Comparing Hollow Knight and Silksong

Contains spoilers for Hollow Knight: Silksong

Let me preface by saying that Hollow Knight and Silksong are my favorite games of all time.

It has been 1 year since Silksong’s release and now that enough time has passed and I’ve platinumed Silksong and done multiple playthroughs of both - I thought it would be nice to compare the 2 games and see which one is the better game. (for me atleast!)

Some Background

I first played Hollow Knight in 2023. It was the first souls-like metroidvania I had played and it apparently birthed this whole genre. I instantly fell in love with the game to say the least. Never had a game made me feel so lost and overwhelmed all the time. There are so many diverging paths and secrets which makes exploration a joy.

Right from the get go there are no objectives, no map, no directions - you’re just thrown into this magical world and slowly uncover it’s secrets bit by bit. It was nothing I had experienced ever in a game before. And the trailer doesn’t lies when it says “Forge your own path” - because you literally can.

In my most recent playthrough a few months back, I took a completely different route which I didn’t even know was possible, and even after playing this game multiple times and knowing the ins and outs of Hallownest like it is my hometown - I still found new things and still got awestruck. It truly is a timeless classic.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that expectations were sky high for Silksong. And it was not just me apparently, because the game crashed multiple game stores for hours on release. I still remember sitting for 30mins straight, refreshing Steam’s page every few seconds just to buy the damn game. (Just 800 INR btw)

So did Silksong live up to it’s expectations? Well, duh - yes, a big yes! Team Cherry - these absoulte madlads, they did it again. I was very confident that Silksong is the better game while I was playing it and continued to stick to this weeks after completing it. But slowly as the recency bias faded away and doing another playthrough of Hollow Knight, I found myself unable to decide.

That is, till my very recent playthrough where I think I have finally come to a stable conclusion. TLDR: Silksong has higher highs and lower lows - Hollow Knight is still the GOAT, just perfect from start to end.

Silksong is kinda linear

This is something I realized on my multiple playthroughs of Silksong and Hollow Knight. Like I had mentioned earlier, Hollow Knight feels very mysterious. It is because for the first half of the game there is no sense of direction or any objective. Right from the first area in Forgotton Croassroads, you can go to multiple areas. It can be very intimidating but this pays off.

Silksong starts right off with a clear objective - reach The Citadel. And not just the opening area, but most of the early game areas are very linear and feel small too. It could be due to Hornet’s more acrobatic and faster movement but the feeling is still there. It’s not until you reach Greymoor where you get a first truly huge area with a lot of exits. This was the first time for me where I got that feeling of being lost again.

Now this is not to say that the game is not non-linear at all, but the deviations you take tend to lead to a dead end untill you get a few abilities later in the game. This gets worse as you reach Act II where you would most likely spend 90% of your time exploring The Citedal. And the secret Act III doesn’t improves on this either - it is a mostly linear endgame act.

IMO the only saving grace here was Greymoor, Sinner’s Road/The Mist and Bilewater (yes, the most hated area in the game is actually GOATed). Bilewater in particular stands out since you can’t fully explore it or even get the map unless you have double jump. It is extremely punishing due to “muck-water” mechanic and the infamous boss runback. It reminded me the most of Hollow Knight in terms of getting lost and being anxious all the time (Deepnest flashbacks).

Another thing I noticed was that in Hollow Knight, you are constantly doing something - you always have something you want to explore. However in Silksong, by the end of Act II - you would have to grind for rosaries and complete some very uninteresing side quests just to get to Act III. It’s like the game kind of halts at this point. I know this was done for lore reasons to connect nicely to Act III but it just makes the game kind of boring at times.

This for me is the biggest weakness of Silksong as the remaining points I’m going to discuss are very minor and honestly subjective. This stands out a lot for me personally becuase this whole aspect of exploring an inter-connected world was the most memorable aspect of Hollow Knight.

Movement and Platforming

Team Cherry really upped the movement with Silksong. When you have all the abilities unlocked, you feel like a god traversing across Pharloom. Clawline/Harpoon in particular was my favorite. Hornet feels great to control and she even auto grabs ledges which goes along well with her fast and acrobatic movement.

While this is all great, I feel Silksong could have utilized these abilities more in harder platforming challenges. There are some interesting areas like Mount Fay, Cogwork Core, Sands of Karak, and Surface Climb which have fun platforming challenges but sadly these are not that big.

However, we need to keep in mind that Silksong is a game with future DLCs still in the works while Hollow Knight has 3 DLCs. So this is something Team Cherry would most likely work on and I am sure we’ll get a Silksong’s Path of Pain in the future DLCs.

Combat, Bosses and Difficulty

This is something which without a doubt Silksong excels at and IMO focuses the most at. The combat system is just amazing. The crest system with tools works better than the Charm system and gives a lot of variety with the combat. The enemies have also been reworked a lot in a way where even the basic enemies are harder with a more varied moveset.

Even the bosses are stellar - all of them. Hollow Knight, while having amazing bosses had a few meh bosses here and there. This makes Silksong an even more punishing and difficult game - something which I’m a huge fan of for the most part.
There is some artificial difficulty introduced by the punishing economy in this game though - rosaries are hard to come by and everything is so expensive. I know this was done for lore reasons but it can make some sections grindy and I hate grinding. You never had to grind for Geo in Hollow Knight.

Coming back to Silksong, I’m a huge fan of how this game balances the difficulty overall and I just love how it’s always challenging. When you get OP by the end of Act II, the game kicks you in the balls with Act III - every environment and enemy gets harder. Even in Act I and Act II, areas like Bilewater and Blasted Steps ensure you are always uneasy with their punishing environments and their infamous boss runbacks.

The only criticism I would have here would be for Grand Mother Silk (GMS henceforth) and Lace. GMS is a good boss but she is kinda easy as the final boss for Act II and no where reaches the emotional peak which The Hollow Knight boss does in the first game.
As for Lace, I was lowkey disappointed that the final boss was just another version of her. It is an extremely good fight and very challenging too, but it kinda becomes easy once you get the hang of it. Skarrsinger Karmelita for me was the best boss and I still struggle with her because of how non-formulatic she is. You can’t read her patterns and do a particular moveset to dodge - you have to improvise and it is awesome.

Music and Art Direction

This is a highly subjective topic and honestly I feel this is a tie for me - Christopher Larkin is a master.

Hollow Knight’s music is more diverse but suffers from budget reasons because it is digitally produced and not performed live by an orchestra. Silksong’s orchestral compositions are heavenly and the live orchestral recordings add more depth, but it is not as diverse as the first game and heavily dominated by string instruments. I really don’t have much to say here, both games have S tier soundtracks and it’s very hard to pick one.

Event the art direction goes toe to toe. Silksong definitely has more detailed and truly stunning backgrounds - all hand drawn single handedly by Ari Gibson. Even the animations are much smoother. Areas like Mount Fay and The Coral Tower were nothing like we had seen in Hollow Knight before. I believe even the color pallete is much more diverse than the first game.

PS: Greymoor’s OST is extremely underrated. For me, it is top 3 from Silksong.

Conclusion

Silksong is a flawed masterpiece - a near perfect sequel which sadly gets bogged down due to less focus on exploration while siginificantly improving the combat and bosses. Hollow Knight still stands strong as the best soulsvania ever created and IMO the greatest game ever made.

I am really excited for the upcoming Sea of Sorrow DLC and who knows maybe these future DLCs might change my opinions. Long live Team Cherry - the GOATs.