When evaluating the artistic merit of a hyped sequel like Silksong...
There are three important questions that need to be asked.
The first is: what is the artistic goal of a sequel. What is the game design trying to achieve specifically. And you’ll notice there is no clear bold vision here, specifically pushing forward new ideas. Instead, Team Cherry is motivated by commercial imperatives. The idea is not to make an artistic statement, but simply to repackage. But what made Hollow Knight popular in the first place was its novelty. But now, originality is a liability, a risk. So let's retread the formula. But art doesn't have a formula. So you'll notice, Silksong is a creatively bankrupt product, disrespectful to the original material.
Now, the second question is: what should a sequel actually do. You can expand the artistic vision, push the concept into places it wasn’t able to go before. You can evolve the mechanics and iterate, refining gameplay systems and adding new mechanical layers that expends depth. Think about what Capcom did from Street Fighter II to Third Strike with the parry system or what Cave did from DonPachi to DoDonPachi, creating new spaces for skill expression. But with Silksong, when you look closely, you’ll notice neither of these things is happening. Mechanically, it is not evolving but recycling.
The third question, the most important one, is about gameplay depth specifically. Does the game design demand high-level play, and reward long-term mastery. And this is where Silksong fails. Because at the end of the day, the core loop is still built on exploration padding and compulsive RPG fairness. You just wander around from room to room, which dilutes play density and balance strictness. This modern permissiveness is opposite of focus. There is no scoring pressure, no dynamic routing, no risk-reward, no second loop and no systemic pushback that forces players to perform like in Ketsui or Godhand. And that is why Silksong is so ultimately mechanically shallow yet so popular with casuals and journalists like IGN.
The first is: what is the artistic goal of a sequel. What is the game design trying to achieve specifically. And you’ll notice there is no clear bold vision here, specifically pushing forward new ideas. Instead, Team Cherry is motivated by commercial imperatives. The idea is not to make an artistic statement, but simply to repackage. But what made Hollow Knight popular in the first place was its novelty. But now, originality is a liability, a risk. So let's retread the formula. But art doesn't have a formula. So you'll notice, Silksong is a creatively bankrupt product, disrespectful to the original material.
Now, the second question is: what should a sequel actually do. You can expand the artistic vision, push the concept into places it wasn’t able to go before. You can evolve the mechanics and iterate, refining gameplay systems and adding new mechanical layers that expends depth. Think about what Capcom did from Street Fighter II to Third Strike with the parry system or what Cave did from DonPachi to DoDonPachi, creating new spaces for skill expression. But with Silksong, when you look closely, you’ll notice neither of these things is happening. Mechanically, it is not evolving but recycling.
The third question, the most important one, is about gameplay depth specifically. Does the game design demand high-level play, and reward long-term mastery. And this is where Silksong fails. Because at the end of the day, the core loop is still built on exploration padding and compulsive RPG fairness. You just wander around from room to room, which dilutes play density and balance strictness. This modern permissiveness is opposite of focus. There is no scoring pressure, no dynamic routing, no risk-reward, no second loop and no systemic pushback that forces players to perform like in Ketsui or Godhand. And that is why Silksong is so ultimately mechanically shallow yet so popular with casuals and journalists like IGN.
