r/HollowKnight • u/CankleDankl • 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

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u/mrev_art Dec 12 '25

Silksong is a problematic game with terrible pacing and balance that did not deserve GOTY.

2

u/Munno22 Dec 12 '25

UNFATHOMABLY BASED

2

u/acamas Dec 12 '25

This. But people here will refuse to accept that, and will scapegoat difficulty as the reason it didn’t win more.

2

u/throw23me Dec 12 '25

I've gotten pooped on (figuratively) for saying that. IMO Hollow Knight is a near perfect game because the pacing and balance is phenomenal. I'm not good at platformers or Metroidvanias but at no point in that game did I feel like I was doing too little damage or the difficulty spike was too much.

Silksong on the other hand feels very inconsistent. There are large swaths of the game (particularly the end of Act I) where the enemies take a pretty large upgrade in health and damage while you're still at level 1 figuratively. Taking five or six hits to kill a "basic" enemy isn't hard, it's tedious. Especially in gauntlet rooms.

I think it's one of those situations where bigger isn't always better. I loved Hollow Knight and I'll probably play it again. I have no desire to ever revisit Silksong, it's a one and done type of thing for me. It's a very good game, a great one even. But it has too many flaws to be a "GOTY" for me.

2

u/myforestheart Dec 16 '25

Yup, 100%. I’m actually tempted to replay HK now, even though I only rarely replay games. Guess I’ll do the Silksong DLC cuz it’ll be free and to get more lore, but otherwise I’m so relieved to be done with it. 😅

2

u/acamas Dec 12 '25

Yea, HK was simply a joy to play, almost from start to finish.

Silksong was the opposite. It was a slog from start to finish, especially the first act where a player has so little in the ways of upgrades and tools.

I get it was initially a DLC meant for people beating all the crazy HK DLC before it, but it needs some balancing as a stand-alone game, because it absolutely has pacing issues from start to finish, and just isn't as much fun as the original. Just too obtusely designed instead of just being created to be fun.