It’s been a few days now since the launch of Hollow Knight: Silksong and a few issues are starting to bubble up. One of the most significant complaints has been about the game’s level of difficulty.
The original Hollow Knight is/has always been a challenging game, so it’s not exactly a surprise that its DLC-turned-sequel is giving many players trouble. This time, however, it does appear that developer Team Cherry may have overtuned things in the new game.
Silksong is certainly not an easy game overall, but the early parts have been particularly frustrating for some players. It doesn’t help that the Metroidvania doesn’t offer much in the way of accessibility options, which resulted in the creation of a number of mods that tweak various aspects of the game’s level of difficulty.
While Team Cherry hasn’t quite commented on the discourse surrounding Silksong’s challenging combat, the developer has announced that it’s going to be making some balance changes.
In a post on Steam, the team revealed the patch notes for update 1.0.28470, which is currently planned for release by the middle of next week on all platforms. The patch is primarily intended to fix bugs, but it’s also going to introduce “slight” balance changes to the early game.
As revealed in the patch notes, you can expect early game bosses Moorwing and Sister Splinter to be a little easier. The damage Sandcarvers do has been reduced, too. You’ll also notice some tweaks to the economy, with a small reduction to the prices of mid-game Bellway and Bell Bench, a small boost to rosary rewards from relics and psalm cylinders, as well as another boost to rosary rewards for courier deliveries.
Here’s the full change log:
- Fixed situation where players could remain cloakless after Slab escape sequence.
- Fixed wish Infestation Operation often not being completable during the late game.
- Fixed wish Beast in the Bells not being completable when Bell Beast is summoned at the Bilewater Bellway during the late game.
- Fixed getting stuck floating after down-bouncing on certain projectiles.
- Fixed courier deliveries sometimes being inaccessible in Act 3.
- Fixed craft bind behaving incorrectly when in memories.
- Fixed Lace tool deflect soft-lock at start of battle in Deep Docks.
- Fixed Silk Snippers in Chapel of the Reaper sometimes getting stuck out of bounds.
- Fixed Claw Mirrors leaving Hornet inverted if taking damage during a specific moment while binding.
- Fixed Snitch Pick not giving rosaries and shell shards as intended.
- Removed float override input (down + jump, after player has Faydown Cloak).
- Slight difficulty reduction in early game bosses Moorwing and Sister Splinter.
- Reduction in damage from Sandcarvers.
- Slight increase in pea pod collider scale.
- Slight reduction in mid-game Bellway and Bell Bench prices.
- Slight increase in rosary rewards from relics and psalm cylinders.
- Increase in rosary rewards for courier deliveries.
- Various additional fixes and tweaks.
If you can’t wait until next week to see what the patch has changed, you can actually access that version of the game right now by opting into the public beta branch on Steam or GOG. If you’re currently deep in the Silksong mines, we highly recommend checking out our guides for all the Mask Shard locations, all the Lost Flea locations – and, of course, how to upgrade your Needle.
