Combat for Hollow Knight Silksong features information on the basic and advanced mechanics of the game's Combat System. As with its predecessor Hollow Knight, Combat is a central feature in Hollow Knight: Silksong, utilizing elements made popular by the Dark Souls franchise, such as the punishing difficulty, which demands precision. The game is also a Metroidvania title played from a 2D side-scrolling perspective, and its combat goes hand-in-hand with platforming elements. This page will cover all aspects of Combat in Hollow Knight: Silksong, including the usage of weapons and abilities at the player's disposal, advanced techniques, stats, status effects, and more.
Hollow Knight: Silksong Combat Guide
Silksong 10 Must-Know Gameplay Tips & Tricks
Hollow Knight Silksong Beginner Guide
Basic Combat in Hollow Knight Silksong
The way we'll have to approach Hollow Knight: Silksong will be different from how we approached the original Hollow Knight game, where the Knight used downward attacks to defeat enemies; Hornet does diagonal ones, which will be something that will take some time to get used to. Due to this new combat mechanic, you'll have to position yourself well when attacking enemies. Being at the wrong place at the wrong time can be dangerous for Hornet.
Miscalculating your attack's range can also be punishing; you could accidentally fall off ledges, or, due to miscalculating the attack's range, you could also get too close to the enemy without actually hitting them. Get a feel for the range by practicing on easier enemies at the beginning, as it tends to get a bit awkward at the beginning.
Whenever you perform a diagonal stab, Hornet will do a short tumbling motion in the air, which you can use to reposition yourself for your next attack. Hit-and-run tactics are Hornet's best friend. Due to her agility and faster attacks, this helps her get in for a quick stab and just as quickly evade any attacks that come her way.
What are Mask Shards for in HK: Silksong
Mask Shards are what represent Hornet's health. Health Masks are shown at the top left corner of the screen, along with the silk spool. At the start of the game, she'll have 5 Health Masks in total, and each time she gets damaged by an enemy, she loses one mask.
These masks can be recovered by either sitting at a bench or using the Bind ability when you have a full spool of silk. You can increase the amount of Health Masks she has by collecting 4 Mask Shards.
These mask shards can be found in different areas of the game. Make sure you keep a sharp eye out for these shards to give Hornet an upgrade to her Health Masks and an even bigger chance at surviving her battles.
Advanced Combat in Hollow Knight: Silksong
Hornet is a beast with the Needle and Thread. Her expertise with this weapon allows her to perform fast and deadly attacks. You can parry certain attacks, negating their damage totally. Attacking just before the attack reaches you allows you to parry attacks and gives you an earlier window of opportunity to strike back. Just like in the first game, you can only parry attacks that appear to have a white trace. To put it simply, the enemy must have an actual weapon for you to be able to parry an attack.
When done at the right angle, you can attack your enemies with the diagonal stab continuously without the need to land back on the ground. This can easily take out enemies faster than the normal hit-and-run tactic. You can use your diagonal attacks to bounce on certain obstacles, such as spikes, allowing you to traverse the land much more easily. This is particularly useful when fighting enemies in areas riddled with obstacles. If you wish for an almost similar playstyle to the original game's Knight, there is a Crest called the Wanderer's Crest that turns your diagonal stab into a downward swipe.
Hornet has abilities called Silk Skills and Ancestral Arts that further enhance her skills as a huntress. Silk Skills are abilities that Hornet can acquire throughout her journey, such as Silkspear. This skill allows Hornet to throw Needle at enemies as well as destroy silk-like structures that regenerate when damaged by normal attacks. Using skills like this one uses up Silk. Ancestral Arts obtained by Hornet give her additional movement abilities, further enhancing her agility and allowing her to toy with her prey easily. A good example of these Ancestral Arts is the first one you'll ever unlock: Swift Step, which allows Hornet to sprint at blinding speed, beyond one's natural limits. Chase down prey and leap great distances.
Crafting Tools in Hollow Knight: Silksong
You can craft Tools that aid Hornet in her travels by providing either passive or active effects. These tools have a limited number of uses, but can be restored by sitting at a bench and using some. You can also acquire upgrades to your such as a crafting kit from the Forge Daughter and an item also called a Tool Pouch from the vendor inside the Pilgrim's Rest over at Far Fields. These boost your tools' damage, make sure to complete the upgrades for the tool pouch to fully utilize your tools' damage.
Make sure to collect Rosaries and Shell Shards from the enemies you defeat and repositories you break. These two items are used for buying useful items and crafting, respectively, that can be used to prepare Hornet for your next encounter.
The Needle and Thread
Hornet is a seasoned warrior and hunter. She wields a needle and a thread, which best suits her identity. It is currently unknown what various features she can do with her weapon, but it is known to be a light weapon that allows her to move and dance freely on the battlefield. With her weapon, Hornet can perform certain moves that allow her to dash, block/parry attacks, execute fast strikes, and is also used as a tool for traversal purposes. Currently, it is unknown if she will be able to gain stronger variations of The Needle, but it is most likely possible for a crafting system to be included in the game where she can craft different types of Needles with different stats.
Crests in HK: Silksong
Hornet's Crests can be seen on the hub on the upper left side of the screen beside her health. This is something players can upgrade along with the length of her silk spool. It is still unclear how to upgrade these Crests, but upon upgrading them, it will give Hornet different skills, different skill animations, and the icons themselves will change as well. Upgrading the Crest will also allow Hornet to hold more tools to utilize in combat, and the needle attached to the crest will appear longer.
Bind Mechanic
Hollow Knight: Silksong introduces a healing mechanic called Bind, which is somehow similar to the Hollow Knight. For The Knight, it collects SOUL and uses FOCUS to recover its health. For Hornet, she possesses a similar skill, but what makes her different from The Knight is that Silk and SOUL for Hornet are bound as one, and she uses this mechanic in a more experienced way. In order for Hornet to recover health, she needs to have a full spool of Silk in order to use Bind, which allows her to cover her wounds and recover her lost health.
Hornet uses this mechanic in a few different ways. First, she can use Bind faster than The Knight uses FOCUS. In conjunction with this, she can also use Bind in mid-air, which clearly shows how versatile Hornet is, and finally, she has the ability to recover three masks of health with a single use of Bind in exchange for using her full spool of silk. In spite of the versatility of her skills, Hornet is also vulnerable in certain situations. She may be fast whenever she uses Bind, but if she takes any damage, her action will be interrupted, the healing effect will not take effect, and the silk will, unfortunately, be consumed and be put to waste. So be mindful of your surroundings, especially when you are in a battle with a boss or during enemy encounters
Acrobatic Movements
Hornet's movement differs from The Knight in a way that she moves faster and more fluidly, as she can perform different kinds of aerial movements even while she is attacking. Hornet can perform fast lunges, lunge off of enemies, flips, parries, faster healing, as well as using her environment to her advantage, such as wall jumping, holding onto ledges to get over them, and using her needle as a grappling hook to get across farther or higher areas.
While Hornet faces enemies, players will need to be a little more creative as the enemies in Hollow Knight: Silksong have musical weapons and armor, such as bells as helmets and cymbals as shields. However, due to Hornet's acrobatic agility, players will enjoy defeating enemies with her set of skills.
Dying in HK: Silksong
In Hollow Knight, whenever The Knight dies, it leaves its shade that carries its Geo and SOUL. For Hollow Knight: Silksong, Hornet leaves a cocoon at the last location of her death. Currently, it has been revealed in a blog by Team Cherry that players can find a full stock of silk inside the cocoon, and players will need to break it open to acquire its content.
It was also mentioned at Nintendo Treehouse in E3 2019's gameplay reveal of HK: Silksong that upon death, you will lose Rosaries, which is the equivalent of currency or Geo in Hollow Knight, that allows you to purchase various items and tools. So, it is safe to assume that you can also find the Rosaries inside the cocoon along with the silk. But then again, this information is under speculation and will be further updated later on.
Hollow Knight: Silksong Core Combat Mechanics
Following up from the latest news release coming in hot from Team Cherry, thanks to Gamescom 2025, we all know by now that Hollow Knight: Silksong is bound to be officially released by September 4, 2025. Here are some of the key mechanics that we have observed so far.
The offensive attack mechanics of Hornet are way quicker and agile compared to the Hollow Knight. In line with this, the enemies have been improved too, and a few monsters that you will encounter will have unique defensive capabilities, so timing and strategy in landing attacks would be a great factor for you to learn and adapt to.
The main energy source of Hornet will come in the form of Silk, which is gathered on the Silk Meter and is regenerated every time you land attacks on opponents.
Unlike the Focus Soul capability that Hollow Knight has that requires him to just stand still and focus in order to regenerate health masks, Hornet can move freely to cast Bind, for as long as there is enough silk to cast it, Hornet will be able to cast it even in mid-air, and instead of regenerating 1 health mask per cast, the Bind capability regenerates 3 masks per cast.
As Hornet progresses in the game, there will be a capability added to the silk bar that, when a certain Crest is equipped, the silk required on the meter for regeneration will cost less, putting Hornet at an advantage of efficiently healing through battles and faster regeneration.
When Hornet dies, the Silk Meter will be broken, and you will need to go back to your cocoon where you previously died in order to regain access to it. Once destroyed, it will reactivate your Silk Meter and pretty much all your available tools and skills at your disposal.
Throughout the game, you will also get to encounter parts of the broken Silk Mask, which improves the health mask capacity of Hornet by 1 per piece as you complete the mask.
Also, here in Hollow Knight: Silksong, the Charms are reworked and removed, and are replaced by the trifecta of Tools, Crests, and Skills. The Tools would be divided into 3 categories, namely Red, Blue, and Yellow Tools, and these are equipped by Hornet to gain more advantage against its foes. Crests would play more of passive effects and utility concepts to improve Hornet's offensive and defensive mechanics, while the Skills are mainly the offensive attacks that Hornet will learn throughout the game progress.
Anonymous
it is possible to parry through multi-hit flurry attacks, like the pharlids and mantises use. It seems like parrying instantly resets your main needle attack cooldown-- just tap the attack button furiously if you land a parry on one of those flurry attacks. I don't think this is the limit of what you can do-- they put a lot of effort into giving hornet the kind of feats you'd expect a legendary type of fighter to be capable of.
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