Hollow Knight Developer Team Cherry Explains Why Silksong is More Difficult

As a huge fan of *Hollow Knight*, I’ve been following all the discussion around *Hollow Knight: Silksong*, and a lot of people were worried it was going to be way harder than the first game. It’s been a big topic of debate! But Team Cherry finally spoke up, and it sounds like the increased difficulty mostly comes down to playing as a different character – Hornet! It makes sense, right? A new protagonist means a new way to play and probably a steeper learning curve.

After a long wait, *Hollow Knight: Silksong* was released on PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and Nintendo Switch on September 4th. The game quickly became highly anticipated among gamers, generating excitement similar to that for major titles like *Grand Theft Auto 6* or *The Elder Scrolls 6*, despite being an independent production. However, many players found *Silksong* significantly more challenging than the original *Hollow Knight*. To address this, the first update made minor adjustments to reduce the difficulty of two of the game’s early boss battles.

Team Cherry Addresses Silksong Difficulty Controversy

While some players appreciated that a few bosses were made a little easier, many still find *Hollow Knight: Silksong* very challenging. The developers at Team Cherry recently explained why the game is harder than the original *Hollow Knight* at the ACMI Game Worlds Exhibition (as reported by Dexerto). According to Team Cherry’s Ari Gibson, this is because Hornet is a faster and more skilled character than the Knight, so even basic enemies needed to be more complex and smarter.

Team Cherry acknowledges that *Silksong* is a more complex game than *Hollow Knight*, but they’ve designed it to give players a lot of freedom. According to Team Cherry’s Gibson, players can either follow the main story straight through, or they can explore and discover side content and alternative paths. They also explain that players can make *Silksong*’s boss fights easier by exploring, learning enemy patterns, or even finding ways to avoid the fights altogether.

Regarding the new main character in *Silksong*, Hornet, the developers at Team Cherry aimed to create enemies that were challenging for her skillset, rather than reducing her abilities. According to William Pellen, even basic enemies share moves with the original Hornet boss fight. They compared Hornet to the player character from *Hollow Knight*, explaining that while both characters have similar movement options like dashing and jumping, Hornet’s enemies needed more ways to keep up with her and prevent her from escaping, unlike the enemies in *Hollow Knight*.

Even though some players have found the game challenging, *Silksong* has quickly become more popular than the original *Hollow Knight*. Shortly after its release earlier this month, *Silksong* broke the player count record previously held by *Hollow Knight* from 2017. On September 6th, just two days after launching, *Hollow Knight: Silksong* reached a peak of over 587,000 players on Steam. This is significantly higher than *Hollow Knight*’s peak of 95,655 players, which it achieved on September 7th.

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2025-09-18 17:09