Hollow Knight: Silksong

Hollow Knight: Silksong is a full sequel to Hollow Knight (2017) from the Australian studio Team Cherry (three developers plus composer Christopher Larkin from Adelaide). The game came out on September 4, 2025 after seven years of waiting. Development began as a DLC for Kickstarter backers, but grew into a separate project. Silksong sold 7M+ copies by December 2025 and won the award for Best Action/Adventure Game at The Game Awards 2025.

The main character is Hornet, a former princess-protector of the kingdom, known from the original game as one of the main bosses. She is kidnapped and taken to Pharloom, a withered land (an arid, desolate land) struck by the "Haunting" plague of silk and song. Pharloom is a new kingdom, not a return to the familiar locations of Hallownest: it has more than 20 regions, from the tutorial greenery of Moss Grotto to the golden city of The Citadel with seven inner zones.

The gameplay differs noticeably from the original. Hornet is faster and attacks from farther away: the needle and thread give a range advantage over the Knight's short strikes. The healing system has been reworked: Hornet can heal even in the air, but spends her whole silk reserve at once, which forces aggressive attacking to refill the resource. Instead of charms there are Tools (passive and offensive), Crests (which change basic attacks) and Silk Skills (special moves).

The difficulty is higher than the original, and this is a deliberate decision by the authors, not an accidental imbalance. Bosses in the first act are already more aggressive than the late mini-bosses of Hollow Knight. Team Cherry adjusts the difficulty with patches based on community feedback. An honest guideline: if Hollow Knight felt too hard, Silksong is not for you.

Reception by critics and players: Metacritic 91, Steam 93% positive from 373,449 reviews. 535K concurrent players on release day, with a peak of 587,150 (#17 in Steam history, roughly 8 times higher than the peak of the first game). Day-1 on Xbox Game Pass: more than 1M players through the subscription in three days, while Steam sales did not drop.

There is no voice acting in the game at all: all dialogue of Hornet and NPCs is presented as text lines, as in the original (the studio's authorial decision). After The Game Awards 2025, Team Cherry announced the free expansion Sea of Sorrow, Hornet's journey overseas; the release date has not been announced yet, and it will appear in the Steam library automatically.

Hollow Knight: Silksong - sequel to the Metroidvania hit (Metroidvania is a genre with an open world and skill progression) Hollow Knight by Team Cherry. You play as the princess-protector Hornet in the new kingdom of Pharloom: faster, more aggressive and harder than the original. Full Russian translation of text and interface. Metacritic 91, 7M+ copies sold.