Was this how people who didn’t care about Baldur’s Gate 3 or Elden Ring felt when I was losing my shit over those games? When a release date was finally announced for Hollow Knight: Silksong and the memetic hype surrounding the long-awaited sequel reached a fever pitch, I felt the mild excitement and interest I had for the game curdle. Everyone is being so goddamn annoying.
Last Thursday, with Steam buckling and Silksong on everybody’s lips, I was at the nadir of my excitement, predicting a sea of perfect 10s that would look embarrassing in a year’s time. It seemed like it could be one of those games where, once everything dies down, the consensus becomes “Yeah, it was pretty good, but we all got way too worked up about it.” The Bioshock: Infinite special.
I didn’t always feel sour about the collective Silksanity or its quirky outflows—I still have to put some respect on the commitment of Daily Silksong News, a worthy successor to the Daily Elden Ring Update—but the final crescendo of excitement, memes, and (worst of all) discourse just chafed my hams: Silksong’s hype and anticipation had entered the realm of the absurd or parodical, a performance carried out on Reddit for the benefit of other Redditors
My distaste for the discourse had a wonderful side effect, though: It turned the much-anticipated sequel to a game I loved into a perfectly blank slate, one I went into with almost zero expectations.
It’s good
As you’ve surely read (perhaps in contributor Tyler Colp’s 90% review?) or experienced for yourself by now, Team Cherry did an amazing job: A consummate “bigger and better” sequel like Doom 2, Portal 2, or Baldur’s Gate 2. I remembered really loving Hollow Knight, and being excited for its sequel when a 2019 Nintendo Treehouse hands-on made it seem like Silksong’s release was right around the corner.
But the specifics had slipped away from me over the intervening years as I never found the time to replay it. Taking those first steps in the Moss Grotto made it all come flooding back. Oh yeah, that’s why everyone was so jazzed about it.
I’m gelling with Silksong’s combat and platforming more than some of my coworkers, but it’s Team Cherry’s aesthetic craftsmanship and the wonderful sense of discovery that make this a game of the year contender for me. The rich, detailed backgrounds, incredible animation, and Chris Larkin’s stirring, mournful soundtrack all just pulled me in. Both Hollow Knights also boast a level of diegetic, immersive sound that remind me of greats like Thief or Amnesia, which feels baffling when it’s coming from a 2D platformer.
It’s tense and thrilling to press into a new area, desperately cocking an ear for the singing of mapmaker Shakra to help finally get my arms around the zone. There’s also the surprise and visual spectacle of entering an unexplored part of Pharloom and being faced with something that seems to defy physics or my understanding of how the kingdom is laid out: I felt almost dizzy when I zoomed up through the central shaft of the Far Fields to emerge into the Greymoor for the first time.
I’ve got to eat some crow for my fairly private and tepid Silksong skepticism as I find my thoughts drifting to it during the workday, easily eclipsing the other games I was trying to finish before the fall release rush began in earnest. And maybe I should be grateful to the obnoxious cacophony of memes and internet discourse for temporarily turning me into a Silksong hater: It helped magnify the personal impact of a really great game.
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