Those first couple of boss fights that have been taking people down are to get slightly easier in Silksong‘s first update. As ridiculous as it may be, there really are few more contentious topics in the world of gaming than difficulty, and that topic is riding high once again with the release of Hollow Knight: Silksong, a single-player game that’s proving so enormously popular it’s routinely hitting half a million concurrent players every day on PC alone. But among them, many are really struggling, demonstrated by the most popular mods all helping lower the challenge. Now, developers Team Cherry are joining in too, with the game’s first patch also set to make the earliest stages of the game easier, including making Moorwing and Sister Splinter slightly less monstrous.
In what’s surely to be a controversial move, the game’s first set of patch notes detail a range of bug fixes and tweaks that are due to arrive “mid next week,” and among them are “some slight balance adjustments early in the game.” However, PC players can access the patched version straight away by opting into the public-beta branch on Steam and GOG.
After a list of fixes for glitches that players have found since launch, the update provides a little detail on what’s been made easier. “Slight difficulty reduction in early game bosses Moorwing and Sister Splinter,” is the first, and an awful lot of people will be breathing a sigh of relief. If you can hear past the tedious roar of the “git gud” assholes, an awful lot of people are reporting that Moorwing was the very early point in the game they were desperately looking forward to that ended their option to keep playing.
Next up is a “reduction in damage from Sandcarvers,” a “slight increase in pea pod collider scale,” and a “slight reduction in mid-game Bellway and Bell Bench prices.” Added to that you’ve got a “slight increase in rosary rewards from relics and psalm cylinders,” and finally an “increase in rosary rewards for courier deliveries.”
Oftentimes, especially when a game’s development goes on for as long as Silksong‘s, the people creating the game can forget they’ve had seven years’ experience playing it more than the soon-to-arrive audience, and as such elements that will prove especially challenging near the start of a game can be lost sight of. So it’s extremely normal to use data from players to make such adjustments for how the game is being widely received. There will always be voices who respond in disgust, furious that others might not have to achieve the same challenge they did, or declaring humanity redundant as a result of the tweaks that place all others beneath them, but they’re a tiresome minority and safely ignored.
Here’s the full list of changes in the patch, due to arrive on PC and consoles next week:
– Fixed situation where players could remain cloakless after Slab escape sequence.
– Fixed wish Infestation Operation often not being completable during the late game.
– Fixed wish Beast in the Bells not being completable when Bell Beast is summoned at the Bilewater Bellway during the late game.
– Fixed getting stuck floating after down-bouncing on certain projectiles.
– Fixed courier deliveries sometimes being inaccessible in Act 3.
– Fixed craft bind behaving incorrectly when in memories.
– Fixed Lace tool deflect soft-lock at start of battle in Deep Docks.
– Fixed Silk Snippers in Chapel of the Reaper sometimes getting stuck out of bounds.
– Fixed Claw Mirrors leaving Hornet inverted if taking damage during a specific moment while binding.
– Fixed Snitch Pick not giving rosaries and shell shards as intended.
– Removed float override input (down + jump, after player has Faydown Cloak).
– Slight difficulty reduction in early game bosses Moorwing and Sister Splinter.
– Reduction in damage from Sandcarvers.
– Slight increase in pea pod collider scale.
– Slight reduction in mid-game Bellway and Bell Bench prices.
– Slight increase in rosary rewards from relics and psalm cylinders.
– Increase in rosary rewards for courier deliveries.
– Various additional fixes and tweaks.
