Hollow Knight: Silksong is a 2D Metroidvania game, which takes place in a haunted kingdom inhabited by bugs.
The gameplay is largely similar to that of its predecessor, with an increased emphasis on speed, combat, and platforming. The player controls Hornet, an insectoid creature who wields a needle to combat enemies and had previously appeared as a multi-time boss in the first game and was later revealed to be a sibling of the knight of the first game due to them having a shared father in the Pale King. During her adventure, Hornet encounters many hostile creatures. The game is planned to feature over 165 different enemies. Hornet will also encounter many friendly non-player characters.
Silksong will feature a quest system, in which characters will ask Hornet to fulfill certain requests. The quest system is broken up into at least four sections: Hunt, Gather, Wayfarer, and Grand Hunt. In a feature new to Silksong, Hornet will be able to craft weapons, tools, and traps from gathered materials.
The checkpoint system from the first game will return in Silksong.
Instead of using soul to heal like the Knight from Hollow Knight did, Hornet uses silk. She can near instantly heal three masks of damage on the move instead of needing to stop and slowly heal one mask at a time like the Knight, which could put it in danger from receiving more damage. However, this depletes her entire bar of silk. This change was meant to increase the pace of the game, and allow the developers to make the game more difficult than Hollow Knight. Upon death, instead of leaving a Shade like the Knight did, Hornet instead leaves a bundle of silk that refills some or all silk notches in her bar when broken.
Silksong will have an additional difficulty mode with permanent death called "Silk Soul mode" like the “Steel Soul mode” found in Hollow Knight. It will feature more differences from the base game than "Steel Soul mode" made in Hollow Knight, but it is unknown by how much.
