By Saniah Etienne

With anxious anticipation, many fans have awaited the release of Hollow Knight Silksong. However, Silksong has been my first experience with the Hollow Knight series. Typically, I enjoy some research on a game before I first play it, but I wanted to challenge myself and embrace the authentic first-time experience. So I dove in.

My first impression was the gorgeous graphics and peculiar setting. I knew I was a hornet in a red dress holding a blade, but I had no idea what I was doing. You start in a lush moss grotto, and the visuals are adorable. You kill these small moss critters and maneuver through the grotto using parkour. Judging by the first minutes, I thought the game would be enjoyable and easygoing. But Silksong does not offer much of an objective. 

The initial allure wore off after a couple of minutes and was replaced with confusion. 

As simple as it seemed, I was really bad at it. The checkpoints were also very spaced out, which made the process of getting back on track quite drawn out. The most notable example of this was when it took me an hour to defeat the first boss. I felt so hopeless, I searched up a tutorial on “How to defeat Moss Mother”. I opened the comments expecting to find other players facing the same challenge as me. One person said, “If you need a tutorial for this, you are unworthy of this game.” That’s a bit much. But perhaps this statement has some truth to it. Hollow Knight Silksong can be inaccessible for new players. 

The concept of progress here is complex. On the surface level, the player’s main goals are to discover new areas, tools, and defeat bosses. But the deeper challenge was mastering the more subtle complexities. Before I could even focus on defeating Bell Beast, who looked like a pill bug with armor, I had to learn how to fight three new kinds of enemies and navigate new traps. Then, after spending a significant amount of time, I would die and be forced to do it all over again. The constant need to adapt to new threats was emotionally draining. This low level stress became as high as a barrier as any boss. 

While the gameplay was discouraging, the visuals were a primary source of motivation. The game’s hand drawn art style is extremely well done. It was frustrating to adapt to different enemies but was always nice to see how the terrain and details changed in different locations. 

The learning curve of SIlksong  did not feel intuitive or natural. Typically, the earliest levels of a game are things developers easy you into. You’re shown the new mechanics and get a feel for what’s to come. Eventually, the game progresses and gets more difficult. 

However, Hollow Knight: Silksong starts difficult and only gets more difficult. It feels as if the game is working to deter the player rather than engage them. 

The narrative approach was somewhat befuddling, perhaps due to my lack of familiarity with the game’s lore. As a result, I struggled to grasp my overarching objective. It was hard to fully immerse myself in the story. When character dialogue provided details about Hornets’ journey, I often felt disengaged. Hollow Knight is a work of art. I can see that. For those who are already deeply immersed in the game, it may even be a masterpiece. For a newcomer, it is visually appealing but ultimately very difficult to truly engage with. 

Saniah Etienne is NYVGCC’s newest intern. She attends The Lab School in the Bronx and will be an undergraduate at Howard University starting this summer.

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