Hollow Knight: Silksong's Difficulty Might Already Be…

After spending the best part of a decade in development, Hollow Knight: Silksong is officially out, and by most accounts, it's actually managing to live up to the hype. At the time of writing, Hollow Knight: Silksong has a 94 Top Critic Average on OpenCritic, with 100% of critics recommending the game. Silksong's combat, platforming, world design, and art direction are all high points of praise for the sequel, and the general sentiment right now is that it was totally worth the long wait.

But the conversation surrounding Hollow Knight: Silksong has also included its fair share of valid criticisms. Naturally, there are some things even die-hard Hollow Knight fans feel a little conflicted about, and the game's high level of difficulty seems to be the most prominent issue right now. And while some fans might think lowering Silksong's difficulty would ruin developer Team Cherry's vision, FromSoftware has already proven that wouldn't necessarily be the case.

To Some, Hollow Knight: Silksong Has a Difficulty Issue

Silksong Hornet Death Animation Dying Dead Final Hit

Even The Smallest Bugs Hit Real Hard

The current conversation surrounding Hollow Knight: Silksong's difficulty is filled with both sweeping statements and minute criticisms, but two of the most prevalent critiques revolve around the amount of damage enemies dish out, and the runbacks that occur between some boss fights.

Those who played the first Hollow Knight will be more than accustomed to even the weakest enemies posing a significant threat. Even the smallest bugs can take off a whole chunk of the player's health bar in Hollow Knight, and given the game's hit detection system whereby players take damage if they so much as touch an enemy, they don't even need to land an attack to do so.

Fighting enemies in Greymoor in Hollow Knight Silksong

Hollow Knight: Silksong carries this forward, but ups the ante from the get-go. Almost all of Hollow Knight: Silksong's bosses will remove two chunks of health with each hit, with some mid–late-game ones stripping off three. Even some general Act 1 enemies will remove two Masks. In the first Hollow Knight, bosses and general enemies weren't dishing out that much damage until much later in the game, which can make Silksong's first few hours feel a bit abrasive.

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Boss Runbacks Are Trickier Than Ever

Another common point of concern among fans right now is that Hollow Knight: Silksong's boss runbacks are too grueling. Benches are few and far between in Silksong, and the stretch between them and some boss fights can be very long and very dangerous. The runback to the Last Judge's boss arena is a good example of this.

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Unlike in a challenging 3D game like Dark Souls, where players have plenty of room to run past enemies, Hollow Knight: Silksong's strict 2D plane forces players to fight most enemies on the path back to the boss fight, as given their high damage output it's often too risky to ignore them. That's especially the case if the runback features any form of platforming around environmental hazards, as flying enemies have a habit of knocking players into them if they're not totally focused.

Hollow Knight: Silksong Might Already Be Following in Elden Ring's Footsteps

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Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Wasn't Afraid to Scale Things Back a Bit

When Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree was released back in June 2024, many players took issue with the high difficulty of some boss fights and general combat encounters. Usually, the FromSoftware fan-base is the first to shout "git gud" when someone complains about a game being too difficult, but in this case, even they couldn't deny that some parts of the Elden Ring DLC took things a little too far, to the point where the experience wasn't fun anymore.

FromSoftware addressed these concerns swiftly, delivering a patch just a few days after launch that greatly improved the efficacy of Shadow of the Erdtree's Blessing progression system. In turn, this tweak improved players' damage negation across the board, allowing everyone to take more hits from enemies and bosses.

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This patch should be the gold standard for challenging video games, with it technically making the experience much more fair and enjoyable without jeopardizing the creators' original vision or the game's quality. Hollow Knight: Silksong might already be following in Shadow of the Erdtree's footsteps here.

Hollow Knight: Silksong Is Already Taking The First Step to Address Difficulty Concerns

Team Cherry has just confirmed that a patch is coming for Hollow Knight: Silksong sometime "next week." While this patch is mainly focused on fixing a handful of technical bugs, Team Cherry is making some slight adjustments to Hollow Knight: Silksong's difficulty.

As well as the damage output of Sandcarvers being reduced, both Moorwing and Sister Splinter will be receiving a "slight difficulty reduction." It's unclear exactly what these changes will be, but Moorwing and Sister Splinter are both early game menaces that many players will be happy to see receive a bit of a nerf.

Hollow Knight: Silksong's first patch is also aiming to help the game's controversial economy, with the prices of mid-game Benches and Bellways being reduced, and the Rosary rewards from Relics and Psalm Cylinders being increased.

That said, this should only be the tip of the iceberg for Hollow Knight: Silksong. While Moorwing and Sister Splinter are tricky bosses, they're far from Silksong's most fearsome foes. There are plenty of other Silksong bosses that could use a little tweaking, and boss runbacks aren't being addressed at all in this upcoming patch.

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