After six long years, the Team Cherry Developers of indie platformer game Hollow Knight have released their follow up game Hollow Knight: Silksong, which racked up the top of many Steam wishlists during development. This new game is designed heavily for those who have already played through and finished the previous game. Being more difficult than Hollow Knight, Silksong has left players struggling, but still enjoying the games added depth and very noticeable gameplay changes.
Over the six years that Silksong has been on steam, it has racked up an immense number of wishlist saves. With over 5.2 million wishlist saves, Silksong was gifted the title of most wish-listed game in steam history. The previous title of most wish-listed fluctuated while Silksong was in development, being crowned to like Hades II and InOZI.
The three person development group of Team Cherry have spoken on how much time the game took to create and release. Speaking up in a Bloomberg interview, the reason for the lengthy development process was simply that they were having fun designing and building out the game.
The art in Silksong, as well as in the original Hollow Knight, is all hand drawn, adding a human touch to the game and showing the true dedication Team Cherry had while making it. Team Cherry had also hired two extra employees to assist in the soundtrack for the game, which is a very evidently powerful and well crafted soundtrack.
Since release, the community of players who are more casual have complained about the difficulty of the game, leading to Team Cherry nerfing a couple bosses, specifically the Moorwing and Sister Splinter bosses that show up fairly early while playing. Although this has sparked conversation among players, some claiming that the nerfs were unwarranted and players telling one another to “get good” and that it’s a “skill issue.”
I am just over an hour into the game, and have to say that the mechanics are very smooth, they are extremely polished and the animations are beautiful, but the difficulty of the game is very apparent. Within ten minutes of playing, you are met with the first boss fight, of which took me only two tries to beat. But about an hour in, you’re met with the second boss fight, one that is much more difficult, and that took me around 7-8 tries to beat.
The nail jump mechanic (a mechanic from Hollow Knight and other platform games where you use the normal hit ability to bounce off of something that can hurt your character while it is underneath you) has a new refresh, specific to main character Hornet when down-slamming to go into a pogo, you can only go at a left or right diagonal based on where the character is currently facing—it is a lot more difficult to get used to than in Hollow Knight. This game also allows the character to climb up edges of platforms that, without the climbing mechanic, you would be unable to get on top of.
Overall, Hollow Knight: Silksong, is extremely well polished, and well designed. The lively atmosphere that the game brings to light is a very vibrant show of how much fun Team Cherry had while making it. This game also competes with triple A titles with an affordable price of only $20, in a gaming atmosphere that is starting to establish $80 games. Team Cherry’s game is no hollow design—I insist you check it out before the next one ambles its way into development.
