I waited a few days to write this; I had to make sure that I hadn’t hallucinated it.
Silksong, the highly anticipated sequel to the hit Indie game, Hollow Knight, is going to be released on September 4, 2025. It has been in development for almost 8 years. It has been in development for so long that it has become a meme. There are entire YouTube channels with thousands of followers devoted to whether there was any Silksong news that day. There are literally people who played Hollow Knight in college, and since then have become doctors before Silksong’s release. Finally, on Thursday we will all be able to pick up Silksong and learn more about the vast world of bugs that I know and love.
I ebb and flow with my gaming. There will be years where I don’t play a video game. Then there are others where I can’t stop. My son was born in 2016, and I did not play a video game again until Saturday, January 11, 2020, at 4:17 PM when I decided I was going to play Hollow Knight. I played Metroidvanias all throughout my childhood; in fact, I’m the perfect age to have literally played the games that defined the genre: Super Metroid and Castlevania SotN. I remembered loving them, and I remembered the experience being challenging, but it wasn’t until I picked up the controller again that I learned something else: I love exploring.
Hollow Knight gripped me in that same way that Super Metroid or Castlevania did. The music, the ambience, the progression… it all compels me onward. But what Hollow Knight really got right, the thing that those others did that I never realized, was to reward me for getting lost. Sure, Cornifer will sell you a map and Iselda will sell you a compass, but you still get lost. You get tempted. You see that one room that leads from the Forgotten Crossroads to the Fungal Wastes, and you say “… I could make that jump if I had a dash.” The game doesn’t tell you to go get a dash, you just see the impossible jump and mark it in your mind for whenever you find that next upgrade.
My son has gotten to the age where he likes video games. We spend the weekend mornings playing together. One game we played recently was Animal Well; a different kind of Metroidvania. You are thrown into a new world where you know nothing and your exploration is off. The tones and score set the tone for every room you stumble through. More a platformer than a Metroidvania; however, the similarities are undeniable, and the exploration and searching out secrets was second to none. Every power-up you come across gives a sense of “huh?” but then you try it out and its completely not what you were expecting. An amazing “WHAT!?” moment when you realize the potential you have been overlooking. Since playing it myself, I found a YouTuber called Skurry who played it and perfectly exemplifies what I’m talking about:
While I am purchasing Silksong on Thursday, my son and I will be enjoying it together; which means waiting until Saturday morning to play it. I am really looking forward to jumping into a brand new game completely blind, and getting lost again (this time with a partner).