No, you’re not hallucinating — that is Hollow Knight: Silksong live on the Switch eShop. After years of waiting, Team Cherry has delivered its Hollow Knight follow-up today (4th September 2025), with Hornet taking centre stage this time around.
Now, as you’re no doubt are aware at this point, review codes for Silksong were not available prior to the game’s launch, so we’re currently playing it right alongside you lot. We’ll have our full review out as soon as we’ve trudged the breadth and depth (heights?) of Pharloom, but in the meantime, we wanted the team to get together and share their early thoughts on the games.
Of course, we also want to hear what you all think of Silksong so far. We’re sure there’s still hours of content for everyone to discover, but what are you liking most so far? Do you have a favourite location or boss? Let us know in the comments, but first, here’s what team NL thinks so far…
The devil’s in the details (Ollie Reynolds, staff writer)
I must admit, I wasn’t quite so hot on the original Hollow Knight compared to my pals here at Nintendo Life. I liked it well enough, but I just felt like something was missing… I still can’t quite tell you what, though.
Playing through the opening moments of Silksong, however, I suspect I might just enjoy this one a little bit more. Hornet feels a lot more agile than Hollow Knight’s protagonist, and I love the little backstep she does before turning in the other direction; a blatant nod to Symphony of the Night if I ever saw one.
The environment is generally a lot more visually pleasing too, with floating embers lighting up the background, and the soft, mossy ground sinking ever-so-slightly as you make your way across.
That said, small details aside, this is very much ‘more Hollow Knight’ so far, and I can only hope that the game has a few more tricks up its sleeve as I progress.
What’s a Silksong? (Gavin Lane, editor)
Look, I just started Hollow Knight a couple of weeks back, so after resisting downloading this in the eShop frenzy earlier — despite having access to the page while all around me were crashing! — I’ll do the responsible thing and wait for a sale on this one. First discount will be in, what, 2029?
Sorry. Next!
Rewiring my bug brain (Jim Norman, staff writer)
Yikes, well I’ll change the tone from Gavin’s entry as I am playing the game and that I love Hollow Knight — like, really love it. Whether that puts me in a more or less favourable position going into this sequel, I’m not sure, but I’m very much enjoying what I’ve seen so far.
But of course I do, right? It looks, sounds, and feels exactly like Hollow Knight… except for when it doesn’t. I have lost so much health in my first two hours through forgetting that my faithful Down Slash is now more of a Diagonal Slash. I chained a couple of them together in a speedy bell-based mini-boss, and it certainly did feel good, but I can’t help but wonder how long it’s going to take me to stop trying to claim the high ground over airborne enemies, only to immediately yeet Hornet into diagonal danger below.
The same can be said for my Bind button. How many times am I going to mistakenly hit ‘A’ and then curse as I waste a reel of Silk? Probably not too long, in all honesty, but it feels weird having to rewire my little bug brain with all of this ‘same but different’-ness.
A bit Alien (PJ O’Reilly, staff writer)
It took a while to get downloaded thanks to the great eShop crash of 2025, but now that I’m in and playing (and as someone who hasn’t been quite as excited as a lot of folk are for this particular game), well, Silksong is very nice to look at, and it plays wonderfully smoothly on my Switch 2 so far.
Team Cherry are maestros of creating rich and all-encompassing atmospheres, they can conjure a real depth to their vibes from a single screen of action, and Silksong is standing out most to me in this regard thus far. Not much more than an hour in and I’ve already been having blackouts in a weird cave that looks like something H.R Giger has been hiding in the back of his garden, got to grips with some light platforming around some very lush forestry, and been amazed all over again at how often a tiny bug can kill me. Especially when I bump into one mid-air with some big shiny spikes below to cushion my fall.
It’s challenging from the get-go, it looks and sounds the business, and I’m all in for seeing how things develop. Oh, and isn’t it nice, too, that the game is actually real. Who knew?!
Sound the bells! (Alana Hagues, deputy editor)
I’m going to build on something PJ and Jim mentioned — Silksong feels a lot harder right out of the gate. Not only that, Pharloom feels a hell of a lot more hostile than Hallownest did in its opening hours. I’ve already met enemies that take two masks of health off of you in the first few areas, spikes that pop out of the ground and catch you off guard, hot coal that blows up in my face after breaking a jar, and burning lava that will damage Hornet unless you jump repeatedly. And I’m loving it. Thankfully, it’s a little more generous with benches this time around.
Hornet herself is much more brash than The Knight; she actually has a voice for a start, but she’s always a little cold and reserved when talking to NPCs. Speaking of the other characters, I’m delighted that Team Cherry has just made a bunch more Weird Little Guys™ that make silly noises and do silly things.
But, if I’m going to pick one early standout, it’s not Hornet’s moveset, the gigantic forgemaster with the tiny tools, or the harshness of this new world: it’s the score. Christopher Larkin has somehow upped his game for Silksong and, so far, Pharloom’s music is hauntingly beautiful and ethereal. Despite how gnarly and tough the world is, the soundtrack makes me feel reflective and sombre. I can laugh at my self-inflicted deaths and the unusual little bugs everywhere, but I can’t help but feel empty and unsettled by the music (in a good way).
Oh, and one final shoutout — Bell Beast is precious and I love them.
Joining us down in Pharloom? Let us know what you think of the opening hours of the game by voting in our poll and leaving a comment down below!
