New Silksong patch nerfs my favorite Hornet Silk Skill but makes up for it with bug fixes aplenty, including out-of-bounds issues and a softlock

A new Hollow Knight: Silksong patch is here, bringing with it a plethora of fixes for various bugs, as well as a "slight" nerf for Hornet's strongest Silk Skill.

Version 1.0.28891 became available on Steam's public beta branch at the end of last month, but it's out in full for everyone now, with the Steam patch notes explaining that there's now added "support for Dualsense Edge controllers."

On top of that, the Metroidvania now "pauses when the controller disconnects," so you won't be left vulnerable in the middle of a fight. In addition to "improved support for various controllers on Mac," Team Cherry states that "various smaller controller issues" have also been addressed, with further improvements to come later.

Otherwise, there are plenty of bug fixes, from "several out of bounds situations" banished, including the Surgeon enemies sometimes being able to pull poor Hornet into the void. Also, it turns out that if you picked up a Spool Fragment (items that permanently increase your amount of silk) and then immediately quit, they could become permanently missable. Thankfully, that's no longer the case. Additionally, a softlock that could occur "during the Grand Gate opening sequence, if the Citadel had been visited and some bellshrines remained inactive," has been ironed out.

But man, that Silk Skill nerf is unfortunate. Team Cherry explains that there's been a "slight decrease to Thread Storm damage at higher needle levels," something I'm admittedly not thrilled about as a dedicated Thread Storm sicko. Team Cherry hasn't specified quite how "slight" the change is, however, so perhaps the nerf isn't going to be too noticeable, but regardless, it's probably no wonder when it was the highest-damaging skill in the game by a massive margin. Thankfully, it's not all bad news for Hornet, as there's been a "slight increase to Sharp Dart and Cross Stitch damage."

The patch also brings some boss tweaks, although it's all bug fixes rather than buffs or nerfs. On "low-end systems," Crust King Khann could sometimes enter his fight and immediately fall out of bounds, but that should no longer be the case. Seth could also get out of bounds and not return, and Team Cherry has also removed a bug that could see him staying invincible for a while at the start of a "refight."

There are plenty more tweaks to pore over in the full patch notes, but generally speaking – perhaps aside from the Thread Storm nerf – it's all very positive. For now, Bilewater haters will just have to hope for a Groal nerf in the next patch.

It took 8 hours of losing to find my favorite thing about Hollow Knight: Silksong.