Hollow Knight is hands down one of the best video games I have ever played. Easily in the top 3, and I have played thousands of games in the 30 years I've been alive. The first time I played through it I beat it in like 3 days, binge playing like 14 hours a day. I've played plenty of souls type games, including beating all the souls games so many times that I have done soul level 1 runs on all of them. I've played plenty of Metroidvanias. I've even played quite a few soulsvanias like salt and sanctuary,deaths gambit and blasphemous.

Hollow Knight blew everything else away though, the world instantly sucked me in with how lonely yet beautiful it was even with the cartoonish graphics, the music was fantastic, the first time I got to City of Tears I was amazed and just sat on the bench watching the rain on the window, the controls are super tight and responsive with both combat and platforming, and the game was easy to learn but (very) difficult to master (NKG and Path of Pain anyone?). I was instantly addicted and the game got its hooks in me deep.

Sadly now that I have played through it 3 or 4 times, its lost a lot of the magic for me, it is still a ton of fun, but there are no more surprises anymore now that I know hollownest like the back of my hand. I don't really have any desire to play it again any time soon, but I've been dying for a similar experience, trying unsuccessfully to find a game that scratches that HK itch for me. I wish I could erase my memories of playing it so I could re-experience it.

I really hope Silksong can live up to the same level of greatness that Hollow Knight did, and I hope the wait isn't too long (although I know it will probably be at least a year or two) because I really need to explore more of this fascinating world that Team Cherry has built for us.