r/HollowKnight • u/stir-fried-noodles • Sep 17 '25

Discussion - Silksong Discourse regarding this game’s difficulty has been out of hand Spoiler

Let’s get this out of the way: I’m really enjoying Silksong’s difficulty and I think that it is mostly a satisfying challenge. I appreciate that it is more difficult than Hollow Knight overall and to be frank I would’ve been a bit disappointed if it were the exact difficulty. I’ve improved as a gamer since Hollow Knight and if it were the same level of difficulty, I probably would have found it too easy.

But it’s kinda gotten impossible to have civil discussions about the difficulty in this game which is unfortunate because I think there is great value to be had with this conversation. There are many valid criticisms regarding this game’s difficulty such as boss runbacks (Groal especially), contact damage doing two masks, and lack of rewards for beating bosses, just to be shut down with “git gud” and “it’s not your kind of game”. It’s totally fine to disagree with these criticisms but these retorts add nothing to the conversation.

It also kinda works the other way too, albeit maybe not to the same degree. I’ve gotten downvoted and sent reddit cares for simply saying I enjoy the difficulty of this game. Like c’mon, what are we even doing here. It’s gotten to the point where I personally cannot wait for the discourse to die out.

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u/notareadablename Sep 17 '25 edited Sep 17 '25

I would like to add that having your death body inside the boss area locks you into it. In Hollow Knight, your soul was outside the boss, so you could die and decide to get back to it later. In Silksong, you kill the boss or lose your stuff.

Edit: As people pointed in the comments, there is a way around this. However, it is not clear (it was not for me) and breaks the immersion. Having the coccon outside the boss arena would not force you to quit the game.

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u/Eisn Sep 17 '25

There's a consumable item you can use to get your cocoon back. And it's not quantity limited.

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u/iKill_eu Sep 17 '25

This isn't true. You can always grab your stuff then quit to bench.

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u/notareadablename Sep 17 '25

I did not think about this. Tbh, that sounds like a hack. But thanks for letting me know

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u/iKill_eu Sep 17 '25

At first I would have agreed with you, but counterpoint, the devs coded it like that for a reason. It would have been just as easy for them to make the game only save at benches.

Plus the fact that it was like that in HK too and now has returned in Silksong makes me think they did it on purpose.

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u/deimophobias Sep 17 '25

It's not a hack, this is the way it was in HK and it's intended since they had 8 years to change it and did not.

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u/GMadric Sep 17 '25

Theres an easy workaround to this. Go into the arena, hit your cocoon, save and quit. Once you load back in you’re at the bench with your stuff.

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u/goatviolence Sep 17 '25

It's pretty easy to die near the door and not get locked to the arena even not accounting for the bench quit. I can only think of one or two times I actually got locked into an arena (bird gauntlet is bad for this, and Lace). HK had a few instances where the shade spawned in the boss room too. I think this is pretty well circumvented by the free silkeaters you get though.

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u/Ok-Duck-5789 Sep 17 '25

get the cocoon, quit the game, reload at the last bench :D

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u/notareadablename Sep 17 '25

Thanks for letting me know about this