With the hype for Silksong manifesting into meme magic, and the game officially releasing on September 4th, many players are flocking to the game due to its hype. Many players who didn’t even play the first one are curious about the situation too. Since the game is a sequel to the hit indie darling, many want to know whether you need to play Hollow Knight before Silksong, which is a fair question for narrative reasons.

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Here are reasons why you should and should not play Hollow Knight before Silksong. Image via Team Cherry.

Well, should you?¶

It’s not entirely necessary to play Hollow Knight before Silksong. Silksong is a standalone game with similar mechanics. However, you’re getting a new character (Hornet), and the world is a different area of the game too. So, there’s a lot of standalone elements in the game.

Although, if you play Hollow Knight before Silksong, you’ll gain more knowledge of the origins of the main character (the knight) that you play as. You’ll be more familiar with the atmosphere, gameplay style, game design, and some lore background information.

Hollow Knight is a Metroidvania, a sub-genre of adventure all about easily missing areas that you need to come back to later. The first Hollow Knight, however, did not hold your hand or funnel you to these locations. Natural exploration would lead to these areas for optional bits of content and enjoyment. If you play the first one, you’ll have more insight into what you need to do. But it’s not necessarily something that puts you at a disadvantage if you’re not familiar with it.

However, Silksong is getting a lot more content. For example, Silksong’s protagonist, Hornet, is more agile. There are new movement abilities to latch onto things. More agile dashes and combat seem to play into the game too. Many of the focus abilities in Hollow Knight have changed, with Hornet being able to do it on the move and even in the air, again emphasizing that movement is a big feature in the game. So Hollow Knight veterans will have adjustments to make, whereas new players won’t have the muscle memory, in some cases giving them an advantage.

Outside of that, the tool and gear system is similar, with Crests and Tools taking the place of Charms, but offering similar utility. The world map and towns you encounter are relatively the same. Silksong has more expanded features though, with more vibrant and lively towns, and a side quest system that gives players more content to focus on, rather than the original’s looser system with less activity.

So if there’s a reason to play Hollow Knight before Silksong, it’s to get a feel for what the game is. It might even be the case that Silksong is a much better game than the first. Going back to play the first one after finishing Silksong might make the extremely well-rated first game feel worse. So it’s up to you, but that’s the general idea around the reasons to play the first game before Silksong.