After years of waiting Hollow Knight: Silksong is finally in the hands of people. At this point, many will even finish it. A long time passed to apply a clown makeup during every crucial game event, replaced instead with universal love for continuing Team Cherry. However, for me I try to be excited Silksong, although this is the latest entry in one of my favorite genres.
In the case of this designed problem, I do not intend to analyze Hollow Knight: Silksong in a established sense. The requirements of the speed and precision of the game, combined with the lack of availability and my own disability, meant that I could not physically play it. I am not able to present a thorough analysis of the game, history and even the direction of the art of different zones, all of which can be examined using the available lens. Instead, I want to talk about the overarching problems of the metroidvania species itself and how Silksong simply consolidates and strengthens the inaccessible barriers.
Goes beyond the difficulty
Like his predecessor, Silksong continues the trend of hard players with a convoluted platform and boss battles. While hard experiences have become the successes of the mainstream in recent years, some players of empty Knight have noticed that Silksong could be particularly criminal. These fears were at least partly resolved by programmers, who in particular stood up two early bosses in the first week of the release of Silksong. And although the difficulty is absolutely a problem of availability, I do not intend to argue for it in Silksong.
Difficulty is the proverbial low fruit of availability criticism. Consultants from availability, masters and journalists wrote articles about what the difficulty is or not, produced clips or drums about the importance of difficulties and created countless threads in social media, advocating more diverse availability tools to adapt the difficulty of the game. We spend so much time on based the difficulty option that we often miss other key barriers that prevent various disabled people to enjoy a up-to-date game. Is Silksong hard? According to reviews and conversations, yes. Should we focus all our availability arguments on the same? Absolutely not.
What is missing silksong
In addition to any availability settings to difficulties, the General Silksong settings options are minimal, especially in the case of a game released in 2025. The volume can be adjusted using sliders, HUD can raise the size, and some actions can be reflected, but only on specific buttons. For disabled people looking for various Silksong availability menu, it is objectively disappointed.
Although I confirm that the studies not all have the same engine, and therefore they do not have a united tool base for creating available options, nor do they have the same level of knowledge to implement these functions, I regret that Team Cherry took direct inspiration with the Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown’s Fabrards System. The knowledgeable Ubisoft add -on to Metroidvanias allows you to make a screenshot of the location and attach it to the map, which ensures a constant reminder of previously visited zones, which may require specific items to the transition or places where you can return when you become stronger. This option has revolutionized the metroidvania species, and Lost Crown became one of the most available games last year. While Silksong has the ability to buy and place tags on the map to remember sheltered areas and other crucial fascinating points, nothing is similar to the fragments of Lost Crown memory. I understand that Team Cherry may not have the same resources as Ubisoft, but it offers nothing that supports availability outside the absolute minimum in the form of map markers is frustrating.
What Silksong gives
As I mentioned in previous editions of the designed access, the options are not the only form of availability. While Silksong does not provide numerous available settings, its exploit of integration design, especially with the facilitate of tools, can ensure relief. For example, a broken mask prevents killing a mortal blow. It is fantastic for people with physically disabled who are struggling with precise movements or cognitive disabled players who need more time to remember the boss attack and movement patterns, enabling a second chance to live before returning to the rest bench. The broken mask is also great for hard parkour sections, and the fact that this tool loads at rest means that you always have a second chance for any attempt. Meanwhile, the compass tracks your position on the huge Silksong map and is another helpful object for people with cognitively disabled. And my personal favorite tool that I discovered, watching Let’s Plays, are magnetite bones that randomly bore one hit. Despite the random chance of this subject, it is great for physically disabled people who may lack energy during intensive play sessions.
But these tools are not offered immediately. Players are forced to develop the game, overcoming hard bosses and completing side tasks before unlocking them. Although I am very believing that disabled people deserve to question the games they play, offering key availability from the very beginning of the game does not limit this challenge – it allows us to play like everyone else. In Silksong, some players may not make it far enough to unlock a tool that will provide them with an crucial availability function.
The superior problem of Metroidvania
Silksong’s difficulty and a lack of accessibility offer are an inaccessible challenge, but that’s not why I can’t play. As my disability progressed and I lost my function in my hands, I found that the speed and precision required to play in Metroidvanias became too high. Even the lost crown, with availability offers, was too taxed for I could end.
Before I decided to buy Silksong, my friend advised me to wait until he could play. After a few hours, he told me not to buy a game, because the speed combined with the dexterity needed for the platform, fight and exploit of items would undoubtedly cause me exhausted and frustrated. This is my greatest criticism of this genre – apart from what we saw in Lost Crown, there are no availability or system projects that have not yet been solved by the speed and unavailability of the basic fight and platform gameplay.
I am the first person who admitted that I am not a game designer. I also recognize that it is practically impossible to share every game for every disabled player. However, as a fan of the genre for my whole life, I really miss playing these games. I do not criticize them from unfounded anger, but rather from the desire to play again in one of my favorite genres.
Hollow Knight: Silksong, from the perspective of a continuation, is an achievement. However, for disabled players who want to delve into the latest Team Cherry game, this is a failure of availability. Apart from difficulties, disabled players have few offers that will facilitate them move around the map and overcome hard enemies. And for these comments, undoubtedly, saying that not every game is created for everyone, let the individual decide – not on the basis of inaccessible practices, but rather a sense of genre. For programmers who are looking for Silksong’s success, please exploit their lack of accessibility as motivation. As a whole life of the metroidvania species, I hope someone will exploit Silksong failure as an inspiration to return.
Grant Stoner is a disabled journalist including availability and a disabled perspective in video games. When he doesn’t write, he usually screams about Pokémon or his cat, a guy on Twitter.
