Hollow Knight: Silksong Beginner's Guide

Hollow Knight: Silksong is finally out, and it comes with tons of mechanics that are not obvious from the start. Some of these mechanics are important to know right from the start of the game, while some can be unlocked if you aim for them early in the game. This Hollow Knight: Silksong Beginner’s Guide will help you begin your journey in the game in the best possible way.

Beginner’s Guide – Hollow Knight: Silksong

Below you will find some important tips and tricks that will help you out if you are just starting to play Hollow Knight: Silksong.

Buy Rosary Strings to Avoid Losing Rosary Beads

Rosary Beads are the premium currency in Hollow Knight: Silksong, which can only be obtained by tougher enemies and sometimes in the open world. This makes them important because Shakra and other merchants in the game deal only with Rosary Beads, and if you want to buy useful items like location maps, health upgrades, and more, you will need Rosary Beads.

When you die, these Rosary Beads fall as well, but if you have Rosary Strings, you do not lose them even if you die. Make sure that you spend Rosary Beads to buy Rosary Strings or find them in the game to keep your currency safe. You can hold 20 Rosary Beads of each type at a single time.

Taunt Enemies to Agro Them

By pressing R3, you can taunt enemies who will instantly be attracted to you. This is helpful if there are multiple enemies on the screen, and you want to take them out one by one. When you taunt enemies, only one enemy gets attracted to you, making this an ideal enemy-thinning tactic for tougher battles. You can use this to attract enemies into traps or other favorable locations to kill them. However, every time you taunt an enemy, you will consume a small amount of Silk.

Use Tacks to Deal Massive Damage to Large Enemies and Bosses

Once you acquire the Tacks tool, you can use it to deploy a trap for bosses and enemies and lure them over it to deal massive damage to them. These are pointy spikes that will go away after dealing some damage to the enemies, and you can deploy them on the ground, and once an enemy steps on them, they will continue to receive damage as long as there is a Tack underneath them.

Jump Lightly to Increase your Attack Speed

Your jump attacks are faster than your regular attacks. This is because Hornet requires a short build-up before landing normal attacks, but when she is jumping, you can land faster attacks on enemies in quick succession. You can combine this with smaller jumps by softly tapping the jump key and landing multiple attacks in smaller windows where otherwise only one normal hit would have been possible. Use this increased speed to exploit damage windows and take out enemies quickly.

Use Needolin to Make Your Enemies Sing

Once you have acquired the Needolin, you can play it near enemies to make them dance. This not only works near enemies but also NPCs, and even dead corpses. Use this mechanic to have some fun with the enemies and NPCs in the game.

Use Swift Step to Dash Down

Apart from dashing right and left, you can also use the Swift Step to dash quickly down to the earth. While you cannot use it to land stomp attacks on enemies, you can, however, come down quickly to the ground after attacking airborne enemies to plan your next move quickly, because normally, Hornet slowly falls down, and the Dive attack has a short burst of speed as well.

Say No to Payment Gateways

When you arrive in Far Fields, you will come across a merchant who charges you 30 Rosary Beads for gaining access to the door. This might have been okay if this were a one-time payment, but this greedy merchant always wants this payment even if you have previously paid him and gone through the door.

To avoid this, you can break the mechanism above the door, and this will ensure that the door is never closed again. After doing this, you can come and go as you please, without paying the merchant a dime but you will need to make an initial payment so that the door opens once, and then you can break the mechanism.

Combine Cling Grip and Swift Step

After you have acquired both Cling Grip and Swift Step, you can combine these two moves in order to perform some moves that are not actually possible. This comes in handy when you are clinging to a wall and you want to go up. Instead of jumping around to platforms while clinging, simply dash, and you will move upwards onto the wall instead.

Jump After Grabbing the Ledges to Get a Boost

Hornet may seem a little slow to initiate basic movement, so when you are grabbing a lodge, press the jump key when you are close to the top to lunge forward in the air and move quickly. This can help dodge incoming attacks or evade enemies chasing you.

Deflect Incoming Attacks

You can strike incoming attacks to deflect them. If an enemy throws a projectile towards you, if you time it right, you can strike it off or back at the enemy. This is a very handy move, and you should make it a habit of sending the projectiles back at the attackers because some enemies are placed in positions to annoy the hell out of you with their projectiles. You can hit them in the air as well, so make this a habit and always use it.

This also works for melee attacks as long as the body of the incoming attacker is not in direct contact with your body. This means that the attacker must be attacking with some sort of weapon. If they are using their body as their attack, dodge out of the way, but if the enemy is attacking with a weapon that is away from their body, you can attack at the same time and deflect the incoming attack. You can think of it as a type of parry.

Use the Below Attack to Bounce off Enemies and Spikes

While in the air, if you aim down and attack, you will land a powerful below attack depending on the crest that you are using. You can use this down attack to not only damage enemies, but you will also be bounced back into the air to reach areas that are not available otherwise. You can also use it to bounce off spikes and not take any damage.

Resist the Urge to Destroy Your Cocoon in Boss Battles Quickly

You will die often in boss battles, and when you do, you will leave behind a cocoon with everything that you drop. Before you head back to this location and break open this cocoon, you must wait and start the boss battle before claiming your items back. This is because when you break the Cocoon, it gives you a decent amount of Silk, which will help you restore your health during boss battles. So, initiate the boss battle and use whatever silk you have available. Once you need it again, smash that cocoon, and you will quickly gain a decent amount of Silk back.

Expand Your Crests with Memory Lockets

No matter which crests you are using in the game, you can always expand them with the help of Memory Lockets. Each crest has some open slots at the beginning and some locked slots. If you can find some Memory Lockets in the game, you can open up these slots and equip additional items in them.

Always Look for Hidden Entrances and Secrets

Hollow Knight: Silksong features a vast world that is full of secrets and hidden paths for you to explore. You will always find something useful when you go off the beaten path. Jump into corners, smash walls, and slam floors, which look somewhat suspicious, and you may get lucky and open a new path.

That is all for this guide. Additional Hollow Knight: Silksong guides are linked below:

This concludes our Hollow Knight: Silksong Beginner’s Guide. If you want to add anything to this guide, feel free to use the comments section below.