This morning I woke up too early. To stand in the queue for a long time, everything woke up to play Fan Vex (and newly released) Souls Vania Hollow Knight: Gamecom Show Floor Silkson: Silkson. Do you have a pre-release review code? PAH – We were unable to even get a demo reservation at the most demo booking centered game event of the year. What do you think? that Because of rejection.
Anyway, Team Cherry may not be all for me, but I might be interested in Silksong. It’s a little faster, a little more dynamic, and with these fingers it’s a little more difficult than the first hollow knight. But it fully retains the feel that reduces the shaking of the original sword, challenging it in a virtually identical way, deploying it against an annoyed insect-style villain.
Minions, for example, start out as rather frothy feed before surprises new breeds of unexpectedly rapid strikes or attacks that seem almost psychologically aware of where they will move within 0.02 seconds. And once again, their biggest weakness is trial and error. My deepest struggle was not against the boss, but a room full of flying bastards with endless buckets of highly accurate magma bombs. It took several fateful attempts at a 900°C dodgeball, but the burning orbs were deflected with a well-timed swing, which greatly alleviated the stress.
I only took on one true boss, the dive bombing queen, but she was fighting the familiar rules. It is a combination of environmental dangers and attack patterns of viewing and misuse, exacerbated by summoned hench bugs. Dodge any troublesome things, wait for the opening and paste. Basically, he’s a more hollow knight.
Still, Silkson aims to create subtle changes in its combat style. The new Protag Hornet is a slightly more vocal than Knight and is also a slightly more agile hero. Her default movements incorporate an oblique strike that deals damage that immediately returns her to the ground after a floating jump, and quickly repositions. The bindings – equivalent to the Hornet, the equivalent of focus healing, which replaces the “threads” with the gathered souls – can even run in the air, ostensibly quickly and quickly to get her back into battle as quickly as possible.
This doesn’t seem to punish Silksong for being more sly than Hollow Knight, but it’s not. If anything, I found the new healing system to be extremely strict. It is fairly completely in order to prevent the benefits of life from facilitating: by converting a relatively small amount of soul proportion into one or two precious pips, you can save yourself in a pinch before. That means a successful binding will always heal multiple pips, but you could spend more time in the danger zone until you can biff enough enemies for another complete chain.

The opponent also squeals with Smidge, appearing to be answering the Hornet’s mobility. I’ve only played in some early realms, but I don’t want to exaggerate the difference – it’s not like Silkson gives everyone a small bug-sized jetpack, but I’ve encountered Nimbler enemies more often than half an hour of opening the Hollow Knight.
If Silkson is getting a little more cruel, then note that it’s getting a little more beautiful. The cave biome in the opening moss in particular is a gorgeous, lush warren, with trees, huge shrooms and layers of undergrowth all shifting under the parallax effect, which is pulled apart by an even more impressive effect than the original. The darkness of Forge City, which was later visited, has fewer opportunities to shine, but details are still piled up, including miles and glamorous pipes of miles draped from the fairy light ceiling. Of course, Hollonite had skills in this department. Silkson only refined them.

Certainly, it is fair to expect more than just refinement in Team Cherry’s own seven years. I haven’t yet tried most of the new powers of the Hornet, or how it will affect the platform and combat of later games, but so far it’s all a very hollow knights. Maybe that’s everything Clownposters wanted. Maybe they will find themselves contracting.
But perhaps not disappointed. The advantage of playing it safely is that it never compromises what made the action of the first game a tactile pleasure. Hollow Knight feels good. Silkson feels good. You don’t hear me complain. Clearly, except that I have to wake up at 7am on the weekend.
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(TagStoTRASSLATE) Hollow Knight: Silksong (T) Action Adventure (T) Gamescom 2025 (T) Indie (T) Nintendo Switch (T) PC (T) Platformer (T) Team Cherry