Look down. That’s my early tip for Hollow Knight: Silksong, which I’ve been playing for an evening and a morning by this point. On a high ledge? Above a promising gap? Look down. Chances are the developers have put something just within visible range to guide you a little.
I am – this is a weird sentence – quite a fan of looking down in games. Or rather, I’m a fan of games that specifically allow you to look down. Hollow Knight, Silksong, Spelunky: these are games in which situational awareness really matters. Wherever you are, they seem to say, you are inside a moment. This is not just an empty stretch of gameworld, or padding between here and there. Look down and you might avoid something dangerous. Or you might see something wonderful.
The looking down spirit goes deep too. If I had to sum up my time with Silksong so far, I’d say that it’s a game that prioritises paying attention above all else. That might not seem as if the sexiest of virtues is being foregrounded, but paying attention in games is actually brilliant. Games that need you to pay attention absolutely rule.
Metroidvanias often put a premium on this stuff, of course. Look at the map, but look hard: are there promising chunks of negative space in there where something might be hidden? Look at the walls, but really try to see what your eyes are passing over. Are there cracks that suggest new routes, new chambers? Is there more to this world hidden in front of you?
In Silksong this goes a lot deeper. Bosses? So far I’ve found at least one which is significantly less of a hurdle if you really look at the environment in which you’re fighting. Collectibles? Silksong’s main currency – I absolutely adore this – is rosary beads. Tiny little things, vital for buying maps and supplies but easy to miss as they scatter across the ground. You have to really pay attention to make sure you’ve grabbed them all.
Onwards and upwards. Silksong is not against cheesing, and making various elements of the resource grind a little easier for you, but you need to spot these opportunities, in the same way you once spotted a bonfire in Dark Souls that allowed you to collect souls in vast quantities. It wants to link distant spots and provide handy respites, but it wants you to work for these things – not just to earn them, but to see the possibilities for them.
I almost suspected a lot of this. Of course I knew that Silksong would be one of those games you have to really lean in to play, the kind that sees your shoulders tensed and your whole body tilted towards the screen, as if your entire being knows it can’t miss a thing. But I think I always sort of knew that the extra development time was not just being used to make the game bigger, but to make it richer, more alive with incidental elements and secrets and the details that make a design feel packed with potential.
True story: I’m not sleeping brilliantly at the moment. For whatever reason I’m awake and trying to get comfortable at three in the morning, desperate to find a way to keep my eyes shut. But after just one evening playing Silksong, I stepped away from the Switch 2 and realised I was absolutely exhausted. All that paying attention! I had put everything into what I’d been doing because the game had asked it of me, because the game had already put everything it had into the experience too. Last night I slept beautifully. And dreamt of caverns, and bugs, and secrets that were hidden beneath my feet.
