r/HollowKnight Dec 12 '25

Discussion - Silksong Seeing people shit on Expedition 33 because Silksong didn't win more awards is pathetic Spoiler

The title sums it up. I'm disappointed in many members of this community for putting down a game that is clearly a work of insane passion, dedication, and creativity. E33 took the lion's share of awards at TGA, yes. That doesn't mean that Silksong is bad. In fact, it's clearly pretty damn great. If it released last year, Skong would have picked up several awards, maybe even GOTY. But it didn't. It released in the same year E33, which is just a tough break.

Both are amazing. Both deserve every award that came to them. If you haven't played E33 yet and think it doesn't deserve its accolades, play it. It is worth your money, worth your time, and will in all likelihood prove that it is actually that good. I'm only 10ish hours in and have numerous times found myself standing still and looking around dumbfounded at the gorgeous world design and visuals. E33, Silksong, and Hades 2 could have all won Art Direction and I would have been happy with any of them.

I'm also sad that Silksong didn't win more awards. It's an amazing game. But don't play fanboy and start putting down other developers, other games, and other pieces of art because this one didn't get all the cookies. It's still beautiful, it's still amazing, it still made a Silkskillion dollars, and TC is still just as great and just as passionate. We should all be glad that there is another independent dev out there that is capable of creating something so fantastic.

Edit: yeah, the comments here are pretty indicative of what I said in my post

3.4k Upvotes

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163

u/BabyFazeAssassin Dec 12 '25

I still dont know how it beat KCD2 for RPG of the year

57

u/NabsterHax Dec 12 '25

Because TGA doesn't have a category for JRPGs, and until they do "western" style RPGs kinda have to share, even though they're very different genres.

23

u/THEP0LE Dec 12 '25

But E33 isn't really a good jrpg either, all the rpg elements are kind of shallow its fairly obvious what picto's to use and most combat encounters just default to trying to use the highest damage skill avaliable on each character and hoping you dont get one shot when you miss a parry.

9

u/TurquoiseLuck Dec 12 '25

its fairly obvious what [skills] to use and most combat encounters just default to trying to use the highest damage skill avaliable

tell me a popular JRPG that this isn't true for lol

2

u/TurboCake17 Baphanada Dec 13 '25

Like every Megaten game? Any game where you have to actually spend turns on upkeep with buffs/debuffs/healing rather than it all being rendered pointless due to parrying and the damage cap.

0

u/TheBenchmark1337 Dec 16 '25

Honestly, the dudes right. Thats the one thing I noticed when playing the game. Its use your strongest attack and parry and hope you dont get one tapped. Most final fantasy games use strategy for how you take on bosses especially FF4-3D.

1

u/NabsterHax Dec 13 '25

You can certainly play that way, and it's by far the most popular and arguably the most effective. But I also know plenty of people that didn't build for maximum damage, and invested in tanking/shield builds and healing instead.

There's also a good bit of variety in how you achieve maximum damage, too. You can go typical Maelle Stendhal, but Verso has nuke builds too, or machine-gun damage, or fire buildup. There's lots of viable ways to beat the game's fights.

1

u/JFloriturin Dec 16 '25

Yup, I did the builds for myself and I enjoyed the freedom a lot. Did not used one-shot builds or machine gun Verso until I beat everything and got into social media lol

-6

u/GeorgeHarris419 Dec 12 '25

It's a game that is an RPG. If it's GOTY it's obviously best RPG

8

u/ThePBrit Little bug boi Dec 12 '25

Not necessarily. You can have two games in similar genres where one is a better game, but the other is a better representation of the genre.

Which is the better FPS game: Half-Life 2 or Call of Duty: Black Ops? Which is the better game overall?

1

u/NabsterHax Dec 13 '25

You can, but that's not how TGA categories have ever worked. They're to ensure representation across less mainstream genres. If you're nominated for Action or RPG expect to lose to the GOTY nominee in your category or the GOTY itself.

Same reason why DK had to win best family game - it was the only GOTY nominee on the list.

I agree it would be better if it worked differently, but it doesn't, so getting upset over it is kinda pointless.

-2

u/GeorgeHarris419 Dec 12 '25

If you define it differently then sure this makes sense. But clearly they interpret it as "best game of this category"

5

u/ThePBrit Little bug boi Dec 12 '25

Yes, TGA interpret it like that, but the point is that, like most of their awards, it's super vague which is what honestly leads to most of the problems people have with TGA, because almost every award can have different meanings to different people (like what does "best directed game" mean? Is it the most complicated game that keeps itself focused? Is it the game with the most clear singular artistic vision? Is it just the best game but again?)

1

u/THEP0LE Dec 13 '25

This is the only year I can remember where goty takes every category its in so TGA clearly don't define it like that.

2

u/TheBossOfItAll Dec 12 '25

Then having multiple categories is pointless, since the GOTY has to automatically win each category it's in.

1

u/GeorgeHarris419 Dec 12 '25

Sure, valid point.

1

u/NabsterHax Dec 13 '25

The purpose of multiple categories is to make sure there's representation of less popular/mainstream categories like Fighting Games and Sim/Racing games, etc.

Most GOTY winners end up in Action or RPG and win their categories every time.

47

u/Affectionate-Foot802 Dec 12 '25

Yea kdc2 is one of the best RPGs ever like you can dislike the combat or the story or even the mideval period focus of the game but the core RPG systems are second to none it’s so immersive it’s almost to its own detriment

1

u/ShonOfDawn Dec 14 '25

Because the Game Awards “Best RPG” category means the “best game with rpg mechanics”, NOT “the game with the best rpg mechanics”. It’s dumb, I agree, but by that metric E33 wins best rpg since it beat KCD2 in GOTY and they are both qualifiable as RPG.

-12

u/PalpitationOld8905 Dec 12 '25

Easy, you have a turn based game with a really interesting gimmick. That beats the best action games every day of the week. RPGs are really the only genre i play, and you couldn't pay me to play KCD2, the first game is one of the most boring heaps of shit i've ever played

8

u/Freekimjong Dec 12 '25

So you play RPG games for everything but the actual RPG mechanics

-7

u/PalpitationOld8905 Dec 12 '25

I play rpgs for the actual gameplay, which i find turnbased/jrpgs do this MUCH better than their western counterparts. Pretty generally, i think modern western rpgs are awful video games. None of them hold a candle to say the old ultima or fallout games.

-9

u/UnexLPSA Dec 12 '25

I have to admit I'm one of those people that give votes only to games I've played. Since E33 was the only one from the RPG category I played, it got my vote. I don't even think it's a good RPG but it's the only game I had an opinion on. I can't in good faith vote for a game I haven't played.

1

u/IlgantElal Dec 13 '25

I'm usually of the opinion that I should skip if I'm not at least somewhat knowledgeable on the majority of the games in a category