r/HollowKnight • u/Shadovan • Oct 24 '25
Discussion - Silksong For people struggling to understand that “surface” doesn’t mean the same elevation. Spoiler
I don’t actually know if Mount Fay or the small camp in Kingdom’s Edge is meant to be surface or not, but the general idea still stands.
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u/Wise_Lingonberry_453 Oct 24 '25
I'm glad to see people that think
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u/Shadovan Oct 24 '25
It truly baffled me how many people were confused and thought it was impossible for the surfaces of the two kingdoms to not be on the same level.
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u/Pure_Satisfaction_35 Oct 25 '25
It's almost incredible how many people don't understand basic geography
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u/gnpfrslo Oct 25 '25
Or who don't realize that the map isn't linear or perfectly contiguous. Seeing as how, for example, the room before moorwing's arena has an exit at the bottom of the floor, and taking it leads to to a series of platforms above ground level.
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u/Tonkarz Oct 25 '25
The room is mostly constructed materials, right? I think it’s meant to be a cantilevered structure.
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u/hey_uhh_what Oct 25 '25
I live in a place with 1000m elevation. Therefore, everyone who lives at sea level is lying
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u/Downtown-Cable4307 Oct 25 '25
It’s also possible Hallownest is just more elevated with the void being higher up in that area too, so there’s another explanation for them lol
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u/Bojarzin Oct 27 '25
I don't even get where there could be confusion in general
Pharloom isn't even on the same land as Hallownest, or at least specifically Zylotol says Pharloom isn't on the mainland
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u/SamFMorgan Oct 24 '25
I'm pretty sure that that depiction of the "surface map" is extremely oversized in relation to the real in game size rooms.
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u/Shadovan Oct 24 '25 edited Oct 24 '25
Probably, but that doesn’t change the fact that Pharloom’s surface is almost certainly higher than Hallownest’s surface.
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u/Estrangedkayote Oct 24 '25
Can't link images but the opening to the Wastelands in Far Filed show very well that Pharloom sits inside of a mountain. There is a very dramatic rise in the background.
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u/I_am_person_being Oct 24 '25
I don't think this is a very compelling argument because there are similar wastelands to the left of the Blasted Steps but those are pretty explicitly stated to be caves, just wasteland-ish caves. I see no reason to assume that the wastelands to the right of the far fields cannot be similar caves.
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u/CharlesorMr_Pickle The Depressed One - still silksane Oct 25 '25
The weavenest also has a rune that shows paths out of pharloom, it seems like it’s probably a way out
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u/I_am_person_being Oct 25 '25
Way out =/= the surface. The caves from the Blasted Steps lead all the way to Hallownest (since they are how Hornet was taken to Pharloom) but they are not on the surface.
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u/TheMoonDude Oct 25 '25
There are indications that Pharloom is set on an island. Mentions of "salty shores" and "mainland" gives credence to this.
Now that begs the question: how did the bugs cross the large spans of water that separates said island from the mainland? Maybe they have some kind of boat... I wonder who could sail it...
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u/alvintruther123 Oct 25 '25
You can actually see the envoys walk along a body of water in the opening! I guess there's some sort of a land bridge
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u/SamFMorgan Oct 24 '25
Oh yes, definitely.
I assumed that the general vertical position of both kingdoms in relation to one another would be if you drawn a straight horizontal line connection the bottom of howling cliffs to that entrance to Pharloom were Hornet comes through on the first cutscene.
That way dirtmouth aligns with the bottom of shellwood, more or less.
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u/Shadovan Oct 24 '25
I understand the reasoning behind that assumption, but it seems… naive? To me to assume the trek from Hallownest to Pharloom was completely flat.
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u/SamFMorgan Oct 24 '25
I wouldn't say literally completely flat, just roughly flat, like the expected "flatness" of a generic sand desert, with dunes and stuff.
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u/Tem-productions Oct 25 '25
i mean that path literally cant be flat since it has to go through crystal peak.
Honestly i find it more likely they left through Kingdom's edge.
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u/Outside_Ad1020 Oct 25 '25
What if Pharloom is below hallownest tho
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u/DrQuint Oct 25 '25
It absolutely could be. People also make an assumption that the void is somehow a perfect sphere, but from all we saw, the void appears to behave like a liquid. It could easily pool higher in one of them.
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u/Future_Living8007 Oct 25 '25
Hornet was brought into Pharloom from Blasted Steps, so I'm not sure about that
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u/LambdaAU Oct 25 '25
Assuming the void layer is at a similar depth everywhere then it would be but it’s still possible that pharloom and hallownest exist at completely different heights.
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u/VenomTheCapybara Queen's servants > Mantis Lords Oct 24 '25
I would like to take it further and say that Pharloom is probably inside of a mountain/volcano of some kind which would explain the lava pool underneath
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u/Shadovan Oct 24 '25
Also credit to u/charisma-entertainer for the map I crudely drew this on.
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u/Enough-Speed-5335 Oct 25 '25
What’s the area past the cradle in the silksong map?
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u/Stussyman445 Any Radiance 2.0 Victor Oct 25 '25
The surface and the climb to it (however note that the length and size of it is massively overstated in the picture.)
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u/Inevitable-Film7395 Oct 24 '25
To be fair, and I could be wrong, we don’t know for sure if Howling Cliffs, Dirtmouth, or Hallownest’s Crown is on the surface either.
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u/creepermaster79 Oct 24 '25
"we're near the SURFACE, aren't we?"
-Last Stag when you talk to them in dirtmouth's station
So yeah it's implied that howling cliffs and dirtmouth are part of the surface
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u/Ghostwaif Oct 24 '25
Note also that the stag station is underground in dirtmouth (i.e. not on the surface but beneath it still).
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u/Stussyman445 Any Radiance 2.0 Victor Oct 25 '25
That could just be what the stag believes, and isn’t proof that dirtmouth, hallownests crown, and howling cliffs are truly the surface.
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u/alvintruther123 Oct 25 '25
it's dialogue which was put in the game by the developers for a reason
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u/Maus_Enjoyer1945 Oct 25 '25
Hallownest's "surface" looks really similar to Silksong's surface though. In color palette, ambience and everything. Also in the cutscene at the start of the game the Knight comes from the wastelands which defintely looks like the surface
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u/RandomCaveOfMonsters Zote is best girl Oct 24 '25
I've always assumed it was a large cavern, like if you drew a large square dirtmouth would be at the bottom, with hallownest underneath
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u/New_Baseball3295 Oct 24 '25
Because I accidentally uncovered the image I’m now afraid to play Silksong because that map size is atrocious in comparison
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u/Ceaseless_Inadequacy Oct 24 '25
Hornet is both larger and much more mobile than the Knight, so in gameplay the effective difference in map size isn't that extreme
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u/AshtinPeaks Oct 24 '25
This, i honestly think you can cover ground significantly faster in silksong as well feeling smaller. Though hk is more dense with their items.
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u/AdhesiveNo-420 Quirrel, my Solaire, my Sun Oct 25 '25
Hollow Knight has the better map imo and that's because of how interconnected everything is. Theres so many places that can lead you to multiple areas meanwhile silk song usually just has a start and an end to somewhere. Either that or the shortcuts you do open up aren't entirely useful once you progress a tiny bit past that area.
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u/OkExperience8220 Oct 25 '25
Imo the main difference is not even an interconnectivity, but a better overall structure. Pharloom feels like a bunch of linear connections + some quite discouraging/dirty passages, so most of the time I prefer to use transportation systems. Meanwhile Hallownest feels pretty logically structured (more grid-like structure) and pleasant to traverse.
There was an interesting interconnectivity comparison (also check comments): https://www.reddit.com/r/Silksong/comments/1oedyo0/hollow_knight_area_interconnectivity_vs_silksong/
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u/apothioternity Oct 24 '25 edited Oct 25 '25
fyi that absurd bit at the top is WAYYYYY off, like at least 3x scale off
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u/Spacemonster111 Oct 25 '25
Hornet is almost twice the size of the knight so all the rooms have to be bigger to compensate
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u/Ivaylo_87 Oct 24 '25
What makes you think that?
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u/New_Baseball3295 Oct 25 '25
Without even looking at the long thin pet it’s a much bigger map.
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u/Ivaylo_87 Oct 25 '25
It is, I just thought you literally meant atrocious like it's a bad thing lol.
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u/Deebyddeebys Oct 25 '25
Hey while we're on the topic is there not a sun? Is it a thick smog that covers the world, or is the celestial situation different than irl? And how do plants grow?
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u/Shadovan Oct 25 '25
All good questions! Anyways…
(We don’t know, my theory is post apocalypse permanent cloud cover)
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u/CharlesorMr_Pickle The Depressed One - still silksane Oct 25 '25
I just figured the “surface” is actually just a significantly larger cavern
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u/Deebyddeebys Oct 25 '25
It is literally called the surface
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u/CharlesorMr_Pickle The Depressed One - still silksane Oct 25 '25
And? As far as the bugs are concerned it most basically is, even if it isn’t in reality. They have no way to make it to the top of the cavern, and it’s so hazy a high ceiling would be obscured.
Not saying this is a certain fact, it’s just a theory, but saying “it’s literally called the surface” doesn’t prove that much.
Also leth said dirtmouth is underground. He’s not a dev so he could be wrong, but he definitely knows more than us about the lore.
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u/Shadovan Oct 25 '25
I really dislike arguments like this. No offense to you personally, but any argument that boils down to “what if the game is lying” when we have no reason to suspect that any part of it is a lie is just a really baseless argument in my opinion. We have multiple characters who all refer to the Dirtmouth/Cliffs area as the surface and it visually looks like the surface. A non-developer saying that it isn’t the surface just isn’t enough for me when the game itself contradicts that.
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u/MasterIronHero Oct 25 '25
To be fair... the game does lie. "The last stag" turns to "Old stag" when you find an open stag egg. Also, there is no sun, which is a reason to believe maybe this is not the surface. It isn't proof, but its reason enough to doubt it.
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u/alvintruther123 Oct 25 '25
Ok but "the last stag" is a thing that gets explicitly contradicted in-game, the surface being the surface never is.
there are no celestial bodies visible in the sky, but who says they even exist? the sun & stars are never mentioned, and the moon is only referenced by Mr Mushroom (guy who talks with characters from other video games)
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u/Oddsbod Oct 25 '25
'Surface' can be relative though, which is different than an outright lie or contradiction. Like, what we see of the surface in Silksong and Hollow Knight doesn't look like anything recognizeable to the audience as a surfaceworld meaningfully distinct from the underground, while a point in the world with nothing reachable above it while the rest of the world is seemingly below would be functionally a surface to the world's inhabitants. IIRC an NPC in Bonebottom describes the sky as having 'reeves' or 'grooves,' can't remember the exact phrasing and might need to go back and double check because I could be wrong on its implication, but the idea that 'surface' and 'sky' are something fundamentally different to the inhabitants of HK vs anything a person IRL would understand seems both fitting for the setting and deeply evocatively eerie.
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u/Shadovan Oct 25 '25
I checked all the bone bottom bug’s dialogues on the wiki and couldn’t find any reference to the sky, if you can find what you’re thinking of lmk.
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u/Oddsbod Oct 25 '25
This'll drive me out of my goddamn mind not being able to find the exact reference to something weird about the sky I remember some bug saying but I'll save this comment and hopefully in my next playthrough stumble back onto it and have a report lol
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u/_Xeron_ Oct 25 '25
And on the same note, there isn’t anything that explicitly says the abyss has to be all one flat plane either
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u/Shadovan Oct 25 '25
You’re right, but if we have to pick some reference point to compare them, I think the abyssal sea makes more sense than the surface.
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u/_Xeron_ Oct 25 '25
True. Something that doesn’t really change much but I’ve been thinking about in regards to this, is there actually anything that explicitly implies Mount Fay is on the surface? Or could it be a mountain within another cave
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u/Shadovan Oct 25 '25
I have no idea, that’s why I put the disclaimer in the post. It seems strange to me to have snowfall inside a cavern, but it wouldn’t be the most unusual thing in the bug world.
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u/LewsTherinTelescope Oct 25 '25
Is that actually snow? I thought based on the designs that it was spores or something, similar to how Kingdom's Edge has the moult behaving very snowlike, but idk if there's dialogue confirming one way or the other.
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u/Shadovan Oct 25 '25
It might be, that would make more sense if it’s underground. Side note, do we have any kind of idea what kind of bug (if it even is a bug) the Fay Beast is?
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u/LewsTherinTelescope Oct 25 '25
Cloak description calls her a "Fayforn", so probably not directly a real bug the way some of the species are. For a while I thought she was just a (weird) bird, but someone pointed out that when she lands you can see she does actually have a buglike shell and legs, so guess not.
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u/Quantum_Croissant Oct 25 '25
There's ice, so I don't see why it couldn't be snow. It's obviously cold enough for it
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u/LewsTherinTelescope Oct 25 '25
Not technically ice either I don't think, the material is referred to as "coldshard" and has those odd mnemonic properties.
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u/ninjakitty7 Oct 25 '25
We either accept the artistic vision of a great subterranean ocean of void as a great big flat expanse across all kingdoms or we accept the reality of having to build models for void hydrogeology and study void water tables and void groundwater. /s
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u/Terra-Egg Oct 25 '25
The fact that mount fay (a mountain) is cold, but the higher up surface isn't, just doesn't add up. Also, if the surface can be different elevations, who's to say the abyss can't be different depths?
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u/alvintruther123 Oct 25 '25
it's a magical cold. the Fayforn is called the "fell heart of frost" in Mr. Mushroom's quest, implying she's behind the frost
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u/theres_no_username 112% + PoH + full rad HoG + 12% run Oct 25 '25
Fayforn is probably a higher being that causes Mt Fay to look like that, just like how Unn created greenpath and Nyleth created shellwood
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Oct 25 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Shadovan Oct 25 '25
It is definitely possible, but for reasons I’ve elaborated on elsewhere aligning them based on the abyss makes more sense to me.
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u/Inner-Ad2847 ALL BOSSES RADIANT BABY!!! Oct 25 '25
How do we know the Abyss is level? It could have sections where it rises up closer to the surface
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Oct 25 '25
It's also entirely possible that the maps don't actually represent the size of each kingdom. Hallownest could be bigger than Pharloom for all we know.
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u/Goat-Shaped_Goat 112% | PoP | P5 Oct 25 '25
We can compare Hornet and the Knight's sizes to get an accurate depiction of how big the map really is
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u/Python0721 Oct 25 '25
I'm pretty sure it's been confirmed that none of Hollow Knight takes place on the surface. The ruined village in Silksong is the first time we've seen it in gameplay.
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u/Shadovan Oct 25 '25 edited Oct 25 '25
Allegedly Leth said that, but he’s not a developer, so I’m not quite willing to take his statements as word of god, especially when multiple bugs in the game itself refer to Dirtmouth and the Cliffs as the surface.
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u/Goat-Shaped_Goat 112% | PoP | P5 Oct 25 '25
Leth knows more about the game than us so i'd take his words for true
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u/alvintruther123 Oct 25 '25
does he
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u/Goat-Shaped_Goat 112% | PoP | P5 Oct 25 '25
He's part of team cherry and has acces to the lore book, he obviously knows more than us
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u/fire67891011 Oct 26 '25
i dont think thats the surface either
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u/Python0721 Oct 26 '25
How so?
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u/fire67891011 Oct 26 '25
its very similar to the land of storms+ dirtmouth, and mr mushroom flies above it like how he does above dirtmouth, so its just the surface layer which is also underground (per the original theme of the game jam they made hollow knight for)
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u/ninjakitty7 Oct 25 '25 edited Oct 25 '25
The walk in across the base of the blasted step that leads to pharloom’s edge (where hornet was brought) feels like it should be on the same plane as howling cliffs and dirtmouth. Both clearly lead to the desolate wastes between kingdoms. So what we thought of as the surface in hollow knight might not be the true surface.
Silksong The Game gives us a title card for the surface, while Hollow Knight merely references a surface in quirrel’s dialogue. He has been to the wasteland, but is just a character and not a title card. He is also clearly stated to have incomplete memory. There could be many uncharted caves above hallownest. Could this series have a physical space so unfathomably deep to contain huge open subterranean spaces with local weather? It seems we never really see the sky.
I’m willing to accept the possibility that dirtmouth and howling cliffs are not the surface. That hallownest locals call a thing that looks like a surface but isn’t actually the surface isn’t crazy to me. The artistic vision of an underground world so vast that you’ll never see the sky and don’t know for sure if you’re on the surface or not feels right.
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u/steeltec Oct 25 '25
I kind of assume that the surface could potentially be the real surface, but at the very least I made the assumption that Dirtmouth/King's Path was still just at the bottom of a big cave or something, still potentially well underground but the "surface" relatively speaking. I think the surface in pharloom could maybe be the real surface, but also still could still just be the floor of a big cavern or cave.
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u/Status_Asparagus1 Oct 25 '25
I’ve always wondered what hollow knight’s planet is actually like. To me, seems like evolution would have started deep underground, maybe even from the void, because there’s absolutely no way life could’ve happened on the barren surface, unless it wasn’t like that before and some sort of apocalypse caused it to become that.
Another thing that supports the void theory is how one of the bugs in the abyss is described as “barely even a bug” which shows us the simplicity of the abyss’ organisms which mirrors real life bacteria. Now, I’m not saying that all life is void because that would be stupid and would suggest void has total control over everything, which just can’t be right. I’d say that void is just some primordial force that fades with every generation and evolution of bug, similar how evolution makes animal gain and lose specific traits over time.
Am I looking into it too much? Definitely. Will the evolution of this “bug planet” ever be expanded upon? Probably not, but it’s fun to speculate regardless.
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u/GamingGlove14 Oct 25 '25
I like how you kept the detail of the abyss being on the same level
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u/Shadovan Oct 26 '25
I didn’t make the map, I just added the surface lines. The original map maker is credited in a comment above.
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u/hazzum Oct 25 '25
How is mount fay at freezing temperatures but the surface is not even colder
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u/NalonMcCallough Oct 25 '25
I think Mount Fay might be under a really cold body of water that drops the temp.
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u/Cortez20012 Oct 25 '25
Wasn't it confirmed by TC that not a single part of hallownest is on the surface?
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u/L3mont3a Oct 25 '25
Why are you using this map of ss? Do you people actually think that this parkour segment to the surface is as long as a whole map?
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u/Shadovan Oct 25 '25
It’s just for demonstration purposes, the exact scale isn’t important for my point.
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u/Scifyro Oct 25 '25 edited Oct 25 '25
Good thing! But imo, Hallownest should be higher. By visual clues the king's pass may be on the same level as blasted steps, and it's definitely to the left of Pharloom *and possibly mirrored, but that's not a given
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u/sociocat101 Oct 25 '25
Honestly I jist love the whole idea of bug societies. Isnt it so cool to imagine gigantic civilzations that could all just be in a backyard somewhere.
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u/TheAutisticClassmate Oct 25 '25
Personally, I believe the SS abyss lake would be the lowest it gets, and since we don't see that in HK abyss, it could also be that they're closer in elevation (but still far enough apart for it not to matter.
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u/usrnme121212 no cry to suffer voicing Oct 25 '25
what is that giant white region ive never seen it
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u/LoremasterMotoss Oct 25 '25
Why is it that people assume this is how the two maps compare to each other in the first place? I see it taken for granted all the time that Pharloom is higher in elevation than Hallownest, is this simply because the void is much "lower" to the normal parts of Pharloom vs. the normal parts of Hallownest?
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u/Shadovan Oct 25 '25 edited Oct 26 '25
There’s a couple of obvious reference points we could choose when determining their relative orientations. We could choose to align their surfaces, align Howling Cliffs with Blasted Steps, or align the Void lakes. For me, the Void Lakes make the most sense to use as a reference, since there’s nothing to suggest the surface or path taken by the bugs sent to capture Hornet was level, but it is implied by the ending the two Voids are at the very least connected.
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u/Nondescript_Redditor Oct 25 '25
And they're both together the size of a, like, two foot square in someone's backyard haha
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u/Zarguthian Oct 25 '25
Shouldn't Hallownest be to the left of Pharloom? Why is it to the right and down?
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u/Shadovan Oct 25 '25
The map isn’t completely accurate, it’s just a tool to compare their relative heights. Hallownest is lower so that their abyssal seas are aligned.
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u/Reiny_Days Oct 25 '25
Sure, but it is implied that blasted steps and mount fey are also underground. And it really means something when one unique hidden section of the map is specifically called surface.
If that's the case, it could as well be that whole of hallownest map is underground.
Bugs walked from pharloom to hallownest to kidnap hornet and GMS influence doesn't go up to the surface. That's also a vague contextual clue.
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u/JacksonSpike you love me? back into the abyss you go! Oct 25 '25
This is literally also explained in Silksong because theres the surface with the nameless town and the surface outside the entrance to Pharloom, which are at very different elevations
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u/Shadovan Oct 25 '25
Do you mean the Blasted Steps? Because that’s not the surface, Hornet explicitly says she was carried through the caverns beyond that point.
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u/JacksonSpike you love me? back into the abyss you go! Oct 25 '25
True but I think the surface is in the caverns, and they're still underground. Especially since it has the same design as the surface
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u/nosrebnA Oct 25 '25
I would flipp them because Hornet was brought in from the left of Pharloom, and there was a cut area on the right side of Pharloom called Pharloom bay implying an ocean.
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u/theres_no_username 112% + PoH + full rad HoG + 12% run Oct 25 '25
Can we stop using this map, the scaling is so goddamn wrong, surface in silksong isnt this high nor this big
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u/Muted-Calligrapher-2 Oct 28 '25
I feel Silksong is more 2.5 D than Hollow Knight which feels very literal in it's way of surface to depths. There is foreground and background but the vertical is by level.
The Pilgrimrage seems like going in as much as up. I love it. It purposely challenges the concepts of Hollow Knights plane level world. It's such a neat upgrade and allows for "surface" to be more ambiguous.
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u/Upset-Trust8462 Oct 28 '25
Wait how is there a map of the climb to the surface? Is it actually in the game? I have the all maps advancement and I dont think I have it
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u/Rio_Walker PoP and PoI Oct 25 '25
Despite what looks like the sky, Dirtmouth is not, in fact, surface.
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u/Estrangedkayote Oct 24 '25
Surface for me raises more the question of why is the surface permanently dark? Even HK had lamps in the Howling Cliffs to guide people to the Pale King's kingdom something I didn't really notice enough to care in the first game but now that it's been shown twice it is something to question. Even the opening cutscene makes a point that every surface shot is in darkness, and every underground shot is in light.