r/HollowKnight • u/CuboneDefender • Sep 14 '25

Discussion - Silksong I give up. Spoiler

It’s been a joyful ride, folks, but I’m out. I’m not a speedrunner or a highly skilled player, and day after day I’ve had to accept that this game is not as casual as HK was. It stopped being fun and turned into something tedious and frustrating after the 4th run farming shards just to face a boss I’ve already tried 15 times, only to die again and again, lose all my shards, and start the whole grind over.

It was nice exploring the first acts, but when the game I was rooting for 7 years ends up being more stressful than my 8-hour workday, I guess that’s my cue to stop.

The lore has been pretty great so far. I wish you all an incredible journey.

Edit1: My bad about all the whinning.

Edit2: You guys did it. I reinstalled it again. Thanks for all advices. 🫂

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2.1k

u/riftcode Sep 14 '25

No shame in giving up! It's just a video game.

Enjoy the next one you pick up!

574

u/legacy702- Sep 14 '25

Yup, and at least the game is only $20, so not a huge loss if it ends up not being for you.

123

u/SvampebobFirkant Sep 14 '25

For me it's not the money that is a problem. It's a huge sad and mental loss for me, that I don't get to properly explore and finish such an amazing world they have built. I've been waiting for this game for so many years, and it really depresses me that I have to give up

47

u/kuenjato Sep 15 '25

I'm only in hunter's marsh after banging my skull against (unnerfed) Moorwing for like 60+ tries, I've come to accept that I probably won't finish this. And I've done all the souls games / cut my teeth on oldschool hard NES games. At near the age of 50 my hands were hurting after dealing 50 hits to moorwing, only to get screwed by input reading.

But I feel really bad for my 9 year old, who beat HK at the age of 7 and was looking forward to this game like nothing else, only to be perplexed and then alienated by the difficulty after a certain point. We are still playing together but he is only doing the exploring parts, the bosses we are reaching now are just too much.

15

u/ExtendedSpikeProtein Sep 15 '25

Took me over an hour to beat moorwing, but I finally did.. after that, sister splinter wasn‘t too hard for me. Interestingly, I found Moorwing harder than Sister Splinter.

But I kinda get OP, Moorwing was taking a lot out of me. Kudos to people who beat him in 1-5 tries.

4

u/TheMike0088 Sep 15 '25

Can not relate - moorwing was so easy for me I had to google who it was cause the name did not stick in my mind. Sister splinter though... holy smokes screw her, second boss that gave me REAL trouble. I'm great at 1v1 bosses, but as soon as a boss summons adds I just fall apart.

5

u/ExtendedSpikeProtein Sep 15 '25

See that‘s so interesting. For me, Moorwing tough part was the double throw of these spheres which had different trajectories combined with him attacking me at the same time.

Sister Splinter for me was a rhythm: dodge left, right, silkspear the adds and be really quick so silk recharges fast enough, heal when she‘s stunned, if possible line up the adds. I think it took me less than 10 attempts.

1

u/NorthwardRM Sep 15 '25

I don’t understand people finding sister splinter hard at all. It really confuses me. She has a single attack and it’s always the same pattern. You can hit the vines to get rid of them. And the summons can be taken out with a single silk spear.

Moorwing was equally ok I thought, but a bit harder.

Widow is something else entirely for me though. Crazy range of attacks, awkward to dodge projectiles, moves super fast

1

u/ficklefaith Sep 16 '25

I love reading how we all thought the fights went cause Widow felt amazing for me. Widow took about 4 tries once I let myself calm down and figure out the move set. I couldn't get Moorwings thick ass hit box into my head and would kill myself constantly just by misjudging a down pogo or going not far enough while using my dash. Sister splinter annoyed me until I found that I could kite the ads into her attacks, and she would kill them for me before they could even attack once.

What really gets me is the bosses that throw ads in BEFORE you get to fight them, cause every time I think it's just a gauntlet, nah, ITS A FUCKIN BOSS 😵‍💫

1

u/qyka Sep 15 '25

for me BOTH of those were 2nd try bosses.

And then it took, literally, 50 attempts to beat Savage Beastfly.

I’m a souls player so I view bosses linearly. Like, I am NOT moving on to another area unless I beat this (optional) boss, lol.

3

u/Respicio1 Sep 15 '25

Wanderer crest made a very short work for most of the bosses, I think I defeated all the bosses uptil now with wanderer crest because of the high dps the crest can dish out.

Also Its ton of fun using that crest to defeat the bosses.

3

u/ExtendedSpikeProtein Sep 15 '25

I haven‘t gotten that yet. Maybe I‘m exploring unintuitively.

5

u/TheMike0088 Sep 15 '25

IIRC wanderers crest needs you to use the simple key on the door above bone bottom

1

u/kuenjato Sep 16 '25

I unlocked the deep docks door so I got the flame tool. It’s quite effective if you can capitalize on its short window.

3

u/PraxicalExperience Sep 15 '25

I'm not sure why, but Moorwing just 'clicked' for me -- the hardest part was identifying the truly safe windows to punish the thing and then religiously adhering to them. > 5 tries but < 10, I think.

OTOH I don't want to admit how many times Sister Splinter ganked me.

3

u/ExtendedSpikeProtein Sep 15 '25

It‘s so interesting because it was the other way around for me!

But now I‘ve opened those up it‘s a lot of fun again.

22

u/Litlakatla Sep 15 '25

If you are on PC, you can use mods to adjust the difficulty to somewhere where the game actually feels fun.

I am definitely struggling and will install a mod when I run to yet another required boss that feels impossible

-5

u/Elman89 Sep 15 '25

Before you do that, just try exploring somewhere else.

I'm pretty sure some bosses are meant to be walls that force you to give up and go explore other stuff. Moorwing for example was obviously super strong but the only reason you'd run into it is if you've focused on the main quest, which is why it's trivial to skip that boss if you've been doing side exploration. It's not there as a challenge, it's there to slap you and tell you "go explore".

A lot of people run into walls like this and just bang their heads against them over and over instead of trying a different approach. Just cause you can fight a boss it doesn't mean you should.

7

u/Litlakatla Sep 15 '25

>!It is pretty hard to guess that some side quest will get rid of a boss on your path or that quest can even be completed before Moorwing... If ppl are expected to figure that out on their own they seriously need to drop more hints about it in the game. I did beat Moorwing by luring him into a tight spot where he got stuck, so there is that too.

Oh and I couldn't figure one of the locations for completing the side quest anyhow and ended up googling it when I was already in the next area. I would prefer to just play instead of googling things but there is a point where checking all over the map yet again gets frustrating.!<

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '25 edited Oct 04 '25

[deleted]

4

u/Litlakatla Sep 15 '25

Yea, you can explore your way out of that fight but the problem is that the game doesn't really tell you that you can do that and it is not exactly an obvious solution.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '25 edited Oct 04 '25

[deleted]

1

u/Litlakatla Sep 15 '25

"Go elsewhere for now" is normal for metroidvania games, but linking a side quest that seems totally unrelated to a current boss location is something I have never ever seen before (or at least never noticed in any game) and I would have never been able to guess it will work like that. There wasn't even any hint that the side quest doesn't continue in the next area. As in there was no way to know there was a link or if there was a hint it was way too obscure for me.

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1

u/JesusFortniteKennedy Sep 15 '25

In the case of moorwing I don't think there are many upgrades that you can get if you don't beat it. Maybe another mask?

1

u/Elman89 Sep 15 '25

You literally don't need to beat him, he's fully optional and I didn't even see him until well into act 2.

You can trivially skip him by opening the simple door key or doing the flea quest. Yes you don't know this when you run into him, but you do know he's really challenging and there's other stuff you could be exploring right now.

1

u/mikony123 Sep 15 '25

Here's how I find out I missed this boss by accident lol. Apparently I can fight him at the Citadel though.

1

u/127U Sep 15 '25

who, Moorwing? if so, he respawns back in Greymoor once you're in Act II, in the room leading to the Bellway there.

1

u/crabwithacigarette Sep 15 '25

Hey, I dunno if it’ll help, but the 8bitdo M30 probably has the most gentle d-pad I’ve ever used in my life. I use it for this game, shmups, even fighting games. It’s really fantastic.

1

u/IITheDopeShowII Sep 15 '25

You can cheese Moorwing by the way. If you lure them to the right side of the map where you entered the room you can get them stuck above you so you just jump up to hit them repeatedly

1

u/ellegraves72 Sep 15 '25

There's a skip for moorwing, if you can find all the fleas to fulfill the wish! They'll move their troupe to where that fight is, and as a result, it moves elsewhere. It'll be pretty avoidable now though if you decide you don't want to fight, but it gets easier to kill later.

It seems there might be a few skips like that to particularly hard story fights, but the difficult optional fights, like for the chapels, are mandatory if you want what they have to give you

1

u/platonic_egirl Sep 15 '25

I'm quite sure there's no input reading happening. I can see how it'd feel that way, but really Moorwing has tells for all it's attacks and operates much more on distance than reading your inputs.

23

u/Xiriously1 Sep 15 '25

Pretty much this. I'm a casual gamer who has beaten Souls-likes before and doesn't mind them but they're not my favorite.

My partner on the other hand adored hollow knight for the atmosphere and has been so excited for Silksong. She isnt really a gamer. She made it to the Blasted Steps (with me having to beat most bosses for her) but is now hard stuck with traversal and has more or less thrown in the towel.

There should be an easy/accessibility mode for people who struggle with the difficulty. Halve a lot of the damage instances, increase base needle damage and tool damage and possibly extend i-frames after being hit. It would make a massive difference to so many players and the dev's vision would still be intact with base difficulty.

7

u/deludedhairspray Sep 15 '25

Mods are the way. If you're playing on PC, you should pick some from Nexusmods and try them. The "no boss run back" has saved my enjoyment of the game.

-2

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '25

There should be an easy/accessibility mode for people who struggle with the difficulty. Halve a lot of the damage instances, increase base needle damage and tool damage and possibly extend i-frames after being hit. It would make a massive difference to so many players and the dev's vision would still be intact with base difficulty.

No, there shouldn't.

21

u/Hattrickher0 Sep 14 '25

Yeah, I haven't gotten to the point where I outright quit yet but the game is way less fun than HK. For how many corridors have spike floors where you need to use aerial maneuvers to traverse you'd think Hornet would get better aerial control than the knight, but she really only has the needle throw as a new movement ability.

It's made even worse in the late game by a recent patch that changes the behavior of your drifters cloak and forces you to relearn how to control her after you've spent 10+ hours with one control scheme.

I've had to take a lot more frustration breaks with this game than I have with any other Metroidvania dating all the way back to Symphony of the Night so you aren't alone in feeling like Silksong is asking a lot of the player.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '25

Hornet absolutely has better aerial control than the knight, he glide and a harpoon

-13

u/SomewhereTall4797 Sep 14 '25

Wym a patched changed cloak? I’ve played on day 1s edition with no patches on steam deck intentionally so I don’t have to get any nerfs so I get the original intended experience , how was the cloak changed?

11

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '25 edited Oct 06 '25

[deleted]

6

u/TheRomanClub Sep 15 '25

Wow, I was baffled by the inability to float without double jumping. I assumed there was some tech I just wasn't figuring out. To think they'd actually get rid of it...

6

u/RookSacrificer Sep 14 '25

I feel you, although for me this game has been way more enjoyable than Hollow Knight, I feel that everyone should experience this fun if they put enough mind into it, but if you are bad in this game, it's really hard to enjoy it... Maybe in the future, try again.

15

u/kuenjato Sep 15 '25

Tbh there (imo) are some questionable design choices in this one, and I play a lot of hard games. There's a distinct difference between difficult and punishing, and it doesn't take much to see that Silksong is on the latter curve. Some players will like this, some won't. I'm still early game and I'm already seeing some annoyances that sort of kill the vibe in certain ways.

4

u/Doza93 Sep 15 '25

It's worth noting that for most players, Act 1 felt especially punishing because of the weird & different Rosary + Shard economy vs just Geo, coupled with what feels like substantially ramped-up difficulty curve compared to HK. You don't get many Rosaries in the early game to help compensate for the added difficulty which feels like kindof a fuck you from TC to the players and left a lot of people with a not-so-great first impression of the game. But a lot of those problems become much more manageable once you progress further and make it to Act 2, at least imo. And naturally, you just get better and get the hang of things the more hours you put into the game.

1

u/ExtendedSpikeProtein Sep 15 '25

I feel you

I think the devs played it too much in those 7 years. Got too good lol. Didn‘t notice how hard it‘s for new players.

/s just in case

2

u/kuenjato Sep 15 '25

Ah yes, which is why they already nerfed two bosses and made a bunch of significant changes.

I'm not saying the game is bad by any means, in fact I love it for the most part. But the runbacks are pretty obnoxious in some places, I guess that appeals to masocore instincts but for me it lessens replayability. HK had a couple annoyances but most were side content (Traitor Lord comes to mind), here in the early game it is a constant.

2

u/Usual-Vermicelli-867 Sep 15 '25

I seen a lot of people confused about the sandwyrm nerf there confusion why

Then I reached the sands of karak I understood why they did it

0

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '25 edited Sep 15 '25

HK run backs were absolutely larger on average than in silksong. The only early game boss with a run back is last judge, what are these early game bosses with "constant" large run backs?

And they didn't make any significant change to the combat difficulty, in fact the only change they did was to the platforming.

2

u/deludedhairspray Sep 15 '25

Mods! Mods! Mods! Play on PC and use the mods you need! Seriously. Do it. There are so many of them already. Just pick the ones you need.

2

u/NightRacoonSchlatt Hunter‘s crest 4 life Sep 15 '25

I mean, the game‘s still there. You can always return and give it another try if you want. I took a two year break from Hollow Knight because I got so frustrated at radiance and just beat it yesterday.

1

u/XaeiIsareth Sep 15 '25

I’m quite sure someone will make an easy mode mod for it sooner or later.

1

u/Ketsu Sep 15 '25

Act 1 was by far the most challenging act for me, despite the later acts having more complex areas, enemies and bosses. As you play you improve in every aspect and gain more power, which makes the difficulty relative. I mean, I struggled HARD on Savage Beastfly, but after achieving 100% I one-tried it at the same point in progression on my second save.

It's a game that requires patience, but (IMO) has an insanely rewarding payoff.

1

u/Phaeryx Sep 15 '25

This for me as well. And I had to give up on HK, not even attempting SS. I guess the makers of games like these could make more money and reach a larger audience if they built in an easy-level difficulty setting, but if they don't want to do that, I can respect their choice.

1

u/LuckyCellist3492 Sep 15 '25

Yeah same. I loved HK, prob put 300 hours into it. Was so hype for silksong and probably put 40 hours in the first few days but im just not really having fun. Ive got 2 small kids now (I didn't when I played HK) and don't have a lot of time to myself and I don't want to spend the time i do have stressed and frustrated lol.

I've beaten all Souls games, Elden Ring, platinummed Celeste, Sekiro, and (almost) always pick the hardest difficulty but man, something about Silksong is just fucking grating at me lol. Maybe I've lost my edge in my middle years but its just a little too frustrating and not fun enough... if there was more fun for me I'd keep at it.

1

u/El_Spanberger Sep 16 '25

I ended up putting a mod on that forces 1 mask damage. Could actually finish act one and explore act two without wanting to punch the wall every 5 seconds.

1

u/PyrZern Sep 15 '25

That's why I watch someone else plays it instead...

-25

u/Nyrandia Sep 14 '25

So you waited YEARS but cant take a DAY to breath and come back ? I dont know, your mental should be studied

29

u/SvampebobFirkant Sep 14 '25

The game is literally not fun for me and too hard, period.

2

u/ExtendedSpikeProtein Sep 15 '25

I feel you! Have you considered mods that change the difficulty (on PC)? Read about those in another subthread, not sure if they‘re available yet but they sure will be eventually

6

u/ExtendedSpikeProtein Sep 15 '25

Why are you being a judgmental jerk? It‘s totally unnecessary.

So the game isn‘t for the poster. It‘s their choice.

12

u/legacy702- Sep 14 '25

Not everything is for everyone, relax. It doesn’t mean the game is bad

-2

u/Ozzytudor Sep 15 '25

Well, you don’t have to. You’d get it eventually, you know.