‘Silksong’s Difficulty Patch Can’t Fix The Game’s Biggest Problem

In the week since Hollow Knight: Silksong launched, the game’s difficulty has dominated conversations about it. It’s undoubtedly a more punishing game than Hollow Knight, which has left some players (on PC at least) scrambling for mods to tone down some of its more sadistic edges. Now, developer Team Cherry is issuing the first patch aimed at tweaking Silksong’s difficulty in a few small ways, but its limited scope means it doesn’t come close to changing the game’s biggest nuisances.

Due the week of September 15, Silksong’s upcoming patch introduces a smattering of fixes across the game. Aside from squashing a few bugs, its main focus is toning down difficulty in a few targeted ways. The Moorwing and Sister Splinter bosses are getting a “slight difficulty reduction” while certain enemies will do a little less damage. The cost of opening some benches and Bell Beast stations is going down, and you’ll get more rosaries in a few specific circumstances. Otherwise, the much-discussed difficulty of the game remains unchanged.

For anyone currently banging their buggy little head against the two altered early game bosses or struggling to pay their bench tolls, the patch should soften the game just a bit. But extremely specific tweaks like this hardly scratch the surface of what’s turning some players off of Silksong entirely. Namely, that it’s not just a difficult game, but one that seems to make difficulty the focus of much of its design.

For some players, that’s a welcome thing. The entire “masocore” scene revolves around difficulty, after all, and it has plenty of fans. But while Hollow Knight could be a difficult game, it didn’t feel focused on difficulty for its own sake in the way that Silksong does.

For as much attention as Silksong’s bosses have gotten in conversations about difficulty, there’s not one singular part of the game that makes it hard, and I wouldn’t even put boss fights near the top of the list. They can be very tough, to be sure, but the parts of Silksong that cross the line from difficulty to frustration are more systemic, made of countless smaller decisions throughout its design.

Where the player character in Hollow Knight is a wanderer, Hornet is a hunter. It makes sense, then, that Silksong puts more emphasis on combat and less on the original game’s slow-paced exploration. But as someone who enjoyed the methodical discovery of Hollow Knight, the sequel’s focus on combat has much less to offer me. More than that, Silksong’s version of difficulty relies on overwhelming the player with enemies while keeping Hornet herself underpowered.

The rosary economy might be a little less busted after the new update, but Silksong is still a stingy game, doling out precious little currency whether you’re exploring or felling bosses, while asking you to spend much more. Unlocking benches and fast-travel points can quickly empty your wallet, and as in the original game, dying forces you to drop all the money you’re carrying, which disappears if you fall again without recovering it. But in Silksong, that feels much more punishing, both because of the scarcity of rosaries and how quickly you can drop.

Platforming challenges are brutal this time around, and unless you change to an equippable crest that alters her moveset, mastering Hornet’s confounding diagonal leaping slash is a requirement. The game also has a habit of sprinkling flying enemies throughout these sections, which constantly dart just out of reach before zooming back in to attack. Some of the toughest platforming sections in the early game also stand between bosses and the benches where you respawn, meaning you’ll have to complete them over and over to proceed.

One reason the game’s bosses are so tough is that they demand total concentration. Even when you’re just getting started in Silksong, and thus lack many tools to make fights easier, bosses tend to follow similarly devious patterns. They’re uniformly fast and can hit for two points of damage per attack, which makes it tough to gauge how many more hits you can even sustain. Most summon additional enemies during the fight and tend to drop rocks and other hazards from the top of the screen at the same time. That’s a lot to keep track of, and Hornet’s moveset often feels inadequate to meet the challenge, meaning you can face defeat within seconds of entering the boss arena, leaving no time to consider your strategy or learn their patterns.

None of that would necessarily be a problem if overcoming bosses and platforming runs were rewarding, but it’s clear that for a lot of players (myself included), it’s just not. In Silksong, you’re more likely to get a paltry handful of rosaries or nothing at all for your efforts as you are to unlock some interesting new ability. Worse yet, beating a boss in Hollow Knight usually meant gaining access to some new area to explore, giving you a rest from the challenge while letting you indulge in its wonderful environments.

But Silksong is relentless, bringing challenge after challenge with little room to rest or reflect on your journey. Playing Silksong feels like being shuttled from one ass-kicking to another with no time between to enjoy the impressive sights and sounds of Pharloom. I’ve enjoyed plenty of difficult games, but I suspect that I won’t be spending much more time in Silksong. The best parts of games like Dark Souls for me are those sublime moments of peace after overcoming a tough challenge, but here, the challenge feels hollow.

Hollow Knight: Silksong is available now on PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC.