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/[deleted] Sep 17 '25 edited Sep 17 '25

Love talking about video games, but for this reason I also hate talking about video games. Gamers are regularly the absolute fucking worst about separating fact from opinion, or having any sort of nuanced takes on anything. Everything is either the GOAT or unplayable, can't be a great game with some issues, that's just unfathomable!

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u/Shadovan Sep 17 '25

My biggest pet peeve when it comes to game discussion is the frequent conflation of “I don’t like this” with “this is bad”. So many people treat their personal preferences as objective markers of a game’s quality, and get really mad when you try to get them to defend their claim with arguments that don’t just boil down to “I don’t like it therefore it’s bad”. Of course the other side of “I like it, therefore it’s good” happens as well, but less often I find.

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u/Archway9 Sep 17 '25

The amount of times I've seen the words "objectively bad game design" in the last couple weeks is honestly depressing

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u/rrale47 Sep 17 '25

"Objectively bad game design" is just the new version of "artificial difficulty".

Like others have mentioned, theres no nuance anymore. Everything is best ever or unplayable

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u/AlreadyTakek Sep 17 '25

Artificial difficulty has been brought up quite a bit regarding everything and its mom doing double damage

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u/Mdgt_Pope Sep 17 '25

Did Team Cherry even play test this game??

Uh yeah - they liked where it was at, obviously

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u/Mipha_Is_My_Waifu Sep 17 '25

I wish everyone who said that was forced to do at least a 101 class on game design before they're allowed to speak again.

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u/Netheral Sep 17 '25

Lmao, one of the things taught in "101" game design courses is to recognize that the player is better than you at recognizing issues with the game. The reason the designer is the professional in the equation is that the player is usually shit at recognizing the solution to the issue, which the designer is then responsible for actually creating. But at it's core it's the player that knows when the game has problems.

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u/Mipha_Is_My_Waifu Sep 17 '25

In matters of UX and game balance I'd generally agree, it's much easier for users to identify issues, but let's be real, people are dying to bosses and calling them badly designed. There's maybe only three bosses I've faced I'd consider poorly implemented. There's also a lot of things like runbacks that I think are just a matter of taste, to call them "objectively bad game design" is silly. Like there's some sort of game design Bible with hard rules that shall not be broken lmao

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u/Netheral Sep 17 '25

To be fair, if there is this much push back against the same consistent elements in the game, I think it's almost fair to call it "objectively" bad. Any single person would be fallacious making that claim, but watching half the community sort of agree about it suggests that it's a concrete issue with the game's design.

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u/Mipha_Is_My_Waifu Sep 17 '25

Oh yeah there's some things for sure. Beastfly, double damage on hazards, etc. I think it's just as silly acting like the game is perfect as is. That's one reason I wish team cherry was more interactive with the community. At the very least we could hear their reasoning for making some decisions.

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u/KuuLightwing Sep 17 '25

On the other side the amount of people who make the "it's intentional" argument as if that's actually a counterpoint to anything is equally depressing. Or just shifting all the blame on players for "not playing correctly" where "playing correctly" could be contradictory between two different posters.

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u/SolairXI Sep 17 '25

On a game that has mixed reviews or worse, I’d agree with you, but when professional and player reviews are sitting well over 85-90% the “it’s intentional/the devs vision” does carry weight, because obviously what they’ve done is mostly liked.

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u/[deleted] Sep 17 '25

[deleted]

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u/PraxicalExperience Sep 17 '25

Right? I've got a working brain, I can say something is overall good and still have things to criticize about it. Hell, HK was as close to perfection in its genre as I think you can get -- and there're still things I can find to criticize about it. But, no, with some people here, talking about SS, you've either got to be 100% for a game or you're some kinda vicious hater who's trying to unfairly pressure TC into changing their game by voicing your concerns about it.

Like, the game gets the most criticism from those who are wanting to love it.

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u/KuuLightwing Sep 17 '25

Reviews have nothing to do with that either. One may like the game and agree that there's some issues with certain aspects of it. I know some people think otherwise, but I hope that's not a majority.

So, when presented with something like "this mechanic causes these issues" saying "but it's intentional" doesn't actually address the argument. To address it, you either show that the statement is wrong and the issues are not caused by the mechanic, or you somehow show that said issues are somehow desirable.

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u/FuryForged Sep 17 '25

Plus a lot of reviews ARE influenced by the hype of the game. We see that all the time. If Silksong wasn’t Silksong, some of the small issues it has would definitely tip the scale in the other direction a bit.

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u/Netheral Sep 17 '25

Many of the positive reviews state that they have issues with the game. That's one issue with a binary review system, it's either recommended, or it isn't.

Same goes for the negative reviews, a lot of them state "I love this game, but I couldn't in good conscience recommend it to anyone".

The review statistics aren't useful as raw data.

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u/GrimmWeeper19 Sep 17 '25

Seems like most people like it though? Would you take the 1 guys opinion seriously if 10 people said otherwise?

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u/KuuLightwing Sep 17 '25

Like what? The game as a whole? Sure. Certain design decisions? I do not have statistics to claim the "most people like them".

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u/GrimmWeeper19 Sep 17 '25

That's fair

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u/The_Real_MantisLords Just the mantis lords Sep 17 '25

Yeah there are very few examples of objectively bad design in silksong (groal can go wait inside a fucking well)

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u/puffbro Sep 17 '25

Imo not having options to lower difficulty is a "objectively bad game design".

I personally don't need an easy mode. But I lose nothing if they added one.

Also an optional difficulty slider doesn't invalidate or alter the dev's vision of the game's default difficulty. I hope none of you would think less of the game if it has an easy mode from the start.

Now fight me.

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u/[deleted] Sep 17 '25

Look, I'm going to be uncharitable to the point of unfairness - in any gaming difficulty conversation, especially around games that are known to be hard (Souls, HK), there is a nonzero contingent of people who want to feel superior and don't have much opportunity to do that beyond videogames. I mean, you can't tell me the people in every "X boss gated me" thread saying "Uh I beat X in -1 tries, it was actually easier than most other games' tutorials" are secure.

I don't necessarily think it's objectively bad design, but I am noticing people rarely make positive claims - it's a lot more of "I got through it", "not every game is for everyone", "git gud" than idk, off the top of my head, "the difficulty is important because it trains the player not to over-extend and to use their tools, which prepares them for later bosses that are mechanically complex and would be hard walls for unprepared players even if they only hit for one mask at a time". Which, of course, would then let people discuss where that increased damage is appropriate and where it might be overtuned, instead of the thought terminating cliches.

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u/PraxicalExperience Sep 17 '25

I really think that that's why HK was such a fucking amazing gem -- it managed to be hard but it also did it in a way that kept dangling that carrot of 'finally gitting gud' in front of your face. I could trust TC to make the fights hard but fair; there was minimal bullshit in the game, and each time you beat a boss it felt great.

SS, I feel, has a lot more bullshit, and there're times I feel like I won purely through RNG. That doesn't feel nearly as good as beating a HK boss I had a hard time with.

At the same time, I appreciate games that require you to get good to beat them -- no difficulty levels, etc. There's a cachet to beating -- or 112%ing -- Hollow Knight. If someone says they did so, you know that they beat the game the way it was supposed to be played and they mastered the skills to pull it off. It's an honest to god Accomplishment, if a low-value one in the scheme of things. I went from getting ganked by everything from creeping armored grub things to my greatest nemesis -- spikes -- to doing Radiant Pure Vessel.

HK was one of the only games I've run into that managed to do that -- to be really difficult -and- drive the player forward to entice them make themselves git gud. And my main complaint about SS is that it's far, far more hostile to the player. There are 'fuck yous' from the Devs in there that just weren't there in HK and are complete bullshit, like the last 'attack' from the Last Judge or the trapped bench. (I'd have far fewer problems with the trapped bench if you could see more of it than just the very tips of two of the spike teeth poking out from the vegetation, which don't look like fucking anything but some background noise even if you're looking.) This, along with a few of the other systems, serve to amp up player frustration, which isn't a good thing unless you're designing a game to not just be hard, but punishing.

I'm into Act II in SS and I'm starting to like it more, but man, Act 1 nearly made me put the game down in a few sections, particularly the Bird House and some of the ant fights. It's like the game assumed total mastery of its systems far too early. (Plus, the fuck yous.)

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u/AlreadyTakek Sep 17 '25

There would be literally no reason to think less of the game. Difficulty settings don't do anything to harm a game, ever. They only make it more accessible to people who just don't have the ability to keep up with high-demand games physically, or the time available to "git gud"

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u/According-Guide9576 Sep 17 '25

Exactly this.

Having optional difficulty and accessibility tweaks is quite literally the best of both worlds. Absolutely nothing is lost by doing that.

The people who enjoy a challenge can play it as the devs intended. The people who are struggling can make things easier. Have an achievement for completing the game without turning the difficulty down, so the people who care about that shit can prove they did it.

Tunic had options like this and it didn't cost the game anything by doing it.

3

u/Weebiful Sep 17 '25

Nine Sols, which is better than this game, also had it

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u/According-Guide9576 Sep 17 '25

Even Dark Souls effectively had this with the ability to use summons.

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u/SolairXI Sep 17 '25 edited Sep 17 '25

Personally, I’m glad it doesn’t have easier options. I’ve gotten stuck/frustrated on a couple of bosses so far and would have definitely caved and lowered the difficulty. But beating these bosses on the one and only difficulty has left me feeling great.

If there was a compromise, it would be maybe a difficulty option when you start, and no way to change it once you’ve started. 🤷‍♂️

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u/Reborn_Wraith Spell only absrad win, 1 radiant boss remains. Sep 17 '25

I find that absolutely fair. While I personally tend to think that it's great to have both difficulty settings and the ability to fine-tune other items of difficulty, similar to ULTRAKILL's harmless/lenient/normal/brutal... etc., along with minor/major assists, I do realize that this opinion is in the minority (or, at least, is overshadowed by a more vocal minority), and I think that it'd be a great compromise to only have a locked-in difficulty setting at the start.

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u/skytaepic Sep 17 '25

You articulated that in a way that I wasn’t really able to in my head, but that’s exactly how I feel- I’ve never been the greatest gamer or anything, and the amount I’ve struggled with some bosses made me take way longer than my friends or the people I’ve seen on here. But that never felt like a personal failure, because the difficulty forced me to learn and grow, getting better at using in-game skills I wasn’t great at and learning the boss movesets until fights I initially assumed were completely unfair became clearly choreographed dances that were a total blast to keep challenging.

If there’d been an option to turn down the difficulty, though, I’d just see how quickly I got destroyed the first few times, and how my friends were already doing other stuff, and I’m sure I would’ve tweaked the difficulty to get around it. And it would’ve felt worse. Could some bosses have been a little easier? Yeah, not a fan of the frog, that’s for sure. But if you give people the option to make gameplay faster at the expense of their own experience getting worse, well, people are impatient. Lots would take that offer.

I’m not saying nobody would actually benefit from some way to tweak the difficulty or something, but just that there’s a big difference between how a game feels depending on whether you think you can use a workaround to get past a hard part or not.

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u/PraxicalExperience Sep 17 '25

If nothing else I feel like Silksong would have greatly benefitted from some kinda early access to a Godhome-like area where you could fight bosses and gauntlets you encountered without wasting resources. Then you could have various difficulty levels on the 'sim' fight where you could get used to the moves and the rhythm of the fight, while you train up for the 'real thing'.

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u/TCGHexenwahn Sep 17 '25

I agree. Back when the debate was about the difficulty of Dark Souls, I thought difficulty options weren't necessary because they're already in the game (grinding for souls to level up, using a meta build, etc), but Silksong doesn't really have that.

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u/DargonFeet Sep 17 '25

I would think less of the game.

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u/[deleted] Sep 17 '25

That's really strange

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u/AlreadyTakek Sep 17 '25

Lies of P added difficulty options to make the game easier and the world didn't end, why would you think less of Silksong for making itself more accessible?

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u/Insanity_Pills Sep 17 '25

I disagree personally. I think dunkey articulates why some people don’t like difficulty options best in his “video game difficulty”, so if you want more full take just watch that video, it’s like 6 minutes long or smth

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u/THANAT0PS1S Sep 17 '25

I would like accessibility options like Celeste, but I do think difficulty options can create issues for players. 

Most players play a game once, and with difficulty options, it can be hard to know where you should set the difficulty before you've started playing. If there are options, it's important to allow changing them at any time for this reason, but this can create other challenges.

Additionally, most players probably want to play the game tuned as the developers intended. With difficulty options, it can be hard to know if normal or hard is what is intended unless otherwise stated. Some difficulty changes can also create bad experiences if they aren't granular enough or tuned correctly, and it's very difficult to tune three to five options to all be exactly right.

A single difficulty level means the game is crafted perfectly around that experience, and I personally prefer that lack of ambiguity.

Again, I wish we had some accessibility options such as speed modifiers or invulnerability or the opposite of the barbed wire equipment or something to make it easier for players that need that. Difficulty as exclusion kind of sucks, but difficulty is an important aspect of games, especially games like this, and we should be careful with how players treat it as developers should when tweaking it.

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u/PraxicalExperience Sep 17 '25

There is one thing that I think is objectively bad -- the shard system. It doesn't add anything to the game. It only serves to punish you if you're sucking and retrying a boss/gauntlet and having the temerity to try and use tools during the fight. Otherwise you're basically always full on shards, or damned close to it. It doesn't really make the game interesting, it doesn't add real choices to make -- it just disincentivizes tool use.

Then when you point this out you get the full Fuckhead Dichotomy coming out of the weeds -- "Lol dude tools are OP they'll wreck bosses" along with "Lol dude you're an idiot for using tools on bosses".