Hollow Knight: Silksong, developed by Team Cherry, has arrived with punishing boss runbacks that begin as early as Act 1, transforming routine deaths into lengthy obstacle courses and draining the momentum from fights. The original report does not specify a patch date or revised checkpoint window, but the problem is present at launch.
Silksong’s runbacks force players to traverse hazards, platforming traps, and respawned enemies before each retry, and that design choice changes how fights are learned and practiced. Even studios associated with long runbacks have pared them back, FromSoftware essentially reduced those mechanics for the genre in titles like Elden Ring, but Silksong leans into long, unforgiving journeys to the arena instead of quicker checkpoints that reward repetition and learning.
“It’s not even the distance of the runback as much as it is the resistance of the runback,”
The quote above comes from a segment in a recent video by Rusty; the clip is part of wider player reaction captured in community threads and videos like the Rusty video that examines how those sections feel in practice.
Stretching the downtime between attempts beyond a couple of minutes transforms a teachable boss into a gruelling endurance contest that punishes memory and nerves, and also wipes out any momentum. Fans on Reddit have been quick to point out design choices such as sparse benches, with one early thread calling out how badly spaced checkpoints compound the problem; the original Reddit post about missing benches captured that frustration in detail.
Act 1’s final encounter is commonly cited as the worst offender, with a sandstorm section and enemies that threaten to knock players into pits before the boss even begins. The mechanical combo of high-damage boss attacks and punishing travel back to the arena means successful attempts are rare and fragile, and several community posts catalog the tiny rosettes of currency returned for such effort; one of those moments was memorialized by a Reddit clip showing exactly how cruel that runback can feel in motion.
There are defensive arguments too: the game opens up in Act 2, where more tools and alternate routes give players options they lack in the early hours. That shift reduces some of the sting, but it doesn’t remove the feeling that the design forces repetition for repetition’s sake rather than making each runback feel meaningful.
Platforming and enemy placement rarely change on retry; repetition turns creative gameplay into rote memorization and performance under stress, which strips most of the joy out of defeating a clever encounter. The boss fights themselves still have sharp moments, clever openings, and patterns that reward attention, but the trip to the fight too often overstays its welcome.
Players who want to preserve momentum will look to community fixes, alternative routes in later acts, or patient design features from Team Cherry, but at present, the runbacks are a central complaint that colors otherwise excellent encounters. A short, repeatable checkpoint close to the boss would change the pacing without altering the core combat, yet Team Cherry’s current setup insists on extended returns that make some fights feel less like tests of skill and more like endurance chores.
Share your thoughts in the comments and join the conversation on X and Bluesky to let everyone know what still feels unfair.
