Hollow Knight: Silksong wasn’t the Game of the Year, and it wouldn’t have been my specific pick, either. I would have picked Donkey Kong Bananza, but I would’ve been happy to see the indie title come away with the prestigious award. It honestly wasn’t my type of game, but I enjoyed it thoroughly and appreciate what it represented for the gaming community.

I came to this conclusion well before I actually rolled the credits on Silksong, but that’s because it took me forever to beat. 89 hours later, I defeated Grand Mother Silk and rolled the credits.

Beating Hollow Knight: Silksong Might Be My Greatest Gaming Achievement

I said in the intro that Hollow Knight: Silksong is not my type of game. I meant it. Other than a brief, tiny foray into the original Hollow Knight, I had literally never played a metroidvania. My games are usually action-adventure, open-world, and platformer, and if they don’t have a difficulty setting, it’s because they’re not that challenging as is.

So I had no experience with anything like Silksong, except for maybe the platforming sections. Otherwise, it was all a brand-new experience for me, especially with the difficult bosses. It’s maybe embarrassing to admit, but I beat 13 main bosses, and not a single one, not even Moss Mother, was done even in a few tries. I struggled with each one.

I even got to a point with Sister Splinter, who is, by all accounts, not that hard of a boss to beat, and ran into a wall. I felt like I couldn’t go on. I asked the internet for tips and to find out if it was worth going on. If I was struggling there, wouldn’t I just struggle endlessly?

I had only started playing because I needed to review the game for work, and even though I’d spent a lot of time on it, I didn’t want to continue if I wasn’t going to be able to beat it.

The short answer is yes, I was going to struggle endlessly, but not to the same degree. One of the most perfect aspects of this game is that things do open up the longer you play. The early game is harder without tools, abilities, and different crests.

So I pressed on, sure I was going to inevitably run into walls again. But after that point, a wall was simply a temporary blockade. There were alternative routes and other things to do to get better before fighting that boss. I even skipped The Last Judge entirely because I was struggling for so long.

There were so many points where I thought I could not go on, similar to Sister Splinter, but the bosses were harder. The High Halls gauntlet was a special kind of torture. So was Trobbio, the most overstimulating boss fight I’ve ever experienced.

But I kept pushing. At some point, while I did love the lore, storytelling, atmosphere, and general gameplay of Silksong, the reason I kept playing was spite. I swore to myself that I would beat the game. I operated under the sunk cost fallacy a little bit, largely continuing on to ensure the amount of hours (far more than they should’ve been) were not in vain.

I had and still have some major complaints about the game’s design. Hornet is fast, and her combat is speedy. She’s very different from The Knight in that regard. But the game also demands precision and perfection. The vast majority of bosses and enemies have contact damage, meaning you have to be fast in your movements, but cannot be a pixel off, otherwise you’ll take two hearts of damage.

I also don’t think the game scaled the difficulty very well. Yes, there were things that aided me in future boss fights after Sister Splinter, but the bosses were so much harder that it almost didn’t matter. Maybe it’s cheap, but I beat the second Lace fight by abusing my red tools (thank God for the Cogfly tool), otherwise, I’d still be stuck.

I mostly stumbled my way through the game. Every boss was a huge challenge, even Grand Mother Silk, who, if you ask most players, was surprisingly easy. What I will say is that beating them and beating the game felt incredibly satisfying. It was equal parts satisfaction and relief that I didn’t have to try again.

There’s a bit of controversy on what constitutes beating Silksong. There are three acts, and I only finished the second one. However, since the credits rolled, the game ended. Everything beyond is Act 3. I have heard wonderful things about that act and all its wonderful storytelling, but it is both enticing and nauseating to think about.

When I began to creep closer to the final boss and closer to beating the game, I resolved that I’d finish it and never touch it again. Never have I played such a hard game. If I’ve spent nearly 90 hours in any game, it’s a repeatable one like Fortnite, Minecraft, or Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. It was such a struggle.

Now, in the immediate aftermath, I find myself tempted to go back and keep playing. The lore of Act 3 is quite alluring, and some of the new things in it are really interesting. I have to remind myself of the number of times I nearly uninstalled the game and never looked back.

The prevailing sentiment I have is that it’s a terrific game that I will never touch again. I’ve got plenty of other things to play now that the credits rolled. I can go back to Fallout 4, which is great since I’m watching the show right now, too. I can finish Super Mario Galaxy or start God of War: Ragnarok or Death Stranding 2, another 2025 Game of the Year finalist.

Regardless, after so much time, struggle, and frustration, it’s time I lay Hollow Knight: Silksong to rest. I’ll never forget this game, for good and for bad.

Conclusion

It’s easy to see why the gaming world was so taken with Hollow Knight: Silksong. I’m not a metroidvania person, nor am I a person who plays challenging games. Yet, here I stand after 89 hours of gameplay and a whole lot of challenging fights that I didn’t think I could win. I did, and perhaps that’s the real beauty of this game. You can do it, no matter how hard it seems, just like Hornet could save Pharloom, no matter how bleak it seemed.