Silksong Mean

One very common pain point with the early game of Silksong is the Hunter's March. It's an area that players can stumble on with ease - it branches off the first area of the game and it's right next to a mid-point bench (a place for saving and healing, for those unaware). The entrance to the March is guarded by an enemy that's substantially larger than anything the player has encountered up to that point and has the aggression and speed to match.

If at that early point in the game, you manage to best the Skarrguard and opt to explore the March, you are met with an environment that matches its erstwhile guardian: it is absolutely riddled with deadly spike pits that must be traversed using challenging platforming puzzles. And what few safe places there are are all guarded jealousy by enemies that are no less difficult than anything you've experienced to this point. If you make it into the March early enough - before you've amassed a serious number of combat upgrades and damaging tools, each fight can feel like a mini-boss in and of itself.

All of this difficulty - from the aggressive occupants to the demanding platforming - is meant to signal to the player that what awaits them in the Hunter's March is pain and that it's an area that is best left alone until the player is better practiced at the game and has a bigger arsenal. Even should the player make it deep enough within to meet Skara, the mapmaking NPC you repeatedly meet throughout the game's caves, she warns you that the enemies deeper within are much more dangerous than anything you've fought thus far and recommends caution as if to drive home the point. I feel like if this were any other, more mainstream, game where the narrative isn't told through subtle hints and worldbuilding then it would be blocked off with a fourth-wall breaking message telling you to come back later.

But if the player were to perservere and attempt to conquer the March early – either due to willfull stubbornness, a desire to repay sunk costs spent delving, or by just missing the hints – they will eventually reach a bench in the middle of the March. A veritable oasis - a place to rest, heal, and save. To take a breath.

Except this bench is trapped and sitting on it will damage you. If you've made it to the bench through only the barest skin of your teeth, it will likely kill you and send you back to the beginning of that gauntlet.

This interaction is what the author of that post – and many, many others on Bluesky and Reddit – use as evidence of the game's 'meanness'.

And honestly? I agree. It is 'mean' to put that trap there. It is the game's 'meanness' to lure a player, one who is likely feeling what must be the first moment of safety in a gauntlet of suffering, to their death by baiting them. It feels particularly like a middle finger to do that using what would be, in any other part of the game, a safe place.

And I love it.

I grew up in a rural (read: Republican) area that was dotted with small forests and large empty fields and it wasn't uncommon to come across signs like these next to where the private land touched public streets and sidewalks. It was drilled into my head from an early age that I had to obey those signs because, well, do I need to explain?

Perhaps it was this upbringing that led me to look at the bench sign in the middle of the Hunter's March with a bit of caution. The ants who made the March home had done everything possible to make me not feel welcome. I had felt more hate and hostility in those few rooms than anything I had experienced in the ten hours or so I had been playing the game. And yet, here was a sign advertising a bench - right in the heart of the ant's colony. Needless to say, my hackles were up when I entered the room.

I still sat and was promptly obliterated. My suspicions had warred in my head with my expectation that game mechanics trumped storytelling and that it would be a safe bench. I was, obviously, wrong.

In the ten hours or so that I had been playing the game up until then (having taken the hint early on from the Skarrguard and steered clear), I had growing more impressed by the game. Getting destroyed on that trapped bench was what made me realize I was playing a work of art.

My college degree is in English Literature. To put it simply (and to answer the Avenue Q question), a BA in English is meant to teach you to look beyond the surface of a text. One of my professors was fond of teaching the idea of "form and meaning", or, the idea that how a text presents an idea informs the meaning of that idea as much as the words used. For example, by describing things through one character's perspective, it allows the author to filter that character's impressions, biases, and thoughts through to the reader and it allows you a deeper sense of narrative, meaning, and sensation than if the author had simply described it without that perspective.

How my professor illustrated this to us is from The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. In the scene when Pecola goes to buy candy from the local shop and the entire scene is filtered through the eyes of the racist store owner who conveys to the reader the feelings that Pecola is internalizing throughout the entire story. It wouldn't be half as impactful were it not for this literary device. As an aside, of all the books I've read that have had the biggest impact on me as a reader of literature and a writer, this novel is in the running for the top spot. Anyway….

If the bench in the middle of Hunter's March had been a normal, regular bench then players would have sat down, been fully healed, felt relief and pride in having cleared the gauntlet up until this point and took a breather before setting out to explore the rest of the cave and they would have never thought about it again. And there would have been nothing wrong had Team Cherry decided to do that - it would have been one more bench among the several dozen a player will interact with throughout the sprawling adventure.

But honestly? Like how an author adds flavor, nuance, and depth to a simple description of a character by filtering it through another character's perspective, making that bench be a trap adds something to the narrative of Silksong. It reiterates just how hostile and unwelcoming the world of Pharloom is; it drives home the fact that Hornet (and consequently you, as her player) have to pay for every inch of this dangerous world that you conquer with a pound of flesh (and rosaries, the game's currency). Safety is scarce, this world is hard.

I'll admit that I sat on the bench and was promptly obliterated.

I was taught early on the importance of looking for signs when I played. I grew up in a very rural (read: Republican) area that was full of small, dense forests and wide open former farm fields long since left to rot. And nearly everywhere I could see a sign like this one near where private property met public roads and sidewalks.

When I arrived outside the bench, deep in the core of the Hunter's March, and I saw the sign advertising the bench, I admit I was more than a little wary. Why would there be a bench in the middle of one of the most hostile and unwelcoming parts of the game thus far? Assuming that it was the ants that built it, why would they advertise it?

But I assumed that it had to be safe, that it had to be one of those instances where a game's mechanics - those things like healthbars and save game menus and high scores that players interact with - superseded the things that existed in the game's narrative (its story, its characters, its in-game world). I mean, you need to be able to save, right?

Plenty of games make the separation between game mechanics and narrative and that's totally okay. But as the trap clicked and the axe swung down while I frantically mashed buttons to try and dodge, I realized that Silksong doesn't. Silksong uses that moment to illustrate that this won't be an easy, or forgiving journey.

And it's not the only place the game does that. One of the many criticisms throughout is the plethora of benches that require you to first pay some amount of rosaries to unlock them. It feels unfair to ask the player – who is usually fairly strapped for cash at this point – to pay to rest. It feels, dare I say it, mean.

what is the value of all this "meanness"

A fancy word that I learned in college is the mis-en-scene. It's a film/theater term to mean that everything on the screen/stage matters as part of the composition: everything from what the characters are saying to what they are doing to what they are wearing, the lighting, the blocking, the set, etc. If a film director wants to convey a character at their mental or emotional limit, they may employ different lighting and camera angles and perspectives than if they wanted to show a character having a good time. Every part of the mis-en-scene comes together to create the experience of watching a film/play.

Games have a mis-en-scene too but since games are a fundamentally interactive type of entertainment, how the player interacts with the world matters. Many games separate out these interactions from the narrative and intentionally keep them seperate (that is to say, the things that are happening to the character are different than the things that happen to the player). We call the interactions meant for the player by the term "gameplay mechanics". Cloud Strife doesn't see the menu when you save your game - that is an abstraction for the player. "Saving" doesn't exist within the narrative of Cloud's world. Dante from Devil May Cry doesn't see the Style Ranking as he slices up enemies or his healthbar decreasing as enemies slice him up; that is an abstraction for the player to give context to the events on the screen. These abstractions are part of the game's mise-en-scene alongside the story and the characters, but are generally kept separate from said narrative elements.

A typical video game may use such gameplay mechanical abstractions as a way of telling the player that they are in danger: flashing red lights to indicate low health or an enemy's name may appear with a skull next to it to indicate that they are a dangerous foe. They may expressely break the fourth wall and give you a popup message that the content you're trying to access is unavailable until you meet some level requirement.

A question that is often posed is: what makes a particular video game into "art"? I'd argue that one (of many possible) criteria is how it manages this division between gameplay mechanic and narrative.

what makes a game art? the melding of mechanics to narrative

game mechanics versus narrative

But instead, by being "mean" here and trapping the cave, it

form and meaning

Meixie 🐼, [15 Sep 2025 23:40:47] Silksong is a mean game and that's why I like it. It is a supremely hostile world and conquering it feels extra satisfying. Form with meaning.

Meixie 🐼, [15 Sep 2025 23:41:33] the hunter's march warns you that this is not a safe place

Meixie 🐼, [16 Sep 2025 00:23:43] games as art. they are allowed to say things to you too.

Meixie 🐼, [16 Sep 2025 00:34:53] could have been a normal bench, nobody would have thought a second about it

Meixie 🐼, [16 Sep 2025 00:42:10] it makes the moments of joy and peace and goodness that much more resonant

But in the game's early hours after launch, it seemed like many people were missing the message

people missing the message

In any other game

Silksong, the sequel to Hollow Knight, is a very mean game.

And I love that about it.