway, simply due to how many things are going on on-screen.

The other bosses so far have been awesome, challenging but completely appropriate for early game, but the three things on screen at once is really frustrating, especially when two flying dudes come out and their hits are guaranteed. And which projectile do I even dodge, when the bug that’s on my side is also throwing them? Can’t focus at all. I’m wondering if I’m supposed to have a Dodge move maybe?

So far it’s been good but this particular room is really getting to me, and I ended up losing my cocoon due to the other issue I’m having, and it’s the dive-bouncing mechanic.

I am playing on PlayStation 5 and using the joystick to accurately control these extremely precise and punishing (if you fall, which is usually into spikes) dive bounces feels impossible. So, I’ve resorted to using the D pad. This is fine, except my left hand feels like I’ve taken a mallet to it after an hour and a half of play. I don’t know what the controls feel like on PC but I can see this being a problem later on in the game where are platforming challenges will presumably be more of a factor.

Aye. We will see how this goes.

Hollow Knight's lack of a map until you find and buy it is just lame. Hunting to find the map item while not having a map is just not fun, and you can get the double whammy of dying while that happens and have no way how to get back to your body. In 3D open world games finding the map works well because it is usually very obvious where you need to go (e.g. Assassin's Creed's tall towers) and the fun is exploring how to get there. It also helps that you can usually fast travel at any time if you get lost in an unmapped area.

I feel like no one has quite cracked the nut on a good way to handle map reveal for Metroidvanias but it could use more innovation. Given all the backtracking that is innate to these games it feels like you could do something wherein you get more details based on how many times you have been through a specific area. Maybe you get a simple broad strokes map like Hollow Knight the first time you wander through, but then if you walk through an area enough times it is basically a screenshot quality level of detail.

The lack of any accessibility options make this game a non-starter and an early drop. I tried hard for a long time beating my head against Hollow Knight, but in both games I hit an insurmountable wall early on and am unable to progress past these points. I could keep trying, but I'm not having any fun in the first place—I think it is fair to say that these games aren't for me.

Anything is always worth a try, and I am always happy supporting Aussie game devs. But for reference to myself, I should probably stay in my lane and focus on games that don't require too much mental fortitude... I don't have too much left to give right now. This one is squarely on me!

Diving into Silksong! Still very early, but it seems like pogo jumping is just as important here as it is in Hollow Knight, so I thought I'd go overboard and share my Steam Input setup for mapping the pogo to a single button. Highly recommended if you've got the option, it feels way better than constantly having to hit diagonals on the d-pad.

• First up, find Silksong's library page in Steam, and click the controller icon in the upper right to open its controller layout in Steam Input.
• Click "Edit Layout".
• Pick a button you want to use for the pogo (I use the right bumper), and map "Left Stick Down" to that button. If you're moving around the game with the left analog, map "DPad Down", instead.
• Then, hit the gear icon next to your mapped button, and click "Add Extra Command". Map your attack input (e.g. the X button) to that new command slot.
• Hit the gear icon next to both of your newly mapped inputs, click "Regular Press", and switch both to "Start Press".
• Hit the gear icon again for both inputs, and click "Settings". For the "Left Stick Down" command, set "Fire End Delay" to 60 ms, and for the "X button" command, set "Fire Start Delay" to 25 ms.
• That's it! A bit involved, and arguably should just be a setting within the game itself, but it's a huge improvement for Hornet's movement.