Is Silksong fun? It depends. Hollow Knight: Silksong scores 7/10 for fun. Hornet feels amazing to control from the first room, but two-hit enemies, long runbacks and costly benches turn too many fights into repeats.
Where this score comes from: Steam player reviews, last checked against 351 recent and most-helpful English reviews in November 2026. Hollow Knight: Silksong on Steam
Silksong is the sequel Hollow Knight fans waited seven years for. You play as Hornet, a far quicker hero than the Knight, in a new kingdom called Pharloom. It costs $19.99, and it is one of the harshest games Team Cherry has made.
For fans of hard platformers, it is a feast. Nine in ten players under 20 hours recommend it for the movement, the bosses, the art and the music. But many of those happy reviews carry a warning: beat the first Hollow Knight before you start, because Silksong assumes you already know how these games work. The negative reviews from newer players all say the same thing. The fights wear down your patience more than they test your hands.
Hard is fine. Hard that makes you walk back across half a zone before every retry is time spent not having fun.
Hornet moves like a dancer. Players compare her to a ballerina, and even the angriest reviews praise the movement. Sprinting, dashing and ledge grabs make crossing a huge map feel like play rather than travel.
Combat with real choices. Crests change your whole moveset, and tools like spears and knives let you build around a fight. Bosses get the most love; one player died to a single boss more than 20 times and still wanted to fight it again.
A world worth getting lost in. Rosary beads bounce when the screen shakes, bugs react to noise, and hidden walls lead to whole areas a casual player can miss. For the price, players call the amount of content hard to believe.
Everything hits for two. Ordinary enemies and hazards take two masks per hit, so a full health bar is gone after a few mistakes. Players say regular enemies can feel harder than the bosses.
Long runbacks and costly benches. Benches sit far apart, some cost rosaries, and gauntlet rooms rarely have one nearby. Die, and you walk all the way back past enemies placed to knock you off a jump, then chase down your lost rosaries. Even big fans call the runbacks the worst part.
A harsh first act. You start with no map, and one new player spent their first half hour looping through the same rooms. Some call Act 1 the hardest stretch to enjoy, the worst place for a game to be at its meanest. Act 3 balance drives off some 80-hour players too, but that matters less.
If you finished Hollow Knight and wanted more, only harder, yes. Silksong is one of the best feeling 2D games around. If you are new to the series or short on patience, start with Hollow Knight. It is slower to get going but kinder when you fail, and it teaches you what Silksong expects you to know.
For comparison, we rated Ori and the Will of the Wisps 9/10 and Cuphead 9/10 on the same fun-only scale.
See where it lands in the most overrated games.
Hollow Knight: Silksong scores 7/10 on immediate fun. Hornet moves like a dream from the first room. Then two-hit enemies and long runbacks turn fights into chores.
Long runbacks. Two-mask hits.
One question: did it deliver immediate fun? Graphics, story depth, difficulty and critical acclaim are ignored. Pick-up-and-play accessibility is rewarded; anything that makes you wait for the fun to start is penalized.
How we score: We don't care about graphics, story depth, or critical acclaim. One question — did it deliver immediate fun? We reward pick-up-and-play accessibility and penalize anything that makes you wait for the fun to start.