Accessibility Report Card - Hollow Knight: Silksong

I have been playing Hollow Knight: Silksong off and on since the day it launched. I played for about three days consecutively before reviews and other things for Phenixx Gaming pulled my attention away. Since then, I come back every few days and play for a while. However, from the first day I dipped into Hornet’s adventure, I knew that for someone such as myself, writing about (and engaging with) Hollow Knight: Silksong was going to be tricky.

Rather than review Hollow Knight: Silksong outright, I decided to do an Accessibility Report Card piece on it instead. I know that the problems I have with it are not universal, and thus I know that the best thing I can do is to make sure people are aware of the shortcomings of a game that will most likely be (well deservedly) on many people’s Game of the Year lists this year.

My biggest problem is that my reflexes cannot keep up with the speed of Hollow Knight: Silksong, and this is by design. I almost did not write this article because of that idea. Hornet is a faster character than the Knight, and thus her platforming and combat require more precision and speed. In addition to that, there are fewer health upgrades and Silk upgrades than in the original game, while enemies deal more damage.

Because of this, while you can learn the patterns of enemies and bosses, there comes a point where it is entirely down to pure reflex. Having played both Silksong and the original Hollow Knight, I wound up at a point (far from the end) where bosses and enemies felt on par with Hollow Knight DLC bosses and enemies. I understand that Silksong was originally meant to be a DLC, but the accessibility is lacking in that regard when you want fans to experience a story.

This is different than knowledge-based difficulty, where knowing how to succeed is enough to progress with practice. In the original Hollow Knight, for the most part, if you learned boss patterns and balanced your charms correctly, you could manage to push through. Silksong feels different than that. I am trying to express this without spoilers, but let’s talk about the problem inherent in solving the problem.

Developers, Team Cherry, could make an option that makes bosses less aggressive, changing some of their behavior a bit. This would provide a solution that could very well help make things more accessible, and then players could mod things to tailor their experience further if they wanted. Team Cherry could also take the Remedy approach from Control and provide accessibility features that could alter enemy damage, which might balance things further for people who need help. The modding community has already taken steps in this direction, but there are some flaws.

This article (at time of writing) isn’t even published, and I already hear “But that isn’t the developer’s vision!” and “But that would ruin the intended experience!” and to that I say, I understand. However, I highly doubt that Team Cherry intended to entirely isolate a group of players who physically will not be capable of finishing the game either.

If those options are available, it won’t hurt you to not use them if you don’t need them. If those options are available, it won’t hurt you to turn only some of them on, to still provide a certain level of challenge. If those options are available, it will allow people to experience the same joy you are experiencing now, just without isolating them and making them feel left out.

Sure, I could turn an invincibility mod on and bust my way through the game to experience the story. However, that won’t give me any challenge at all. That is course-correcting too far for me. Some people will be okay with that, but I’m not that kind of player. This is the dialogue we should be having about difficulty levels and accessibility features.

Overall, I think Hollow Knight: Silksong is definitely a contender for Game of the Year. It is a beautiful game and a wonderful experience that should be enjoyed by as many people as possible. That’s why I’m writing this article. However, I think Silksong earns a B- on an Accessibility scale. There are text-based accessibility options, remappable controls, etc., yet that is as far as it goes.

I know I’m not the only player who feels like the kid on the playground watching people do things I’m not capable of doing. It doesn’t feel great, and I hope modders (or Team Cherry) find ways for us to have the same experiences that players without reflex issues and other disabilities are having with Silksong.