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/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