Hollow Knight: Silksong Review

Hollow Knight: Silksong reviewed by Tom Marks on PC, also available on PlayStation, Nintendo Switch 1 & 2, and Xbox.

Hollow Knight: Silksong has managed to live up to my high expectations, taking a game I absolutely adored and quite literally turning its dash into a full-on sprint. It’s bigger, more vibrant, and just as creative as the original sprawling epic, and it tweaks every system in largely smart ways. Some of its quests and an oddly structured finale do make small missteps, but Team Cherry has nailed the overall balance between satisfying 2D platforming challenges, enticing exploration of a beautiful and surprising world, and nail-biting combat with thrilling boss battles in a way few games do. It’s also unapologetically challenging in all of that, punishing you in a way that can occasionally sting but never feels unforgiving, giving you both huge obstacles to surmount and plenty of tools to figure out how to do so. It asks you to face down the unbeatable and overcome the things holding you back while still taking care of yourself and those around you, and to leave the world a better place than you found it in the end – no matter how impossible that might seem.