Where are the Hollow Knight: Silksong reviews? Our hands-on first impressions

Another interesting move was to confirm the Silksong release date less than a month in adavance, prompting a number of our developers to move their imminent launches out of the way. (Respect to Cronos: The New Dawn for holding firm!)

So, where are the Silksong reviews? And what did we think of our hands-on demo back at Gamescom? Keep on reading and we'll answer both of those questions!

Where are the Hollow Knight: Silksong reviews?

Ultimately, Team Cherry has decided not to give review access to any members of the press (that we know of).

This was confirmed by trusted industry journalist Jason Schreier on Blue Sky, where he said: "In case you're wondering: Team Cherry told me they don't plan on sending out early codes for Silksong."

As for the reasoning, Schreier added: "[Team Cherry] felt like it'd be unfair for critics to be playing before Kickstarter backers and other players."

Schreier closed out his social post by noting, in no uncertain terms, "so don't expect to see reviews until after the game comes out".

In a follow-up post, Schreier added, "I don't think that's the only reason; they also mentioned that it'd take a lot of time to get codes and distribute them etc, and they're a tiny team with lots to do in the next two weeks".

Hollow Knight: Silksong preview: Our hands-on impressions

At the Gamescom conference last month, I played a 15-minute demo of Hollow Knight: Silksong. While I can't give you a review of the game, I can share my impressions of the demo.

There were actually two different demos. One is basically the opening segment of the game, which is the one I ended up doing. And the other one is from later on and is more difficult.

And here's the fun part. The people manning the booth said, "You've got 15 minutes... or until you die 10 times, whichever happens first." I opted to do the start of the game to try and avoid dying too soon and getting turfed out.

On the day, I did find the experience of playing Silksong slightly surreal. It's funny, because the game is so massively hyped, and it's good to have it playable at long last, but it is, at the end of the day, just a game.

If you played Hollow Knight, you know what to expect from the opening segment of its sequel. you're jumping around on little platforms, you're slashing at things. You are gradually learning the patterns of what's where and which enemies are gonna jump out at you at which points.

I did get to the boss at the end of the opening segment, the first mini boss, and it was a pretty standard tutorial kind of boss. You have to learn to jump over it when it flies at you, and you have to stand in the right place to avoid a few projectiles it drops down on you.

Even right at the start of the game, there was a good amount of challenge to be had, and a real sense of achievement every time you do something right or getting a little further in your run. If you liked Hollow Knight, and you've been itching for more of the same, the opening of this game will give you that.

Again, as you'd expect, the vibes are kind of unknowable. The music was ethereally beautiful. There was a poem at the start. The game just sort of chucks you in, without much sense of what's going on or what the story is going to be, and off you go.

The new main character, the Hornet, has a reasonably floaty jump. But it's still basically a platformer, like Hollow Night, with those Metroidvania elements in the mix to keep you exploring and learning as you go.

We're looking forward to seeing, as we get deeper into the game, what Team Cherry are gonna layer on to make it feel fresh.

But yeah, for now, all we can say is that's it's more Hollow Knight and it looks and plays exactly how you'd expect, which is no bad thing!

Hollow Knight: Silksong launches 4th September and you can order your copy now from Steam, Nintendo, Xbox or PlayStation.

Read more:

• Why did Hollow Knight: Silksong take so long to make?
• Do I need to play Hollow Knight before Silksong?
• Is there a Hollow Knight: Silksong Collector's Edition?

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