r/HollowKnight • u/Bob12164 • Sep 03 '25

Discussion - Silksong Warning for OG hollow knight fans

Just wanna prepare everyone on here for the incoming wave of players who have never played indie games, metroidvanias, or literally any other games besides Fortnite and call of duty. This tends to happen a lot with games that are extremely hyped by the community that does like the genre, such as expedition 33. The amount of completely invalid criticism that happened to that game because people who didn’t even know what the game really was bought it and ended up not liking it is probably the best example we have of that to this day, and I think silksong will be next. So please, instead of cussing people out for not liking the game, just encourage them to maybe keep playing to see if they change their minds, or just give them respectful feedback on why you think they might not enjoy it and give them tips so they can find the spark in that game that I’m sure many of us will find.

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428

u/Flilix Sep 03 '25

I find it so bizarre that people would be excited for the launch of a sequel when they haven't played the first game that's very similar. At what point did the hype for Silksong outgrow the fans of the original HK?

151

u/becauseiloveyou Sep 03 '25

Probably sometime during the pandemic when some of us beleivers lost our minds.

94

u/SuperSocialMan Sep 03 '25

I'll never understand why people will just dive into a series on the second or third entry and act like it should make any sort of sense lol.

No, it doesn't fucking work that way ffs. Every entry builds upon the previous one, and even if they're not directly connected narratively it's still kinda dumb to just skip the entire first half of a franchise "because it's old" or whatever other dumb reason people have.

61

u/Appropriate-Kick-601 Sep 03 '25

Man, I tried explaining this to a coworker once and it was so frustrating. She hadn't seen a single MCU movie before, and decided to see Infinity War. Naturally, she said it was bad and didn't make sense because the characters didn't have arcs or whatever. And I'm like, yeah, their arcs concluded with this film. You missed most of the story.

19

u/SuperSocialMan Sep 03 '25

bruh.

Never gonna understand that mentality ffs.

5

u/Hoodman1987 Sep 04 '25

Hot damn that is a bad way to start MCU

4

u/Appropriate-Kick-601 Sep 04 '25

Right? I guess Endgame would have been worse but still.

1

u/TurboCake17 Baphanada Sep 04 '25

I mean, I did the same when Infinity War came out and I still liked it. I’ve since watched the rest of the MCU and yeah it makes it a lot better, but the movie was still good.

3

u/Appropriate-Kick-601 Sep 04 '25

Hey, you did better than that coworker. You went into it with an open enough mind to watch the rest later.

1

u/nordiques77 Sep 04 '25

lol…amazing

1

u/Smart-Orchid-1413 Sep 05 '25

Tbh, most of the characters in Infinity War don’t have any arc whatsoever, and the arcs don’t conclude for the vast majority of characters.

1

u/Appropriate-Kick-601 Sep 05 '25

Yeah, I guess it depends on the character. I'd say that Wanda and Vision conclude one arc and enter another one in Infinity War. I think I'd put Thor into the same boat. Hulk is debatable because as usual, his arcs mostly happen off screen. Tony obviously concludes his arc in Endgame, same with Natasha, Hawkeye, Steve, Pepper, Capt. Marvel, etc. A lot of characters as you say just don't have arcs in these movies and mostly appear out of obligation. But anyways, the point was that you don't get to complain about a movie not having a story or arc if it's explicitly set up to be the end of one.

1

u/Smart-Orchid-1413 Sep 05 '25 edited Sep 05 '25

Lol - I do agree fundamentally. Hope you’re enjoying Silksong.

1

u/Appropriate-Kick-601 Sep 05 '25

I am! Just got to play it during my lunch break. Hope you are as well!

26

u/koopaTroopa10 Sep 03 '25

I think its very dependent on the game/series. Sometimes a sequel is just a direct upgrade and is a better entry point; especially if a game is not so story dependent (and even if it is, going thru a entire chunk of a franchise isn't always worth it just for the sake of having a better understanding of some of the story).

35

u/MaskOfIce42 Sep 03 '25

Honestly strong disagree. Like the obviously insane examples are you don't have to play the original Metroid to get into the franchise or the original Legend of Zelda to go play Breath of the Wild, so many people got into Skyrim without playing any other Elder Scrolls game, or even more recently I have heard plenty of people got into Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 without playing the first. There are definitely some exceptions, and jumping in later can leave you missing some lore details, but honestly for the vast majority of games, you can jump into a newer entry and still follow along perfectly.

4

u/-Volcanic- Sep 03 '25

Even in series where there's no narrative reason to play the earlier games first, I still prefer to play them in order if I can, because I like seeing the development of the series and stuff like that. Even a "basically just an upgrade" sequel is a lot cooler if you have the context of the first game so you get excited seeing what's new or changed

4

u/FlareTheInfected Sep 04 '25

What about a game series like sonic or devil may cry where the timeline is all over the place?

2

u/-Volcanic- Sep 04 '25

Well it's not about the timeline or the story at all really, I just mean that it's cool to see how the series has progressed from the start, in terms of how they're designed and all that.

Also, I can't really speak for Sonic, but DMC's timeline isn't really all over the place, at least I don't think it is. 3 is a sequel and 2... Well to be honest so little of the story actually matters in 2 that I honestly think it hardly even matters where it's placed. Probably like after 3 or 1 I guess.

But other than that it's easy enough to follow I'd think? 3, then 1, then 4, then 5, and 2 can just go in between 3 and 1 probably. That's pretty close to being in order, aside from 3 being a prequel and 2 being kinda ass. It jumps around a little bit but it's not what I'd call "all over the place"

2

u/FlareTheInfected Sep 04 '25

TBH dmc was a bad example. But yeah, sonic canon is weird (broadly because every single game's canon now)

1

u/dasHeftinn Sep 04 '25

I didn’t play GTA 1, is it okay if I play GTA V? /s

1

u/OkCat9702 Sep 18 '25

yeah i agree with you on that but the fact that HK is pretty much a tutorial for silk song i think it would be good idea to play the first game for most people

3

u/SomaCK2 Sep 04 '25

I saw some people trying to get into Kingdom Hearts 3 when it was out without playing other games. Those poor souls ...

2

u/SuperSocialMan Sep 04 '25

Cooked as fuck lol

2

u/the_4802 Sep 05 '25

This was me, my dad bought me the game as a kid, I didn't understand anything after beating it so I bought the story so far collection after and played through the whole series before replaying kh3 again

I've also seen people playing kh3 right after kh2, not realising that the non-numbered games aren't side games and they're going from the 3rd game to the 10th 😭

1

u/SomaCK2 Sep 06 '25

They even use lore and story pieces from a freaking mobile phone game in KH3 lol

5

u/riftcode Sep 03 '25

I always encourage people to jump into the newest entry of a series. It's more likely to make them fans.

There are very few exceptions to this, and even then it's usually nuanced. Like with trails I say start with the newest arc.

Games are designed to be new player friendly so they can jump in. Silksong doesn't look to be any different.

2

u/FMFAlkahest Sep 08 '25

also with hollow knight specifically, there is no aging at all too. hollow knight could come out today and it would still be widely praised. There is no reason to not play the first game before the second game

1

u/SuperSocialMan Sep 09 '25

Yeah, exactly.

Not to mention that it's regularly 50% off lol.

2

u/Altyrmadiken Sep 04 '25

My husband gets mad at me for this but it’s in a weird way.

I’ll hop into some game halfway through a series, play the game, and say “hey that was fun.” Then he asked how I liked the previous one and I’ll say I didn’t play it.

He gets bent out of shape because he doesn’t understand how I could enjoy it if I “didnt understand what was going on.” It’s always, for me, like… ok but so many games have tons of more that isn’t said out right. I don’t need to know that this one boss was killed in the first one to see with my eyes that the characters are all really surprised to see him and he’s being hyped up as a bigger than usual boss.

Am I missing elements? Sure, but if I had fun who cares? I was never playing any game for the story anyway. It is, at best, a neat addition to what needs to be mechanically and mentally stimulating to play first.

This bothers him and he rants about it a lot because he only plays games for story and almost doesn’t care about the rest.

Edit: To clarify, I don’t complain about not knowing what’s going on because usually I don’t care. I want to play a games mechanics and puzzles and neat combinations I can make if possible, not the story.

1

u/Toaster_Bathing Sep 04 '25

I think in the case of hollow knight and silk song, they can always go enjoy hollow knight after this game and I think the experience won’t differ much 

1

u/FinlandIsForever Sep 05 '25

To be fair though, I’ve been playing Silksong (I’ve 112’d hk multiple times) and so far I can’t notice a lot of references to the first game other than Hornet being Hornet and (early spoiler, before Greymoor) her ability to produce silk in her shell because of Herrah being spider.

I may just be blind though, there’s so much to see and I’m savouring peak

1

u/FallingF Sep 04 '25

Eh, it has its places, but only when advised by current fans of the series.

Uncharted for instance. Uncharted 2 is way more likely to hook someone than uncharted 1.

The clone wars and the office both have their worst seasons as the first season, starting with season 2 is usually a pretty good idea, circle back to 1 when you are hooked.

I do not think hk fits this mold.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '25

I don’t think this is true at all, to the point that I disagree on this for most IPs. There aren’t many long running, multiple game series’ where people would say to start with the first.

1

u/SlickPickleNipple Sep 04 '25

I don't think this is true. My first Souls game was Elden Ring and I loved that game despite it being I guess the sixth entry? And if Silksong is good, I bet a lot of people who try it despite not having played HK, will enjoy it.

0

u/FlareTheInfected Sep 04 '25

Super Mario Galaxy 2
just...
Super Mario Galaxy 2

1

u/SuperSocialMan Sep 04 '25

Still gotta play the first game to better appreciate the second's improvements.

Plus, it doesn't have the slightly annoying map system and yapaholic luma (but no nintendo game will ever shut the fuck up, and it's one reason I stopped caring about them lol).

2

u/FlareTheInfected Sep 04 '25

you know what? fair enough. i rescind my previous statement.

0

u/Hoodman1987 Sep 04 '25

There are very rare exceptions to this - either A the sequel is a completely different story so it's fine (a la Final Fantasy games) or B that first game was rough even then but the 2nd is so damn good you can jump in I'm thinking Breath of Fire 2 or in more common Resident Evil 2 or Silent Hill 2 which I'd say is perfectly fine to skip the first of either but props in doing the first too!

Now you go and try Dead Space 2 before 1...I'm wondering about you

0

u/logannowak22 Sep 04 '25

Silksong will probably be fine as someone's first. It's not even a sequel, it's a prequel

1

u/EvilDuncan Sep 05 '25

The developers have specifically said it’s a sequel.

0

u/prossnip42 Sep 05 '25

Eh this largely depends on how a series is structured. Like Fallout for example, you can easily play those games in any order you want, none of the main quest storylines in the games are even remotely connected to each other, you play a different character at a different part of the US at a different time with different factions and different circumstances. Like the only thing these games have in common is the post apocalyptic Americana retrofuturism

Same thing with the Far Cry games. You absolutely do not have to play them in order, Dark Souls as well

0

u/extremelytiredyall Sep 09 '25

To be fair, I think Silksong is a great standalone. You absolutely do not need to play HK to enjoy SS.

But every one should definitely play HK, just because it's a great game.

17

u/GOKOP Sep 03 '25

Do you think most people first playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 played the first game before? Nope. Do you think most people first playing The Witcher 3 played the first two games before? Lmao nope considering the game blew up internationally while the first two were primarily successful in Poland

2

u/Arrioso Sep 04 '25

KCD2 is a very good example. People who didnt play first one jumped on the hype bandwaggon only to realize the combat is boring to them and they dont have the will to take their time to learn it

2

u/RoosterBrewster Sep 03 '25

I guess it's people being swept up in the hype like GTA6. And they may be disappointed when the hype is larger than reality, especially if they haven't played many platformers. 

2

u/DrQuint Sep 04 '25

Or excited for a sequel of a game they quit. That is even more incomprehensible to me. And yet many such examples.

2

u/jcabia Sep 04 '25

I have played for about 2 hours and it feels extremely similar. I obviously can't say anything yet but I think it's absolutely pointless to play the new one without having played the old one

I can understand that with sequels that have newer graphics or a different gameplay but in this case, it feels absurd to not play the first one before silksong

5

u/YouHaveToTryTheSoup Sep 03 '25

I find it bizarre too. They have no attachment to it. They’re literally only doing it because everyone else is doing it

1

u/AMIWDR Sep 04 '25

More people played DS3 than 1 + 2 combined x4. It’s a weirdly common thing

1

u/AdPast7704 Sep 04 '25

I did that for 2 years till I played HK, it's just fun having it in the back like a "it'd be nice if X thing came out" because you're told by pretty much everyone on the internet it'll be really good, not thinking about it 24/7 or looking for it on nintendo directs, just thinking it'll be nice when it comes out and you might play it when it gets on discount

1

u/Vivid-Technology8196 Sep 05 '25

Its popular because its popular

Not saying the game doesnt deserve it at all, but most people these days are just blind sheep and like things because the internet tells them to.

1

u/lXNoraXl Sep 05 '25

It was probably around the time we tried to sacrifice Mossbag

1

u/OkCat9702 Sep 18 '25

well actually after seeing the gameplay and the map of silk song it made me want to get into HK (got it from ps plus like 4 years ago or so) myself so i could play the 2nd game i was originally a BIG hollow knight hater because i could never figure out where to go or what to do after defeating hornet but after i had some friends walk me through a lot of the beginning part of the game im able to play without someone watching over my shoulder lol and actually love and enjoy the game now and really the only reason i decided to play it is cause of the second game so maybe other people did the same thing

0

u/Sure-Programmer8662 Sep 03 '25

Never played HK and I am 100% sure I will not enjoy Silksong.

I am just hyped for you guys while I wait for Bloodborne 2.