This week, gaming’s biggest running joke comes to an end. Hollow Knight: Silksong launches on Sept. 4 after years of patience as fans waited for Team Cherry to cook. Even with the big day nearly here, the Australian developer is holding on to the mystique until the very last second. No review codes were sent out to press or content creators ahead of launch, so we’re all going to find out if it was worth the wait together.
If you want a small taste of what to expect, though, Polygon got hands-on with Hollow Knight: Silksong ahead of its grand reveal. In a demo running on the upcoming Xbox ROG Ally X, I played roughly an hour of the anticipated Metroidvania. While that only gave me the tiniest of teasers, it was enough to confirm that, yes, it’s real, and yes, it’s still very much Hollow Knight.
After an eerie cinematic that set up the cryptic story and showed off how much Team Cherry’s production value has evolved in the years since its first hit, I was dropped into Moss Grotto. The introductory area served more as a showpiece for the sequel’s art than anything, but for good reason. I’m immediately taken aback by just how much the developer has turned its signature style up a notch. Rather than crawling through dreary corridors, I walked through a densely detailed sea of greenery. It’s still ominous, especially as atmospheric music creeps in the background, but it immediately makes it clear that the sequel can keep its tone even with the brightness turned up.
After some simple, Metroid-like platforming and slashing a few unfriendly bugs, I’m given my first true battle when I’m put up against Moss Mother. The flying bug isn’t much of a challenge, zipping back and forth across the screen and occasionally dropping some boulders from the ceiling. It’s a standard enough fight to let me get acquainted with the Hornet’s basic slashes and test out my aerial diagonal dives.
It’s there that I remember what Hollow Knight actually is. For the long years since I first played it, I’ve gradually grown to recall it as a high-skill action game cut from the same cloth as Dark Souls. It is, in some ways, but not exactly how I remembered. 90% of the work comes down to pattern recognition. You could say that’s true of most action games, but it’s especially central to Hollow Knight considering that the actual combat is fairly modest. I wait for Moss Mother to pass overhead, dodge a few jumping slashes, wait for another pattern to cross, a few more slashes, and eventually build up a stun to get a few bonus smacks in. Easy enough!
How deep the Hornet’s skill set goes is still a mystery, but I got a taste of it when warping ahead to Deep Docks. The environment, which looks more like the dreary level design I know from the previous game, turns up the heat just a bit while giving me access to my dash and a thrusting strike on my right bumper. After some light spatial puzzling to find some hidden currency, I drop into an arena and have to beat a few waves of bugs. (My favorite of the bunch is a cute little critter who uses a cymbal as a shield, forcing me to really nail my diving strikes to hit its vulnerable side.)
I won’t lie: I died a whole bunch of times during that encounter. It wasn’t that it was difficult so much that I needed to adjust to the tweaked healing and spell UI. Both pull from the same energy gauge that is represented as a small spool of silk. It’s a bit harder to tell how much energy you actually have available as a result of that change. I’d often find myself trying to cast a heal only to realize I didn’t have enough juice. That scared me off from using my spells in more desperate fights.
The most desperate of those came at the end of my session, after I unlocked a gate that led me to a pint-sized boss named Lace. I died so quickly on my first attempt that I assumed it was a fight I wasn’t supposed to win. I was wrong! After just another attempt or two, I picked up on her attack patterns and slashed out a victory, earning my little euphoria rush.
If none of this sounds all that juicy, then you might want to check your expectations ahead of launch day. Unless Team Cherry is keeping an ace hidden up its sleeve, Silksong doesn’t feel like it’s out to eat its predecessor’s lunch. Instead, it feels like a classy refinement of what came before with more colorful art direction that really pops. (It’s as if it was built for 2025’s wave of improved handhelds, equipped with bright, 120Hz displays.)
That should be great news for anyone who just wants more Hollow Knight, but those who never really got the hype could still wind up feeling out of the loop. Even in a very short slice, I still saw signs of minor annoyances like long treks between benches and hard combat rooms. Hollow Knight has inspired countless games since its initial release, including critical hits like Nine Sols that iterated on its formula and arguably brought it to new heights. Is Hollow Knight great enough that a very direct sequel will still feel in pace with a genre that’s just started to rise above its bar?
We won’t have to wait much longer to find out; the mystery will be revealed this week. Even after thwarting a pair of bosses, I still feel like I’m entirely in the dark, ready to see where the tunnels lead me. Let’s see what’s on the other side together.
Hollow Knight: Silksong launches on Sept. 4 for Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
