How Silksong builds on the Hollow Knight formula
The highly anticipated sequel to Team Cherry’s 2017 indie hit Hollow Knight, Hollow Knight: Silksong is now available.
What made Hollow Knight a standout game is the way it combined the Soulslike and Metroidvania genres in a way that feels like they always belonged together. Take the high stakes risk reward gameplay loop of Dark Souls, and apply it to a 2D platformer world with backtracking and unlockable abilities that open up new areas to explore.
Silksong builds on this relatively simple formula. Adding more game elements commonly found in the Soulslike genre to create a richer experience with more storytelling and varied combat. As these new elements are already familiar to fans of the games that they draw from they feel like natural extensions of the gameplay.
Multiple Weapon Builds
A central part of any Soulslike game is creating your build. Picking a combination of weapons, armours, modifiers etc. that complement your fighting style. Hollow Knight was relatively light on customisation. Equippable trinkets added modifiers to your character. But that was about as far as it went. In Silksong there are more options to craft a custom fighting style.
Instead of completely different weapons, in Silksong you unlock crests that modify your needle weapon’s attacks. This allows you to adapt your fighting style to suit your own playstyle. Or to switch to a crest that gives you an advantage over a particularly challenging boss.
I’ve only unlocked two crests so far in my playthrough. It will be interesting to see whether there are other crests that more radically alter your weapon’s abilities.
Side quests
Optional side missions provide a way to explore more of a game’s world, take on extra challenges, and gain additional rewards and upgrades. In a game as challenging as Silksong, where any slight advantage can be crucial. Seeking out and completing these quests can make a huge difference in how you progress.
Silksong calls side quests wishes. Some are simple fetch quests with little to no story, and some help to flesh out characters you meet along the way. These can be found by talking to characters you meet on your journey, as well as (in a move completely borrowed from RPG games) bulletin boards in the settlements you encounter.
The quests add new enemies and collectibles to previously explored areas. Giving players more reasons to backtrack and visit those areas. Building on the Metroidvania DNA in the Hollow Knight franchise.
Companions in boss fights
Garmond and Zaza. Who can be summoned to aid you in a difficult early boss fight
Another idea borrowed from the Soulslike genre is summonable NPC characters that aid you in boss fights. These can be an invaluable advantage in difficult encounters. Not just because they also damage the bosses, they also divide the attention of the boss between two targets.
Unlike other Soulslike games there doesn’t seem to be a way to summon other players to assist you, or to join other players games as a cooperator. Perhaps this would have affected the overall vibes of a lonely journey that Team Cherry was trying to achieve. Nothing ruins the melancholy mood like a player named ButtSniffer69 appearing in your game.
So far these cooperators seem pretty rare. I’ve only seen one in the first few hours of playing the game. Hopefully there are more, cos I could really use the help! And also because fighting alongside characters is a great way to show their personality and progress their storylines.
I’ve still got a lot more Silksong to experience. So there may well be more elements of Soulslike and Metroidvania games that I haven’t encountered yet.