THERMAL SIGNATURE -- VOL. 3 : HOLLOW KNIGHT: SILKSONG
Greetings Gamers!
As many of you probably already know, Hollow Knight: Silksong has finally dropped after seven years of vaporous hype. For nearly a decade, the game lived rent-free in fan meme culture, but on September 4, 2025, Team Cherry dropped the long-awaited sequel, and the gaming world responded the only way it knows how: by immediately breaking Steam, Nintendo’s eShop, and half of Twitter (I still call it Twitter). Within hours, over half a million people were playing concurrently on Steam alone, and by the end of the week, five million players had taken their first steps into Pharloom, including me! Not bad for three developers from Adelaide who priced the whole thing at twenty bucks. Yeah, you read that right, t-w-e-n-t-y dollars!
Instead of reprising The Knight’s moody bug crawl through Hallownest, Silksong hands the reins to Hornet, who was already a fan favorite from the original. Hornet plays like she’s a wild banshee compared to her predecessor, she’s acrobatic, fast, and looks far more stylish dashing, double-jumping, grappling, and sewing silk powers together mid-fight. Pharloom, the new kingdom, is built like a vertical fever dream. Gone are the cramped caverns; now you’re scaling spires, darting across gaps, and threading movement like a platforming ballet… until you mistime a jump and plummet into spikes also like me. Classic Metroidvania misery, but prettier!
The scale of the game is staggering. We’re talking about more than 200 new enemies, over 40 bosses, and close to 100 benches for saving and upgrades. Hornet’s arsenal has been expanded with Tools and Crests, letting players customize combat in ways The Knight never could. Healing is now tied to her silk resource, giving fights a different rhythm. Instead of “can I tank one more hit before finding a bench?” it’s “how greedy am I feeling with this heal before the boss dropkicks me?” It’s the kind of design that keeps every battle sharp, even when you’ve run the same arena five times.
Reviews have been glowing, with critics throwing around words like “playable art” and “authored,” which are fancy ways of saying it actually feels like someone hand-crafted every pixel. Fans at Gamescom called it tighter, funnier, and somehow more accessible than the original, without losing that trademark “you will die, repeatedly, but you’ll like it” cadence. Even the quest structure feels fresher, with Pharloom’s towns acting as hubs full of NPCs and side goals that give the world more personality. It’s still moody, sure, but there’s more humor, more character, and a stronger sense of place.
And let’s be real, the cultural impact here is almost as important as the game itself. Silksong has been the white whale of indie gaming for years. Its release instantly became a generational moment, the rare time where hype didn’t just match reality but maybe even undersold it. For an industry obsessed with billion-dollar franchises, this little three-person project reminded everyone that scale doesn’t equal soul. When a sub-$20 game with hand-drawn bugs can out-trend AAA shooters with marketing budgets bigger than small nations, you know something special happened.
At the end of the day, Silksong is a refinement to a sequel that doesn’t try to reinvent its DNA but instead doubles down on everything that worked. Where Hollow Knight was oppressive and isolating, Silksong is fluid and defiant. Hornet isn’t just surviving the world, she’s dancing through it. And for the millions of us who’ve been waiting since 2017, the verdict is pretty simple: the song was well worth the wait.
Have you played Hollow Knight: Silksong yet!? What are your thoughts? Any favorite moments so far?! How do you like Hornet? Let us know in the comments below!
