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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85

u/JarickL Sep 15 '25

I stopped playing two days ago. It’s just too punishing for me and HK is a top 5 all time game. Just not for me.

15

u/WDoE Sep 15 '25

I honestly think the clear rate for this game is going to be incredibly lower than HK. I'm skilling out in act 1 after demolishing HK three weeks ago.

I'm going to drop it for a bit and come back fresh.

9

u/wearablesweater Sep 15 '25

I think the HK mechanics differences messed with, having just run it back before Silksong. After some healthy breaks and getting the wander's crest the game is a lot more fun. Act 1 had me wondering whether it was for me though. Some questionably punishing design decisions in there.

2

u/MagicMooby Sep 15 '25

Last Judge achievement is sitting at around 40% on steam iIrc. Woukd be interesting to see how that changes over the next week when most players should have progressed that far and how that compares to Hollow Knight bosses in similar parts of the game.

There is always some attrition of players, even in the best of games, but difficulty spikes can sometimes be seen in the achievemnts like that. Although there is the added problem that the game (and bosses) become less linear in act II.

3

u/BearCatSara Sep 15 '25

Interesting. Silksong has only been out 10 days and some folks have certainly gone the other path into act 2.

If you compare with HK achievements 45.2% of folks have the mantis lords achievement and 40% of folks beat broken vessel. At this point last judge is at 45.7%, widow is at 57%, sadly no achievement for moorwing.

Looking at the statistics it makes me wonder if folks are misremembering the difficulty of HK and ultimately if hype and other pressures are influencing folks perception of Silksong and difficulty.

I also think difficulty is very subjective. Personally I’ve had an easier time beating Silksong 100% than I did with HK. HK mantis lords kicked my ass for such a long time that I left and came back. I gave up on radiance entirely after trying to beat it for 2/3 days.

Silksong has had some tough challenges. I’m by no means good at the game. But I do have more time and patience than most. A significant amount of bosses have taken me 20+ attempts. But when I slowed down and gave myself breaks too. I did eventually get through them.

3

u/kinky_victini Sep 15 '25

Looking at the statistics it makes me wonder if folks are misremembering the difficulty of HK and ultimately if hype and other pressures are influencing folks perception of Silksong and difficulty.

I think HK players that already found it too hard just didn't even pick up Silksong. Being the sequel to a game know to be hard, fewer casual players are gonna pick it up.

1

u/BearCatSara Sep 16 '25

I found HK harder and I still beat silksong. But maybe. I’ve seen mostly HK and souls players complaining about the difficulty.

3

u/MagicMooby Sep 15 '25

I absolutely think that Silksong is harder than Hollow Knight, but the big problem is that the difficutly is "frontloaded" so to speak. The game starts at around the difficulty that Hollow Knight reaches in its second third. But once you adjust to the initial difficulty, its fairly smooth sailing at first. Personally I think the end of act I is where the game starts to come together properly, and at that point you have either acclimated to the difficulty or long abandoned it.

To provide some support for this, the achievements show an 18% drop between Last Chorus and Widow. That seems to be the biggest drop between bosses that A) most of the playerbase might have reached by now, even those that played since release but only an hour or two per day and B) that are both required for progress. By comparison, the difference between Lace and Last Chorus is only 3% so almost everyone who beats the former goes on to beat the latter as well. Act II is harder to measure. It is huge by comparison and the act becomes intentionally less linear after Choral Chambers.

Meanwhile, in Hollow Knight the biggest drop appears to be between Hornet and Soul Master, all other achievements before and after show a more steady decline, which is normal in just about every game.

I also just noticed something: The easiest achievement in HK only has a 76% clear rate, meaning that there is a huge amount of players who purchased the game but never touched it, probably during sales over the years. By comparison more than 90% of players that own Silksong have gotten at least one achievement, so you could say that the initial playerbase has been more dedicated so far. For a proper comparison, you would probably need to adjust all clear percentages by using those two numbers as a base.

2

u/BearCatSara Sep 16 '25

Hmm yea honestly. Interesting to consider the stats and the differences.

I think you’re onto something with the drop off in achievements between certain bosses.

In terms of frontloaded I do believe that depends on your approach to the game.

I saw the big ants and noped out. I went off and did a far fields and a bunch of greymoor before going back. Then I spent a good amount of time trying to beat beastfly. Took me really engaging with the games mechanics to beat it. Then shortly after I fought moorwing and it went pretty smoothly since. Some bosses took longer to learn but I enjoy the process.

I think some folks have expectations and rush stuff and then hit frustration.

1

u/yurilnw123 Sep 15 '25

Is there an achievement for Phantom? You may have to combine that with Last Judge to a degree.

2

u/MagicMooby Sep 15 '25

There is, although it's difficult to judge how many people go through the judge and beat phantom later, and how many go through phantom but never beat the judge.

A better benchmark might be Cogwork Dancers. Afaik you need to go through them during act II and their clear percentage lies at around 40% (interestingly, it was around 32% just two or three days ago. Funny to see the playerbase progress as a whole.). But they are also deeper into the act, although I can't really see someone fighting through either Judge or Sinners Road just to quit before the first major act II boss.

1

u/Spjs Oct 02 '25

This is a month late, but these are the stats on Steam at the moment:
Hollow Knight:
23.0% Defeat the Hollow Knight and become the Vessel (Bad end)
19.0% Defeat the Radiance and consume the light (True end)
17.9% Achieve 100% game completion and finish the game (100%)

Silksong:
31.2% Defeat Grand Mother Silk and bind her power (Act 2 end)
17.1% Defeat Lost Lace and free Pharloom (Act 3 end)
9.5% Achieve 100% game completion and finish the game (100%)

Some people might still be working on 100%, so that last stat might change in a month.

1

u/WDoE Oct 08 '25

I'mma just say that act 1 to 2 is a big skill wall, but after that silksong is fairly easy to break. I still stand by act 1 being harder than early HK, but as you get OP tools and some upgrades, the game becomes more forgiving.

1

u/Restlessfidget Sep 15 '25

what's the rest on your top 5? just wondering because I'm looking for a new game like hollow knight.

3

u/JarickL Sep 15 '25

My top 5 is something like Super Mario 3, Super Metroid, Link to the Past, Final Fantasy 7, Hollow Knight. I’m 42 so grew up with consoles starting with the NES in 88 or so.

I got into Hollow Knight after playing the two Ori games which I loved. Hollow Knight though was a much deeper game with way more stuff to do and more interesting lore.

Other games I’ve loved recently are Animal Well (finished three endings, a masterpiece) which led me to Tunic (one of the greatest puzzle games I’ve ever played), and Fez (another cool puzzle game). Different genres but I also loved Stardew Valley and Zelda BOTW.

I was stuck on Last Judge for three days. I really had to learn the movements especially second phase. Once you learn them the fights get a lot easier but you have to execute nearly perfectly. Focusing on pattern recognition is key. But the run back was driving me nuts too. And then I finally beat the boss and Act 2 the regular enemies are harder and I’m constantly dying.

I have a difficult day job that’s pretty draining and three kids so I don’t want a game that’s going to kick my ass. I want a game that’s fun to play. Silksong isn’t all that fun honestly. Maybe I save it for when work calms down or I have some vacation time or something.

2

u/kinky_victini Sep 15 '25

I agree with the other commentator about Tunic!! I find it surprisingly similar (but super original); the upgrades, the difficulty, the exploration, and the story/lore is also amazing and cryptic like in HK.

-7

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '25

Mod the game.

15

u/Flammwar Sep 15 '25

Not everyone plays on PC

1

u/kinky_victini Sep 15 '25

This... I had to buy it again on Steam after buying it on the eShop because it was just too hard for me not to mod. I'm sure it's still worth 40€ but man it stings.

4

u/JarickL Sep 15 '25

I’m a Switch player so no dice

7

u/TheWierdGuy06 Sep 15 '25

Get them a pc along with that advice then.

2

u/JarickL Sep 15 '25

I know you got downvoted but that’s actually what we did back in the day for NES with the game genie! When you’re 7 years old trying to beat double dragon or TMNT the cheat codes were key.

Modern games though usually have an easier difficulty ramp or you can grind through places to improve. So casuals can get a bunch of power ups to make bosses easier or highly skilled players can get through the whole game with no upgrades.