Not only is Hollow Knight: Silksong real, I've played it, and it's harder and faster than the original – but is it better?

Hornets are generally considered pests because of how aggressive they are. Their stings are more dangerous than those of bees, and as a genus they are generally considered some of the most vicious insects out there. Their stings can kill (and about 62 deaths a year are attributed to hornets in the US alone). Makes sense that you’d use one for a video game protagonist then.

Hollow Knight: SilksongDeveloper: Team CherryPublisher: Team CherryPlatform: Played on Xbox Series X/SAvailability: Out 2025 on PC, (Steam), PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and Switch 2

I played a small demo of Silksong at gamescom – the first time the game has been playable to the public since 2019, and where the press had chance to play the same demo as the huddled masses – and one thing struck me harder than anything else: this is harder than Hollow Knight.

Now, I’m quite pleased about that. Hollow Knight had a peculiar difficulty curve; it always felt quite simple and straight-laced as an action platformer for the majority of the base game, escalating rapidly in challenge as you got towards the end, and then going completely off the rails in the DLC and post-game. It feels, at first swipe, that Silksong is carrying on the same trajectory. And that’s kind of fascinating.

So, context. There are two levels in the Gamescom demo: an easy one from near the start of the game, and a harder one from near the end. Because I’m a Metroidvania sicko, I autopiloted to the hard one. Straight away, you can feel the difference: Hornet controls differently to the Knight from the first game. She’s floatier, and her attacks seem to have a little more range. Her up attack seems to come out a bit quicker (meaning you can dispatch flying enemies quite quickly if you can position yourself right) and her side attacks seem a little bit slower.

It’s in the dash and the jump, though, that I found the most distance from the original game. Instead of the (in)famous pogo you could do in Hollow Knight, where attacking down from a jump would pop you up in a straight line, Hornet has a dive kick. That’s a downward, diagonal attack. You can no longer bop enemies on the head repeatedly (a very useful and overpowered tactic in the original game) without some good positioning and understanding of physics. This caught me off guard in a boss battle against an arrogant little bug with a needle of its own called Lace, as I tried to do my usual Hollow Knight pogo spam before getting countered and parried by Lace herself. Oops.