Hollow Knight: Silksong is an evil recreation stuffed and coated with distractingly great issues. Cruelty is the default, however solely often does the masks nicely and really fall to disclose the exacting monster inside. Grueling boss runbacks, devilish platforming gauntlets, and a few downright villainous assault animations clarify simply how deeply developer Team Cherry has descended into the void. But in all my hours of silky songs, nothing else compares to a superb, disempowering twist that utterly derails the sport.
That being stated, I’m about to spoil the heck out of a unbelievable second in Silksong, so if you happen to do not wish to hear that, please open the Sherma tune remix and put it on loop at max quantity. I’m additionally going to spoil a startlingly comparable sequence in Bloodborne, but when you have not performed that recreation by now, frankly that is simply on you. If something, you owe me for providing you with another excuse to play Bloodborne.
Jailbreak
Silksong’s Pharloom kingdom is residence to a jail referred to as The Slab. Just as Hornet is delivered to Pharloom towards her will in a gilded cage, it is attainable to be kidnapped by a cage-wielding enemy in the course of Act 1 – particularly, for you kidnap fans, within the japanese Deep Docks or Greymoor – and forcibly despatched to The Slab. This is what occurred to me, however none of my buddies have skilled this kidnapping, because it’s apparently attainable to keep away from this sequence fully and attain The Slab usually in Act 2.
Any recreation developer prepared to create vital occasions after which permit gamers to completely miss them, placing natural exploration and distinctive experiences above the intuition to maximise visibility and signposting, has my respect. But it is virtually a disgrace right here – virtually – as a result of The Slab kidnapping has been among the finest and most memorable sections of my Silksong playthrough.
It manages the very same trick that Bloodborne pulled off with the aptly named Kidnapper enemies that stuff you in a sack and drop you within the Yahar’gul jail in the event that they handle to kill you. (If I had a nickel for each time a famously troublesome online game actually kidnapped me, and so forth.) Both video games intentionally interrupt the participant’s plans and transport them to an brazenly hostile space that they’ve to flee with the intention to return to the principle recreation. After a number of hours of consuming dust in these video games, it looks like their creators lastly abandon all subtlety and simply seize you by the shoulders to say, “You’re going to do this now, and you’re going to like it.”
Silksong is actually more vicious. When you wake up in The Slab, all of your gear, even your red cloak, is gone. Without your needle or ranged weapons, you’re forced to punch and kick your way through the jail’s guards and inhabitants, Hornet’s spindly limbs flailing cutely in the dark and dealing about as much damage as harsh language. At this point in the game – assuming you were kidnapped in Act 1 – you may already feel weak given how quickly the difficulty curve ramps up. Guess what, bucko. Now it takes like eight hits to beat even wimpy-looking enemies, and your moveset is gutted.
Never again
Stealth and horror games are the kings of disempowerment, and a kernel of that is channeled here. Suddenly, combat is actively discouraged, or at least foolhardy. If you can run or jump by enemies in The Slab, you should. Your health is precious and limited, and your goal of reobtaining your gear, at one point dangled like a treat before a dog by an enemy with your cloak, takes priority. You are the weakest you’ve ever been, and you cannot return to your journey until you deal with this. There’s friction in game design, and then there’s sandpaper to the knuckles. (Our Silksong The Slab walkthrough can help, if you need it.)
This taunting bit with your cloak, in particular, builds a type of emotional connection that few games manage. In that moment, you and Hornet have the same thought: I want my stuff back. This has already happened to Hornet once; she was brought to Pharloom caged and weakened, left a shadow of her former strength. She is not gonna put up with it again. Recovering who and what she was is a guiding theme for Hornet’s character in many ways, and The Slab is a major milestone here. In a world that tries to take from her from the onset, Hornet finds ways to give back, repaying kindness and attacks in kind.
In a stroke of design genius, The Slab is also a fun compression of the classic Metroid premise of getting your stuff back. It’s a game within a game. What is a Metroidvania if not a series of keys and doors furnished with combat and platforming challenges? The Slab is all of that in a microcosm. A pocket Metroidvania. You start from nothing – nothingness beyond the limits of the very first minutes of the game. And as you work through it, the reveal and image of Hornet’s cloak-less form further grounds her in the world. This is what she is. She is not her iconic cloak or her flashy silk powers; she is a slender being of black and bone.
Then comes the second twist: you’re going to need a few keys to escape The Slab, and you have to engage with combat, totally unarmed, to get them. It’s not an option anymore. But you do, finally, get your stuff back. It’s a moment of triumph and rare, purposeful brutality. Hornet smashes through a metal grate, executes a bug by snapping its neck, and rips her gear from its body, fury absolutely dripping off her. Nobody stops to tell you Hornet is pissed; you can see it.
Her equipment restored, she tears through the entire jail crew and claims the key she needs to escape this place once and for all. And then it hits: you’re just here now, a far-flung corner of the map that’s leagues from where you were kidnapped. The sheer size of the game world starts to come into focus.
In one small and missable section, Silksong constructs and conveys so much about its world, its main character, and the people working against her. Making it would have taken unique combat balancing, special Hornet models and animations that will never be used again, and – most importantly – trust in players, that they might find and put up with or even enjoy this interruption, as I did. It isn’t an especially grand moment, but The Slab was the point where Silksong really got me.
Elsewhere, Oscar writes: I’ve played 100s of hours of Soulslikes, and I think Hollow Knight Silksong is harder than Elden Ring – but what makes games difficult anyway?