Hollow Knight: Silksong follows the ostensible rule of all sequels: play the first game first. Or at least that’s what Big Gaming wants you to think. I bounced off the original Hollow Knight after, like, five minutes, but still jumped right into Silksong on release. While I obviously can’t assess what the alternative would’ve been like, I’m nevertheless convinced I’ve made the right choice.
So the question isn’t “Can you play Silksong before Hollow Knight?” That answer is simple: Yes.
The question you’re better off asking is: “Should you play Silksong before Hollow Knight?”
You probably know the story by now. Hollow Knight: Silksong, the follow-up to Team Cherry’s beloved 2017 Metroidvania, finally wrapped a legendary six-year-long hype cycle. On Aug. 21, Team Cherry announced a Sept. 4 release date for Silksong, giving the world two weeks of lead time. In anticipation of the release, many people, including several of my colleagues, started playing or replaying the original Hollow Knight. I did not. (Sorry, too caught up playing GOTY contender Metal Eden.)
The wisdom of my decision was made immediately clear. In the original Hollow Knight, the downward slash attack sends you straight down, as advertised. But in Silksong, at least in the early hours, the downward slash attack sends you toward the ground at a 45-degree angle. Multiple colleagues have expressed consternation at this change, tripped up by muscle memory they’ve honed over the past two weeks. To me, though, “down = diagonal for some reason” is just… the way Hollow Knight is. Nothing for me to relearn here.
Silksong modernizes some other aspects of Hollow Knight for the better, as well. The original game famously started you off with nothing to go on, to the point where some players would take to Steam forums to ask questions like, “So…What’s my objective exactly?” Silksong is more respectful of your time, offering a clear goal from the start: “Go to the Citadel.” Love that. No clue what this “Citadel” is, but I’m all for unambiguous direction.
Where I’ve been lost is narratively, but not in any way that’s offputting. I get that the main character, Hornet, is a political prisoner of sorts, has been carted off to a faraway land, and is seeking to understand the rationale behind her imprisonment. But beyond that? Beats me, man! While I have a ton of questions (What sort of bugpocalypse happened here? Why do these bugs never clean up their skeletons? How deep are the religious undertones gonna get? Why is the music for this little game so good?), I’m fine not knowing the answers just yet. It’s all vibes for now. I’ll figure it out eventually.
I suspect that some of these questions would be answered by playing Hollow Knight (or reading its Wikipedia page). I also suspect that the mystique is the point — that, in fact, by not playing the original, I’ve effectively recreated in Silksong a level of intrigue that helped make its predecessor so popular in the first place.
So yeah, you can play Silksong without playing Hollow Knight first. I’d even recommend it. Worst case, you can go full Star Wars — treat Silksong like it’s A New Hope and Hollow Knight like it’s The Phantom Menace. After all, we all know which one of those is the better one to start with.