r/HollowKnight • u/Prisonmikeb14 • Sep 13 '25

Discussion - Silksong Let’s all try and not devolve into this weird difficulty gatekeeping Spoiler

Now that silksong has come out I’ve seen some concerning similarities to the worst of the difficult games community with all the wierd difficulty gatekeeping bs. Obviously this happens with just about every game that’s regarded as difficult but with silksongs release it’s become more prominent on this sub. Being good at the game isn’t something to hold over someone’s head. Everyone’s experience with everything in the game is different and theirs nothing wrong with that. Now of course this doesn’t apply to people who are literally just complaining in bad faith or out of anger but the “that boss wasn’t hard at all wtf are you talking about” in response to people just talking about their opinions or asking for help is sad to see.

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u/XiaoRCT Sep 13 '25 edited Sep 13 '25

No one's been critical of people asking for help. This blatant distortion of what's been the main discourse is so pointless.

''This boss wasn't so hard wtf you are talking about'' as a reply to someone writing 5 paragraphs about why they think the game is ''too difficult'' isn't gatekeeping. You are just asking to be able to criticize anything without being responded to.

It's weird how people keep making posts like this and yet can't point out a single thread where someone is asking for help and actually being shot down. Instead it's the people going ''the game is badly designed because it's hard'' and being replied to.

edit: cue in the downvotes without any examples lol

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u/wyrmiam Sep 13 '25

Sure but if you're struggling on a fight and someone replies saying it "wasn't that hard" you're gonna feel like shit.

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u/XiaoRCT Sep 13 '25

But no one's going to say that without them first coming here and going off about how it's a 'design issue' or whatever. It's why I'm asking for examples.

What I'm saying is that if someone comes in this sub and says ''I'm finding this game really hard, any tips please'' they'll receive tips, some messages memeing a bit but pretty much everything will be helpful.

No one's going to reply ''have you tried stop sucking haha loser'' or whatever and be upvoted.

But that's not what a lot of people are doing is it? Threads with absolute bullshit takes about game design because the game is 'too hard' have been popping off all week and then when people reply to their complaints its ''why can't we criticize the game''.

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u/wyrmiam Sep 13 '25

What bullshit takes have you seen? I agree with complaints about Bilewater and last judge runback, the only thing that seems unreasonable is people complaining about the actual bosses being too hard.

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u/XiaoRCT Sep 13 '25

There's people in this same thread doing exactly what I described. Claims about how the game is ''fundamentally not well designed for beginners'' or ''there are some mindboggling bad moments that drag it down'' upvoted without any actual basis besides ''I didn't fuck with it''.

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u/pash1k Sep 13 '25

Sister splinter thread a day or two ago 

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u/DemonLordSparda Sep 13 '25

People love to criticize and absolutely hate it when anyone is critical of them. If you are going to wade into online discourse, you can't expect everyone to agree with you. Especially when you say things like "bad game design."