Hollow Knight: Silksong players are getting upset over the lengthy stretches of the game's world that they have to traverse to get back to a boss after a fight didn't go their way. Some players are accusing Team Cherry of artificially padding Hollow Knight: Silksong's length with its tedious runbacks, and they're wishing for save points closer to boss fight locations.
The hype surrounding the recent launch of Hollow Knight: Silksong has made it one of the most talked-about game sequels of the year, and there are reports of multiple games moving their release dates back to avoid getting lost amid its popularity. Following up on 2017's Hollow Knight with an original adventure for a new protagonist, Hornet, in the kingdom of Pharloom, the high demand for Hollow Knight: Silksong apparently broke Steam, the Nintendo eShop, and the Xbox Store, as all three online gaming destinations suffered outages during its release date on September 4.
Hollow Knight Silksong Players Want Shorter Runbacks
While the game is enjoying a ton of success, including a 93 percent player approval rating on Steam, its player base hasn't been free of complaints. Many players feel that Hollow Knight: Silksong is too hard, despite much of its predecessor's popularity coming from its high degree of difficulty. While much of the criticism over the difficulty spike has been aimed at bosses dealing double damage, players are also taking issue with the long stretches of game world that they have to go through just to try facing a boss again after being defeated.
Getting stuck on Hollow Knight: Silksong's bosses is a common occurrence that many players feel is made even more difficult because of the length between benches, the only places where progress can be saved, and boss locations. Bosses in the Hollow Knight series aren't meant to be easy and can often take multiple attempts to take down, but players on platforms like Reddit are complaining that having to run so long and far between attempts causes an unnecessary difficulty increase that makes learning their attack patterns a chore and sucks the fun out of the game.
For many players, the worst runback instance comes at the end of act one, as they prepare to face off with the Last Judge boss. While it takes a while to take down, a lot of players find this boss pretty easy to fight, with many expressing the opinion that the path to the boss fight is more difficult than the fight itself. Conversely, some others seem to enjoy the challenge presented by the runback, viewing the Last Judge and the effort to reach it as a singular part of the game. Some players are already using mods to remove other annoyances in Silksong, so one that moves benches closer to bosses could help cut down on the complaints.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 91 /100 Critics Rec: 97%
- Released
- September 4, 2025
- ESRB
- Everyone 10+ / Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood
- Developer(s)
- Team Cherry
- Publisher(s)
- Team Cherry
