Hollow Knight: Silksong is the long-awaited second game by Team Cherry, a small indie studio based out of Australia. After seven years of minimal information about the game, it was revealed in late August that it would be released in two weeks, and with no early access for journalists. This meant that when the fateful day arrived, gamers swarmed en masse to buy it, slowing down or outright crashing many established sites, including Steam, Xbox Game Pass, and the Nintendo eShop.

Having already played the originalHollow Knight (and only two achievements shy of 100% it), I was worried about how it would compare, but I was blown away. All those years in development show in how polished and optimized the game is.

There is no denying that Team Cherry stepped up their game (pun intended) when developing the world of Pharloom. Compared to the first game, the map is enormous and holds vastly more secret offshoots and hidden areas than Hallownest. The game itself is much larger, too.

At the time of writing, Ihave put just under 26 hours into playing and have only managed to make it about half-way through Act II. In comparison, my first 26 hours ofHollow Knight went towards one 100% playthrough and several hours of exploring what the DLChad to offer. Additionally, there is a much larger variety of enemy and boss types toencounter, several towns to engage with, and anew system of accepting and tracking side-quests that previously would have to just be remembered or written down.

As far as mechanics are concerned, both games are similar. hards to collect that boost your health or special move reserves, four-dimensional dashing, etc. In contrast, the nature of Hornet’s move set is that the use of charms is replaced with two systems: tools and crests. Crests can be collected in optional areas throughout the game that change the basic nail attacks, such as the Wanderer’s Crest giving you a faster swing. These crests have different notches on them which allow for the placement of all the different tools Hornet can use, allowing for much more customized play styles (and cooler speedrunning tech).

Some people have criticized Team Cherry for ramping up the difficulty forSilksong, citing harder gauntlet sections, more enemies that do double damage, and harder platforming. Coming from aDark Souls andCeleste background, I enjoy the extra challenge, but if you prefer to only ever die to a boss once or twice before beating it, or aren’t particularly fond of the platforming aspect, then you may keep that in mind when considering whether to play it.

Continuing with the theme ofSilksong being an overall improvement of whatHollow Knightstarted, the art in this game is immaculate. Every new group of enemies has a consistent but unique design that feels fitting for the area and/or their lore, and the backgrounds consistently create the atmosphere of the world being larger than it is, encouraging you to explore every area.

Despite this, the game is incredibly optimized on the performance side as well. I am having to play the game on a workstation laptop with a GTX 1650, but the game runs smoothly, even on battery saver mode. The file size is quite small for a game of this scale as well at just over 7.5 GB.

Christopher Larkin hits another home run here, folks. The ambient tracks perfectly encapsulate the vibe of the areas they play in, and the battle music I’ve encountered so far has had a decent level of variety between the different bosses and gauntlets. Not to mention, the soundtrack is great to put on while working on other things (such as writing a game review forSilksong).

Slightly unrelated to the music itself, but the soundtrack comes with both .mp3 and .flac files, allowing for offline listening of the full uncompressed audio if you have a decent media player, which is a huge win for audiophiles. All I can ask for from the soundtrack at this point is for there to eventually be a “piano collections” album like there was for Hollow Knight.

So far, I’ve run into very few issues withSilksong. However, there are still a few weak points that could hamper the enjoyment of the game for some. My biggest annoyance has been the gauntlet sections. These are the various rooms you come across that lock you in until you beat a certain number of waves. Usually, these are a nice change of pace from the normal exploration and aren’t too challenging, but there are a couple of very difficult ones, namely one that is required to beat to finish Act II, which throws a brand-new miniboss at you in wave 5, and then another two in wave 10.

Benches, as well, are much more sprawled out and costly compared to those inHollow Knight. This is partially balanced by the ability to store some of the in-game currency in your inventory to prevent losing it on death, but all this generally skews the difficulty to be less inviting to someone who is perhaps only looking for a cozy experience.

From what I’ve played so far, I cannot recommendSilksong enough for those who enjoy Metroidvanias, or anyone who is looking to get into the genre. The difficulty is just high enough to provide a fun challenge for veterans while not being too hard to push beginners away, and several of the more difficult sections have ways you can make them easier if you’re really struggling with them.

The music and art immerse you in the world from the moment you see that first cutscene, and the gameplay is very fluid, especially with a controller (I have not tried playing either Hollow Knight game with keyboard and mouse). Even though it’s been less than a month since its release, many consider the game to be a solid Game of the Year contender, and I think it has a decent shot of winning as well.