I have a confession: I am exactly the kind of player who sees a boss arena and immediately checks whether my will is up to date. So when Hollow Knight: Silksong finally arrived and promptly began folding me like a lawn chair, I did what any reasonable per... moreI have a confession: I am exactly the kind of player who sees a boss arena and immediately checks whether my will is up to date. So when Hollow Knight: Silksong finally arrived and promptly began folding me like a lawn chair, I did what any reasonable person would do in 2026: I opened the mod page and whispered, hello, accessibility.
The Wait Was Worth It, But My Reflexes Are Not
Let me be clear: Silksong is, for the most part, well worth the wait. Reviews were slowly but surely pouring in, and every early review I saw was full of praise. Guide writers were hard at work on complete walkthroughs, and I was hard at work pretending that my fourth death in a row was tactical reconnaissance. The game is gorgeous, sharp, and confident. It is also about as forgiving as a cat that has just been told no.
That is why the modding conversation around Silksong has been so fascinating. Within days of launch, players were already asking for ways to soften the opening portion, and modders answered with the enthusiasm of people who heard a doorbell and decided to install a whole new door.
The Mods Are Already Here, and They Are Practical
Browsing the Silksong mod page is a bit like visiting a support group where everyone also has a soldering iron. The headline act is
No Double Damage
, a mod that removes double damage from enemies and normal bosses. It does not turn Hornet into a steamroller; it just stops every stray elbow from deleting a health bar. The first time I used it, I felt like I had slipped a folded napkin under a wobbly table: the furniture was still rickety, but dinner suddenly became possible.
There are other helpful mods too:
🛠️ A respawn mod that lets you respawn at a scene's entrance instead of backtracking from a bench that is apparently in a different time zone.
📍 The same mod lets you customize respawn points in scenes, which is the gaming equivalent of leaving a spare key under a ceramic frog: a small mercy, wildly practical.
🧰 Several additional quality-of-life mods that make the experience easier and more accessible without rewriting the whole game.
🧀 Old-fashioned boss cheesing, because sometimes the smartest tactic is to let a terrifying boss walk into a wall while you take notes.
Here is my highly scientific breakdown:
Approach
What it does
My reaction
No Double Damage
Removes double damage from enemies and normal bosses
Less screaming, more learning
Scene entrance respawn
Skips the long bench pilgrimage
My patience returns from war
Custom respawn points
Lets me choose where to reappear
Power without responsibility
Boss cheese
Uses clever tactics against intimidating fights
🧀 Delicious
The Difficulty Debate Has Teeth
Of course, this opens up the usual dialogue about sacrificing intent and vision. Many people argue that Soulslikes such as Hollow Knight and Dark Souls should have one static difficulty. I understand that position. A game's difficulty is part of its voice, and modding it can feel like putting a funny hat on a statue. But in the case of Silksong, people are also pushing back at some of the game's design choices, and I think that pushback deserves a hearing.
One commentator put it well: the game is honestly incredibly difficult. Enemies deal a lot of damage and are often very nimble, and with very few upgrades, the game feels at least three times as difficult as Hollow Knight. That concern has been a common thread. The base difficulty is less a curve and more a corkscrew designed by a caffeinated architect. When players feel like the game is being difficult for the sake of being difficult, and when it fails to give them the tools to properly deal with the challenge, modders step in to fill that void.
I do not think that is a crime against art. A mod is not a review score, and it is not a demand that everyone play the same way. It is a knob on the radio. Some of us want the music louder; some of us want to hear our own thoughts. The
No Double Damage
mod is not a victory over the game. It is a tiny adjustment that lets a player stay in the conversation long enough to actually learn the dance.
Where Does That Leave Us in 2026?
Looking back from 2026, the whole episode feels like a useful snapshot of how players negotiate difficulty now. Reviews praised Silksong, walkthroughs flourished, and modders built a little side door for anyone who needed it. Whether Team Cherry ultimately addressed those concerns in a future update or not, the void was already filled by people who love the game enough to tinker with it.
So yes, I use mods. I use them because I want to see the rest of the game, not because I want to win an argument. Silksong can keep its fangs. I just prefer to bring a slightly thicker glove. 😅
All this tinkering has a way of expanding the backlog, though. Once I started poking around mod folders and load orders again, I found myself browsing for other soulslikes and metroidvanias to t less
