Hollow Knight: Silksong Beginner Tips: 12 Things to Know Before You Start

Updated September 29, 2026. Hollow Knight: Silksong is a tough game, but most early frustration comes from a handful of systems it barely explains: healing with Silk, losing Rosaries when you die, buying maps, and managing Tools and Crests. Below are 12 practical things to know before you start, with every mechanic checked against the in-game terms used by Team Cherry and the community wikis.

Silksong at a Glance: Platforms, Price and Patches

Hollow Knight: Silksong launched on September 4, 2025 from Team Cherry, the small Adelaide studio behind the original Hollow Knight. You play as Hornet, who finds herself alone in the unfamiliar kingdom of Pharloom and sets out on a pilgrimage to its peak. The official site describes more than 200 enemies, and the Steam page lists over 40 bosses.

It is available on PC (Steam, GOG and Humble, with Windows, macOS and Linux support), PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2. It is also part of Xbox Game Pass, which we cover in our best Game Pass games for September 2026. On Steam it costs $19.99.

The game has been patched several times since launch. The key changes for new players are:

• First patch (September 2025): Team Cherry said it was "implementing a slight difficulty reduction in early game bosses Moorwing and Sister Splinter." The patch also reduced Sandcarver's damage, raised Rosary rewards from relics and couriers, and lowered the prices of Bellways and Bell Benches.
• October 2025 patch: raised the Hunter Crest's damage bonuses and fixed a number of bugs.
• November 2025 patch: added an advanced controller settings menu, among other fixes.
• March 2026 patch: added a bench near Pale Lake, plus more fixes and quality-of-life changes.

A free expansion called Sea of Sorrow was announced on December 15, 2025 and is slated for 2026. As of today it has no confirmed release date, and Team Cherry has said it will hold major updates until the expansion ships. Anything you read about its exact contents beyond "new areas, bosses, tools and more" is speculation.

Key Silksong Mechanics Explained

Silksong reuses some ideas from the first game, but several systems work differently. Here is a quick reference before the tips.

Tips 1–3: Silk, Bind and Surviving Fights

1. Bind costs a full heal's worth of Silk, so pick your moment

Healing in Silksong is called Bind. It takes 9 Silk and restores 3 Masks at once, where the first game healed one Mask at a time. That makes every heal a big decision. You can Bind on the ground or in the air, but Hornet stays in place until the animation ends.

If an enemy hits you before the heal completes, you lose all the Silk on your Spool. The only exception is the Warding Bell Tool, which prevents that loss. When fighting ground-based enemies, jumping away before you Bind is often the safer choice.

2. Silk Skills and healing come from the same pool

Your first Silk Skill is Silkspear, a needle throw. Each Silk Skill costs 4 Silk, so throwing two of them leaves you short of a Bind. Early on, save your Silk for healing unless a Silk Skill will clearly finish a fight or break a boss pattern. Your Crest decides how many Silk Skills you can equip.

3. Play hit-and-run, and learn to pogo

Established guides agree on this: hit an enemy once or twice, then move away. Staying alive matters more than dealing damage quickly, and standing in place trading hits is a common cause of early deaths.

Downward attacks let you bounce off enemies, spikes and some objects. This is usually called pogoing, and it is how you cross many hazards and platforming sections. Crests change the shape of your downward strike. GameSpot recommends the Reaper Crest for pogoing because its down attack strikes straight down.

Tips 4–5: Death, Cocoons and Protecting Your Rosaries

4. Dying leaves a cocoon, and dying again loses it for good

When Hornet dies, you respawn at your last Bench and a silk cocoon forms where you fell. It holds all the Rosaries you were carrying. Until you get it back, your Spool upgrades are disabled, which caps you at 9 Silk. That is exactly one Bind.

Break the cocoon with any needle attack or Silk Skill to recover your Rosaries. It also gives you 9 Silk, so breaking it just before a tough room acts as an emergency heal. If you die again before reaching it, a new cocoon replaces the old one and the old Rosaries are lost permanently. Later, a vendor sells Silkeaters, which recover the cocoon without the trip back.

5. Turn spare cash into Rosary Strings

A Rosary String is an inventory item worth 60 Rosaries, and you don't drop it when you die. Merchants such as Pebb sell them. Vendors charge a bit more than a String is worth, so think of that difference as an insurance fee.

If you are carrying a lot of Rosaries before a boss or an unfamiliar area, buy a few Strings. Break them from your inventory when you need to spend. One known bug is that buying a String when you already hold the maximum spends your Rosaries anyway, so check your count first.

Tips 6–8: Maps, Benches and Bellways

6. Find Shakra early and buy the Quill

Silksong doesn't give you maps for free. Shakra, a traveling cartographer you first meet in the Marrow, sells a map for each region. After she sets up camp in an area, you can call her back by striking the ring poles there.

Her wares:

• Region maps: around 40–90 Rosaries each.
• Quill: 50 Rosaries. It adds rooms you explore to your maps, so buy it with your first map.
• Compass: 70 Rosaries. This yellow Tool shows your position on the map while equipped. It uses a Tool slot, so drop it once you know an area well.
• Map markers: pins for Benches, Bellways and vendors. They are nice to have, but maps and the Quill come first.

7. Rest at every Bench, and budget for the paid ones

Resting at a Bench saves your game, fully heals you and sets your respawn point. It is also the only place you can change Crests and equip Tools. Red Tools are restocked there with Shell Shards, while blue Tools refill for free.

Many Benches must be unlocked with Rosaries. After the first patch, standard paid Benches such as those in Shellwood cost 40 Rosaries, and some later ones cost more. Before you spend on shops, keep enough Rosaries to unlock the next Bench, since a nearby respawn point saves a lot of walking.

8. Beat the Bell Beast to unlock fast travel

Fast travel runs on Bellways, a network of stations that opens after you defeat the Bell Beast in the Marrow. The first stations are free, and most others cost Rosaries to activate. The Citadel later adds a second system called Ventrica. Until you reach Bellways, expect a lot of backtracking on foot, which is one more reason to protect your Rosaries.

Tips 9–10: Tools, Shell Shards and Crests

9. Understand the three Tool colors

Tools replace the first game's Charms and use colored slots:

• Red Tools are limited-use attacks, such as the Straight Pin, a throwing weapon you find early in the Marrow. You use them with the Tool button plus a direction, and they are refilled with Shell Shards at Benches.
• Blue Tools give passive combat and survival bonuses. One example is Druid's Eye, a Wish reward that turns damage you take into Silk.
• Yellow Tools help with exploration and collecting. Examples are the Compass and the Magnetite Brooch, which pulls loose Rosaries toward you and sells for 120 Rosaries.

Red Tools can make early bosses much easier. If you are stuck on a fight, bring a full stock of red Tools. Don't let Shell Shards pile up unused.

10. Crests change how Hornet fights

You start with the Hunter Crest. Later Crests include Reaper, Wanderer, Beast, Witch, Architect and Shaman. Each one changes your needle attacks, and some also change how Bind works. Each Crest also has its own layout of red, blue and yellow Tool slots and Silk Skill slots. Memory Lockets unlock more slots.

A Crest that feels bad for one boss may suit another, so try swapping at a Bench when you hit a wall. Team Cherry has patched the Hunter Crest's damage bonus upward since launch, so the starting Crest is a solid choice.

Tips 11–12: Upgrades, Wishes and Fleas

11. Know which pickups make you stronger

Most of Hornet's progress comes from items hidden around Pharloom. Hit suspicious walls and check dead ends, because breakable walls and hidden rooms are common.

• Mask Shards: four of them add one Mask of health.
• Spool Fragments: two of them extend your Silk Spool.
• Needle upgrades: Pinmaster Plinney in Bellhart sharpens your Needle for free the first time. Later upgrades cost Pale Oil and Rosaries.
• Movement abilities: skills such as Swift Step (dash), Drifter's Cloak (glide) and Clawline (grapple) open new routes. If a path seems impossible, note it on your map and come back later.

12. Take Wishes and rescue Fleas

Wishes are Silksong's side quests. You get them from NPCs and from Wishwalls in hubs such as Bone Bottom, Bellhart and Songclave. Early Wishes are mostly about finding, gathering and hunting, and the rewards include Rosaries, Tools and upgrades. Active Wishes are listed in your inventory.

Also look for trapped Fleas. There are 30 of them, and each one you free goes to the Flea Caravan. Freeing 5, 12 and 22 Fleas earns rewards such as a Spool Fragment and a Tool Pouch upgrade. The first Flea is in the Marrow, and rescuing them is part of the Wish "The Lost Fleas."

Frequently Asked Questions

If you like hard action games with a lot to learn, see our hubs for Hades 2 and Sekiro, and check the Hollow Knight: Silksong hub for more guides.

Sources checked on September 29, 2026 against Team Cherry's official Silksong site, the Steam store page, Team Cherry's patch notes as compiled by the Hollow Knight Wiki, and established guides from GameSpot and Game8.