Hollow Knight Silksong hands-on: 2,379 days after its reveal I finally played the elusive Metroidvania, and it is absolutely worth the wait

2,379. That's how many days it has been since Team Cherry unveiled Hollow Knight Silksong. 339. That's the number of weeks which have been allowed to pass with near deafening silence from the developer, a void that players all across the globe have filled with endless amounts of theorycraft and anticipation. 30. That's the minutes I just spent playing a brand new Hollow Knight Silksong demo – the first of its kind since 2019.

If you've ever worried that Hollow Knight Silksong has accumulated so much hype that it couldn't possibly live up to the oversized expectations placed upon its shoulders, I'm here to put your mind at ease. Team Cherry is clearly operating as a studio ready to meet the challenge head-on, rather than succumb to the pressure. Which, funnily enough, is exactly the way that Silksong is able to get under your skin.

Sting like a hornet

You either face the challenge in front of you or die trying. And you will die, over and over again. The new protagonist Hornet may be more agile and acrobatic than the insectoid warrior we previously led into the depths of the Hallownest, but the denizens stalking the Kingdom of Pharloom aren't messing around. I was able to play through sections of two areas of Hollow Knight Silksong, the Moss Grotto (a verdant stage, forming the introduction to the world) and Deep Docks (a mechanical hellscape from later in the game that proved Hollow Knight's infamous challenge spikes are still alive and well).

Walking the Moss Grotto felt like a gentle reintroduction – simple platforming challenges and combat encounters through a lush, leafy environment. It's here where I'm able to get a real feel for Hornet's more agile moveset, made up of sharp lunges and and diagonal thrusts as she weaves around incoming projectiles. The parry window seems sharper, more intuitive. A mid-boss encounter with the Moss Mother left me feeling untouchable, as if muscle memory alone would be enough to keep me safe from harm.

The Deep Docks changed all of that. And it changed it real quick. This sprawling labyrinth, defined by a network of mechanical lifts and pillars of fire with absolutely brutal reset cycles, was a joy to delve into, but it really made me remember just how challenging Hollow Knight could be. Suddenly, the enemies were moving with more aggression and speed, forcing me to grapple with Hornet's ability to ping off walls, dash through small gaps in attack patterns, and quickly reposition. Just when I thought I was getting the hang of it, that's when the creatures wearing bells for helmets entered the picture – completely shutting down aerial attacks, bringing me crashing back to the ground.

If I've gleaned anything from my time with Hollow Knight Silksong it's that while Hornet may have a more agile moveset, movement speed is still grounded; aggression is rewarded, and indecision punished. And that the hundreds of new enemies flooding through this new world have more versatile offensive and defensive patterns to match everything that you do.

Hornet does of course have some new tricks. A limited-use 'Straight Pin' [Up + RB] acts as a light throwing tool designed for rapid attacks, while the powerful Silkspear [RB] can be encounter defining if used correctly. I didn't get enough time with this deadly Weaver technique, but it's something I'm keen to get my hands back on – the ability to throw Hornet's needle forward with force, amplified by coiled silk, is astonishingly satisfying… even if it does leave you brutally open to counter-attacks.

Spinning thread

I suppose if ever there was a downside to moving so undeterred through the Moss Grotto section, it's that I didn't have a chance to properly grapple with changes made to the healing system between Hollow Knight and Silksong by the time the difficulty spiked. Where you had to charge to regain a single hit-point of health in Hollow Knight, Hornet has the ability to refill three hit-points almost instantly in Silksong. The trick, of course, is that your 'Silk' gauge needs to be full for you to be able to perform this 'Bind' heal, and the fastest way to do that is to re-engage in direct combat.

This may sound like a subtle change, but it has the potential to drastically change the way you approach every encounter – from simple screen cleaning to entire boss encounters. I was still figuring out the particulars by the time I ran into Lace, a mid-boss encounter full of neat flourishes that's been glimpsed in past trailers.

Suffice to say, that was one challenge too great for the short time that I had to play Hollow Knight Silksong. At least this way I was able to discover that Hornet leaves a cocoon at the site of her death, which contains a full stock of 'Silk' inside, should you break it open before whatever kills you the first time starts going at you again.

There's only so much you can learn about a video game in 30 minutes. But here's what I can tell you with certainty: Hollow Knight Silksong is a real video game that is clearly going to release imminently. There's an attention to detail in its visual and audio design that's scintillating to experience. The play itself is smooth, Hollow Knight's occasional sharp edges sanded down to ensure that movement and motion is the star. And then there's the changes to combat, skills, and equipment; certainly worthy of more dissection and introspection that I can reasonably provide here, but it's clear that Team Cherry is pushing for subtle revisions that will have big impacts.

There's probably a world in which I sign off this Hollow Knight Silksong preview by making the sort of comparison that I really dislike. "Silksong is to Hollow Knight what Bloodborne was to Dark Souls." The words are tumbling onto the keyboard and I can't seem to stop them. What I mean by this unhelpful shorthand is that Silksong is building smartly on exceptionally solid foundations, and it's doing so with a greater focus on aggression, decisive action, and proactive decision making. I only played 30 minutes of Hollow Knight Silksong, and now I'm desperate for that to transform into 30 hours.

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