Hollow Knight: Silksong Trailer Analysis Script

Okay, let’s all take a deep breath. So the Hornet DLC that Team Cherry has been telling us about for so long isn’t actually a DLC. It’s a full fucking sequel, with a bunch of bosses, new areas, new enemies, new mechanics, and new hilarious voice lines. Remember when William said Hollow Knight 2 wouldn’t come out for another ten years? Well, turns out he was lying right to our faces. I can’t believe I trusted you William. Never again.

But yeah, Team Cherry has dropped a trailer revealing Hollow Knight: Silksong, a proper sequel to Hollow Knight that honestly, looks better. You can really tell that Team Cherry is putting the knowledge they gained making the first game to use. This trailer is filled to the brim with shit that needs discussing, so let’s dive right in. The trailer starts off with these tiny bugs carrying Hornet in some kind of cage across the plains beyond Hallownest. This already raises a ton of questions. First of all what happened to Hornet in the Godmaster DLC endings? How exactly do we go from Hornet running into the Hollow Knight to Hornet being captured by a bunch of representative of the Lollipop Guild? I feel like we missed a step somewhere along the way. My second problem with this scene is how exactly did these puny ass bugs capture the demigod that is Hornet? Did they trick her into the cage with bait or something? And can she just escape whenever she wants? This didn’t look very hard to do. Why wait until now?

And so Hornet finds herself in a whole new kingdom to explore. It is a land haunted by silk and song, full of mysteries and secrets that will help Hornet uncover more about past and her ultimate fate. Hornet must ascend to the peak of this new kingdom to reach a shining citadel and, do… something? We haven’t got that far yet. Along the way, Hornet must face against beasts, hunters, assassins, kings, monsters walmart greeters, and knights.

So what new lands can we expect Hornet to decimate through on her new journey? Good question, me. Let’s find out. 

Mossy Grotto

First off we have the Mossy Grotto. Now we don’t officially know the names of any of these places. The names I’m using come from Team Cherry’s blogpost, so the’re more of just placeholders for now. This area reminds of Greenpath but even then it is much brighter than Greenpath ever was. This area might also be the starting point of the game, since it looks like this is where Hornet eventually escapes from her cage. The enemies in this area look pretty generic. I don’t know if these things are slugs or what. There’s also this guy who runs along the ceiling spitting shit at Hornet. It also looks like that one cut enemy from the original game has been added back in. Still no Blundering Oberlisk though. 

♫How could this happen to me?♫

The Mossy Grotto also features an NPC most likely named “Druid of the Moss Temple”. According to Team Cherry, there’s going to be a more formalized questing system in Silksong compared to Hollow Knight. In Silksong, there are these “Quest Boards” that give the player a variety of quests to explore. There appear to be at least four different types of quests in Silksong: Gather, Wayfarer, Hunt and Grand Hunt. Gather is probably just “give this person these elements”. Hunts are likely just combat events where you have to find and kill enemies. 

Unfortunately, we never get a description for a Wayfarer quest, but I do have an idea about what they are. In this clip we are introduced to two NPCs named Garmond and Zaza as they ram into a bunch of enemies with a horned instrument. So I think Wayfarer quests will involve Hornet escorting NPCs across the world map, similar to what is happening here. Also, the symbol for Wayfarer quests is of a harp, a musical instrument. And Garmond and Zaza are using a musical instrument, even if they are using it as an instrument of torture.

Speaking of instruments, another NPC we meet in the Mossy Grotto is this singing shaman like character. In this clip we can see that Hornet is actually strumming on her needle while the shaman sings. So it seems like music will play a big part in this game, which shouldn’t be surprising considering this game is called “Silksong”.

We also see a boss from the Mossy Grotto that looks like some kind of moss covered bee. It also looks like a total bitch, which supports the idea that this is a starting area in the game. The last area we see related to the Mossy Grotto is this tiny village that seems to be on the border. Now one big question for this game is how exactly does moss grow deep underground. In Hollow Knight, Greenpath was made lush by Unn, the sexy slug monster that lived in a nearby lake of acid. So what’s going on, does Unn have a cousin or something? Like… Buun. 

Getting back to this village, it looks like the area connected to the Mossy Grotto has a bone aesthetic going on. Sound familiar? 

Forest of Bones

Team Cherry has finally answered our prayers and given us the Forest of Bones, or possibly “Bonebottom”, but that name’s lame so I’m not gonna use it. Regardless of what you call it, it looks amazing. Can we just take a second to appreciate how beautiful this game is? It just oozes beauty out of every single frame, it’s a fucking masterpiece.

Anyway, I’m going to count a large number of areas as being in the Forest of Bones. Pretty much anything with bones or lava. I’m guessing this area will be very broken up in the final game, but for now I’m just gonna cast a wide net. 

Let’s talk enemies. The most simple enemies in this area appear to be the black bugs that wear skulls on their heads. Not much to really say about these boneheads. So let’s move on to the ants. Now I think the ants are positioned in the northern part of the Forest of Bones, because they don’t seem to be very close to the lava. The ants do have the bone aesthetic though, wearing skulls on their heads and building structures out of bone. There’s also a boss fight against what might be the queen ant.

Another NPC we meet in the Forest of Bones is Sherma. Not much to say about this guy, except that he appears to have his own instrument as well. One of the coolest bosses in the trailer also shows up in the Forest of Bones. Some have speculated that it’s some kind of robot or autonomous being. And I think that’s possible. It does vibrate a bit like it’s a piece of machinery. As for who built this thing, I think the likely candidates are these guys.

I’m going to call these bugs “Bellheads”, because they wear bells on their heads. Now I don’t keep up with Australian fashion, but maybe this is where Team Cherry got their inspiration. These bugs appear to work very closely with lava, placing it into these strange containers. We can see this bellsmith chiseling away at the contents of one of the containers. We see these containers again in another room filled with furnaces and bells. And now I think it’s time we talked about the bells.

There are bells everywhere in this game. Several of the characters can be seen carrying scepters that have bells on them. This symbol, representing a bell, can be seen all over the place. One room is even completely encapsulated in bells. Bugs wear bells on their heads. Bugs live in fucking bell houses. And of course, there’s the most important bell of all. The bell right here next to the Subscribe button. Be sure to ring that bell to become part of the notification squad. That way when I post my next video in two months you’ll be the first to regret watching it. 

Actually no, the most important bell is right here at the end of the trailer. It’s so important it even has a Seal of Binding on it.

So we’ve established that there are a metric shitton of bells in this game. And I think that the Bellheads in the Forest of Bones are a part of the production of all of these bells. But do they really need to make so many bells? I think the market is becoming saturated. After all you don’t want your product life cycle to look like this. That’s what we in the money business call a bubble. It’s much better if your life cycle looks like this bell curve here. Wait, oh fuck!

Gilded Cities

I think there are at least two different Gilded Cities in Silksong. There is this town that has giant bell houses, and a larger city that has giant buildings in the background. We also see some kind of clock tower-like building, reminiscent of Castlevania 3, as well as this room with furnaces and giant piles of discarded bells. The main enemy types we see here are these weird cultist like bugs. They cover their faces with cloth marked with bell symbols and they carry hooked weapons. Now I could go into some crazy lore speculation as to why these bugs are obsessed with bells, but let’s save that for when we’ve finished talking about everything in the trailer.

There are a few friendly NPCs in these cities, such as a shopkeeper and this street performer or begger or whatever the fuck she is. There is no Geo in this game, instead Hornet collects Rosaries. Now why are these bugs carrying rosaries? What the fuck is this, Mardi Gras?

In terms of bosses, we have this Knight, seen battling Hornet is a darkened room. If we brighten the image, and then zoom and enhance, we can see the bell symbol on the knight’s chest. And then there’s this guy. I think he is somewhere in one of the gilded cities based on the objects in the background, but I’m not sure. This bug has heart shaped atteni, a big fluffy plumage, and his floor shoots out fucking confetti or some shit. What a baller. Some have speculated that he is related to the Grimm Troupe somehow, but I don’t think the similar color scheme is intentional.

Just outside of one of these bell cities, Hornet encounters another ally, Shakra. She has a little bit of a Elder Hu vibe, but judging by the scrolls on her back, it seems possible that Shakra is this game’s Cornifer. Another NPC we might meet here is this decapod looking motherfucker. They show up twice in the trailer, once as a boss, and then again as a fast travel system. Obviously, the bell system found in Hallownest wouldn’t really work here, so it’s no surprise we don’t see any stags in this game. I do think it’s funny though. The Knight becomes good friends with the Last Stag, but Hornet just beats her transportation into submission.

Hornet is OP as fuck

This seems like a good point to segway into talking about how Hornet plays. I know, this video is a bit of a rollercoaster, isn’t it? Hornet is fast as fuck. Like, look at this clip, how the fuck does she do that? Hornet has a regular walk, run and sprint speed. We don’t know how sprinting is triggered, but walking occurs in villages. Hornet also has this really cool spider crawl that gives her higher mobility. Hornet can wall jump, ledge grab, use her lunge ability both on the ground and in the air, and she also has an air dash.

Whenever Hornet deals damage, she gains silk that fills up her spool. In the trailer, a lot of enemies give off silk when hit. I’m guessing there’s some big lore reason for this but let’s ignore that for right now. Spending silk affords Hornet a number of different abilities. The spool can hold twelve notches of silk, and most of the moves used in this trailer cost four notches. Hornet has her grapple move that pulls her into enemies. What’s cool about this move is that hitting an enemy gives Hornet more silk, allowing her to do it again. Hornet can throw her needle into enemies as well as use her Gossamer Storm and Parry abilities.

Hornet also has a heal ability. We only see it once, and Hornet spends all twelve of her notches of silk to heal herself from two masks up to five. She can perform the move while in the air and it has very short starting and ending lag. But we don’t know if this move requires an entire charge of spool or even how many masks of health it can heal. When Hornet’s spool is completely full, you’ll see this bobbin light up, which makes me think that some moves require this to be full in order to use them.

While we’re here, let’s talk about Silksong’s replacement for the charms in Hollow Knight: Tools. So because Hornet isn’t a mindless dumbass like the Knight, she is able to craft weapons, traps and mechanisms. These tools are equipped onto Hornet at a bench. Instead of using notches, Hornet has crests. A crest has slots for different types of tools, presumably, weapons, traps and mechanisms. It appears as though there are different crest that Hornet can use, allowing her to use different amounts of each of these types of items. So for example there might be a crest that gives you two trap slots, one weapon slot and no mechanism slots.

The trailer shows off a few of these tools, the first of which being a spiked ball, similar to what Hornet used against the Knight in the Hornet 2 fight. The next item is called a Pimpillo, which is basically just a bomb. The description mentions that Pimpillo’s can harm friends. This is likely referring to allies you have to escort during Wayfarer quests, such as Garmond and Zaza.

We also have the lovely companion tool, hopefully we’ll see at least two more of these. There is the throwing dagger. There is also the throwing dagger but three of them. There’s the classic stabbing yourself violently in the chest with a lifeblood syringe too. And of course, it wouldn’t be a fucking Team Cherry game without a buzzsaw. Good job, William. I never doubted you. Anyway let’s get back to talking about the bazillion different areas in this game, because I’m still not done talking about those yet.

Misty Moor

So the Misty Moor appears to be this really damp, run down area of the game. We see a graveyard in this area, as well as a town on a waterfront. In this town is an NPC that looks like Relic Seeker Lemm hiding underneath a pile of poop? Or is it a seashell? Probably a seashell. Unfortunately we don’t know if there are any eggs in this game to sell to him. We also see a new enemy group in this area. I feel like these guys might actually be backer content.

In their latest video, Team Cherry challenged us to guess what parts of the new trailer were backer content from the Hollow Knight Kickstarter. And in their latest blog post Team Cherry mentioned the backer content again saying “Get ready to dance with operatic queens, battle mysterious assassins, scale a soaring warlord’s tower, and that’s just to start!”. For Operatic queens, I think Team Cherry is referring to the Queen Ant we saw earlier. “Assassins” probably refers to Steel Assassin Sharpe, who has been revealed in previous blog updates. As for the Warlord’s Tower, I think Team Cherry is referring to this area. One of the rewards for backing Hollow Knight was to design a dungeon with its own boss and enemies. I think this area is actually the Warlord’s tower.

Coral Forest

So Coral Forest is just a better version of Fog Canyon. Not a single jellyfish in sight and I couldn’t be happier. We don’t see much of Coral Forest but we do see one boss, and he somehow can summon coral into the arena at will. Not sure how that works but okay.

And of course, we have this guy. So this will require a bit of explaining. In Hollow Knight, there is a cave east of Dirtmouth. Depending on whether you are playing on Normal Mode or Steel Soul mode, you will either encounter Confessor Jiji or Steel Soul Jinn. Both Jiji and Jinn make references to their “masters”. If you talk to Jiji after recovering your shade after getting the Void Heart, Jiji will say that her masters would be impressed. Jiji also has the ability to conjure up the shade from anywhere in Hallownest, implying that she has some form of control over the Void. It would only make sense that these masters taught Jiji this ability.

After acquiring the King’s Brand, Steel Soul Jinn will tell the Knight that she cannot bow for her masters’ minds are other, and that they do not seek order like the king. After acquiring the Void Heart, Jinn will tell the Knight that it has become different, like her masters. So from this we can tell that these Masters have some sort of intimate relationship with Void. Given the theme of steel and the obvious similarities in design, it appears as though these Masters are also connected to these new enemies found in Silksong. Steel Assassin Sharpe, this enemy seen in the Coral Forest and another character we haven’t seen yet, are all hunters, presumably sent out by these Masters in order to eliminate Hornet.

We really don’t know what motivates the Masters. We don’t know why they sent Jiji and Jinn to help the Knight in Hollow Knight, and we don’t know why they want Hornet killed after she is taken to a different kingdom. All we know is that they don’t seek order. Hopefully that helps clear up what we know about the Steel hunters we’ll be seeing in Silksong. Now in regards to the Shining Citadel, I’m not sure if we actually see it in the trailer, but there is one more area from the trailer I haven’t mentioned.

I don’t know what the fuck to call this place so I’m just going to take this opportunity to tell you that I hope you are enjoytng the video.

So we only get two shots of this really dark area. One with a fight with a boss called Lace, and another with a Weaver standing in some sort of shrine surrounded by silk. Let’s talk about the Weavers first. So, the Weavers were somehow involved in the events of Hollow Knight. To what extent, we don’t know. What we do know is that the Weavers eventually left Hallownest to return to their original home, except for one that appears to have stayed behind. The Weavers were capable of performing songs, with the Song of Farewell being mention in the Weaversong charm. According to Midwife, the Weavers crafted stories, shields, and spells on their looms. We know that Weavers are somehow connected to this new kingdom, given one of the tools seen in the menu, and this subtle hint right here. It seems likely that this kingdom is the Weavers’ home that they returned to after leaving Hallownest. It seems like the Weavers might be the reason why Hornet was captured, seeing as no one else would probably even know about Hornet other than them.

Moving on to Lace, Lace is the only boss in the trailer that Hornet fights twice. Once in the Forest of Bones and another time in this dark room filled with white roses and silk. What is interesting about Lace is that we don’t know who she is connected to. She carries a hooked weapon, similar to what the bell worshippers have, but there are also several characters with such a weapon so it might mean nothing. Given the name Lace, it seems like she might be connected to the Weavers somehow. Maybe she acts as their guardian, similar to how Hornet was a guardian in Hollow Knight. In other words, she might not be a true antagonist. But those eyes are pretty evil looking, so the jury is out on this one.

Now I know what you’re thinking. 

“Holy shit, mossbag is incredibly smart and handsome but there is no way in hell he will be able to make sense of any of this lore. It’s literally impossible. I mean first of all you have a bell worshipping cult that seems to be in control of much of the kingdom. You also have the Masters and their army of trained assassins whose motives are shrouded in mystery. And then of course there are the Weavers and their incredibly vague powers and goals. This whole thing is just way too vague to make any sense out of.”

Now, I can’t blame you for thinking this. In fact, you’re probably right. I will most likely get nothing right in this section. It’ll be fun for me to come back after the game comes out and see how wrong I was.

Alright, so this new kingdom is “haunted by silk and song”. But what the fuck does that mean? We can see that some enemies give off silk when they are struck by Hornet. Is this silk actually attaching onto these bugs? Does the silk just manifest itself on to them? What if this silk literally controls these bugs like puppets, making them hostile enemies? If you look at the giant monster in the Forest of Bones, during its roar animation, you will see lines coming down at each of the appendages. This effect does disappear, but what if this is Team Cherry’s subtle way of telling us something. Those lines were programmed into the game to look that way. And remember, this entire game is about travelling upwards. When you control a puppet, you stand above it. So whoever is it is at the top of the kingdom might be literally pulling the strings of all of these bugs.

Now this “haunted by song” line is really interesting. Does this mean they are haunted by the bells that everyone is obsessed with? Well, I don’t think that this line is referring to bells at all. No, I think there is literal music that is plaguing these bugs. The mass production of bells was a way to try and fight against this. If you ring enough bells, you essentially are able to drown out the song you are listening to. So in other words, the bugs of this kingdom were attacked by the power of some song, and there plan to fight it was…

“MOAR COWBELL!”

The thing is, these bells are used by several bugs in the kingdom, not just the crazy cultish ones. So I think there must be a good reason for why they are being used. 

The bugs that captured Hornet in the beginning are doing so because they need her help to stop the torment of the silk and song plaguing the kingdom. I don’t think they are actually bad. It’s just that most of them have fallen victim to this curse. The wanderers Hornet meets carry instruments with them as another way to drown out the song that haunts over this kingdom. As for the bugs that are hostile, this is simply because they were not able to escape the song, and became trapped.

So who is responsible for all of this? I don’t think we can know that yet. The giant bell in the trailer is protected by a Seal of Binding, except it is purple instead of the usual white. And when most enemies get hit in this game, they bleed purple blood. So I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the antagonist of this game will be related to the color purple in some way.

Another possible culprit is of course the Weavers, but I’m pretty sure the Weavers are supposed to be... good guys? I think it’s possible that the Weavers might actually have been captured by this being and forced to create the silk and song used to control this kingdom. The lone Weaver in Hallownest is the only one not captured and was able to tell other bugs about Hornet so that she could be captured and brought in to help. Now again, this is all baseless speculation!! I’m basically writing fanfiction at this point, so don’t treat my word here as gospel by any means.

So, all that’s left to talk about are the Masters and their steel hunters. Why do they care about what Hornet is doing here in this new kingdom. What stakes do they have? Well, remember where Hornet is going? A shining citadel. The key word here is shining. Light, the power to oppose darkness, or the Void. Remember that Godmaster ending where the flower the Godseeker was holding was able to counteract against the Shade Lord? Well, in this trailer, we see an entire field of white roses growing in the light presumably shining down from the citadel. The flowers are even growing on the pipe in the background. I think the Masters are afraid that Hornet will find the resources needed to combat the Void if she ever reaches the Shining Citadel. 

Now that’s about it for trailer analysis, but there are still questions regarding how this game connects back to Hollow Knight’s multiple endings. I think Silksong will have different content in it depending on which endings you have finished with Hollow Knight. Whether that is just different dialogue or a few extra bosses, I don’t know. But I do think Team Cherry will make sure each ending of Hollow Knight still makes sense with the events of Silksong.

Also, we don’t have an explanation for the trilobite statue in Deepnest. Team Cherry has said that this game will give us more information about Hornet’s past and fate, so hopefully we will finally get an answer to this thing. So yeah, thanks for watching guys. This trailer has me hyped as hell and I can’t wait to talk with you about all the new lore we will be getting in this game. I’d like to end on one last piece of very important news. Team Cherry finally put Jack on their website. Congratulations, Jack!