Hollow Knight: Silksong was revealed in June of 2019 and fans were thrilled but then there was silence. The game was a sequel to the beloved Hollow Knight which came out in 2017 and instantly became an indie darling. This little Metroidvania, a  game that emphasizes exploration in a large linear world, developed by just three people at Team Cherry managed to sell over 15 million copies. After the reveal of its sequel hopes and excitement was high and people were even able to play a demo available at E3, a video game trade show, that same year in 2019. Then nothing new was available until the game was shown off at an Xbox Showcase in 2022 saying the game would be available in the next 12 months. This did not happen and the game kept on getting delayed and delayed to the point where people were so desperate to find news on this game that major game corporations would announce before their game showcases that there would be no news for Silksong.

Then on August 19th, 2025 Team Cherry shocked the world by showing off a full trailer of the game and revealed that it would be coming out in just two weeks on September 4th. The hype for this game reached mythical levels and upon its release Steam, Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo’s marketplaces all crashed because of the traffic on their websites, or they were just trying to delay the game one last time. I never got into Hollow Knight – I never even beat it. So having an outside perspective watching the hype unfold I purchased the game to answer the question: Was Hollow Knight: Silksong worth the wait?

In short, yes, the game was absolutely worth the wait. I didn’t expect much from this game but from the moment I booted it up and saw its beautiful handcrafted 2D art style I was hooked. 

You start as Hornet, the game’s protagonist, who is captured and brought to a new kingdom called Pharloom. You escape from your captures cage and your new goal is to make a pilgrimage to a citadel at the top of the kingdom. The story is inherently simple but through clever world design it is very engaging. As you encounter different bugs and information tablets around the world you will start to piece together backstory and lore for this kingdom you’re in and the pilgrimage that you’re on. This makes the game surprisingly deep for the lack of substantial cut scenes or proper story beats in the game.

This game is streamlined from start to finish. As you move through the world it gives you a perfect amount of instant feedback with things such as rest points and abilities that you never want to stop traversing the world and finding its secrets as well as keeping you motivated to keep going to see where the story will take you. While this all feels incredible and intuitive it does bring up one flaw. To unlock things like maps and checkpoints you need rosaries, the game’s currency, and these are hard to come by. Once you do find them you better be on guard because once you die to an enemy or an obstacle in the world you lose all your rosaries and if you aren’t able to get back to the place where you died and recollect them they are gone for good which can be a rather frustrating experience. Because of this I often found myself without a map which was beyond annoying. Having a sense of aimlessness in a tight Metroidvania like this was terrible but as soon as I would get a map it would go right back to being fun.

You might think it would be easy to go back and to where you died but think again. This game is brutally difficult. Normal Enemies in the world can be tricky to defeat. The boss fights? Forget about it! You will die dozens of times to them and this can be frustrating. And even worse every time you die you have to run back to the fight passing countless enemies and obstacles. I would often

shut down the game because of this difficulty but I always found myself coming back, because while the bosses are 

difficult, they are fair. Over time you learn the patterns and every attempt you get better and better until you get one of the most satisfying feelings of dealing the final blow on a boss.

The combat in the game was pretty clumsy for me at first. I would swing at enemies while trying to hit them with my massive nail I used as a weapon and often would often miss, resulting in losing health. But as the game went on I saw myself become better and better at the combat. I would progress through  getting new spells and abilities to use and they just made combat more and more fluid 

and I would get better and better at it until it became one of my favorite parts of the game. I can now chain agile attacks that feel great to pull off and deal high damage to enemies.

So you probably want to play this incredible game but you might want to not fork over the sixty to eighty dollars that a new game usually costs. I have great news for you, the game is only twenty dollars with a substantial runtime of twenty to thirty hours until the credits roll. This really shows Team Cherry’s love for their fans, the game industry and their commitment to accessibility.

This game was an amazing experience and one of the best games of the year, and one of, if not the best, metroidvania I have ever played. I can’t wait to dive back into it and find all the secrets and challenges hidden in the kingdom of Pharloom. I give this game a very well deserved and earned 9.5/10.