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In 2026, Hollow Knight: Silksong is no longer a rumor whispered in YouTube comment sections or a punchline about delays. It exists, it is brutal, and it has left at least one devoted Hollow Knight player frozen at the gate. That player, a stubborn soul with questionable time management, has spent months wandering Hallownest, dying to the same optional Dream Realm boss, and refusing to look up how much of the game remains because the mere thought of spoilers makes their shell crawl.

The fan's journey through Hollow Knight is not a speedrun. It is a slow, meditative loop of failure. They know the combat can be difficult, especially when a boss seems designed to test patience rather than reflexes. They also know they are extremely stubborn. Rather than skip an optional Dream Realm boss, they will happily spend an entire afternoon getting killed by it, repeating the same doomed cycle until the controller creaks in their hands.

Part of the reason the fan still has not finished Hollow Knight is simple: they are not very good at it. Plenty of players are not very good at Hollow Knight. Its combat can be punishing, especially against bosses that feel like moving brick walls with spikes. The fan also tries to maintain some semblance of a social life on weekends, which cuts into the hours required to bang their head against the same wall. The result is a save file that has become a monument to bad time management and stubborn pride.

The Sequel That Hits Twice as Hard

When Hollow Knight: Silksong launched in 2025, it did not take long for the conversation to turn toward difficulty. The long-awaited sequel racked up negative reviews on Steam, many of them citing combat that felt less like a challenge and more like a cruelty. Almost every boss, and even some basic enemies, deal double damage with each hit. The difficulty scaling is painful. Some bosses have no benches nearby, so players must repeat platforming sections and clear rooms all over again just to get wrecked once more by a fight they have not yet memorized.

There is also an adjustment period for Hollow Knight veterans. Hornet is a more agile and mobile protagonist, and her enemies are faster and have more varied attacks as a result. Healing is faster, but it requires more charges. Muscle memory from the first game does not always help in the second. In fact, it can actively hurt, making platforming and combat feel unfair when the player's instincts are calibrated to a slower, heavier knight.

Hard but Fair, or Just Hard?

Yet a big strength of Hollow Knight is that although it can be hard, it rarely feels unfair. The fan can count on one hand the number of times they died and wanted to blame the game. Usually, they are frustrated with themselves for making a platforming mistake or for failing to dodge an attack that was clearly telegraphed. That self-directed frustration is oddly comforting. It means the game is demanding, but it is not cheating.

The fan cannot say yet whether Silksong feels unfair. After all, they are still working their way through Hollow Knight. Still, they would not be surprised if Silksong really is more difficult. Metroidvania sequels often crank up the difficulty to give experienced players more of a challenge, and Team Cherry has never seemed interested in making things easy. The difference is that Hollow Knight's difficulty built trust over time. Silksong, by many accounts, asks for that trust upfront and then punches the player in the mask.

Going into Silksong after intentionally honing skills in Hollow Knight might mean a really tough time learning the ropes of the new installment. The fan is terrified to finish the first game and then jump into a potentially even more punishing experience. At the same time, they are hungry for more of this world. The bluster about Silksong's difficulty has scared them off for now, but they are trying to get good.

Maybe once they finally beat that damn Dream Realm boss, they will feel ready to join everyone else in getting Hornet where she needs to go. Until then, they will keep dying, keep refusing to look up spoilers, and keep telling themselves that one more attempt is all it will take. 🕷️⚔️💀

Anyone weighing whether to grind through Hallownest first or leap straight into Pharloom usually ends up doing the same thing: refreshing store pages and waiting for a sale. Team Cherry's games are priced fairly, but regional pricing, bundle deals, and seasonal discounts vary enough that it's worth comparing before committing. Rather than hopping between a dozen storefronts and hoping the price you saw last week still holds, it helps to check game prices in one place first — especially if Silksong is going to be sitting in a wishlist for a while anyway.

There's something fitting about that kind of patience. Waiting for a discount is its own small test of restraint, not unlike resisting the urge to look up a boss strategy after the tenth death. Both reward the player who holds out just a little longer, and both make the eventual payoff feel earned. Until the next attempt — or the next sale — the mask stays cracked and the determination stays intact.