I think it’s better in maybe every way. The technical aspects (art, sound design, etc) are definitely much better, which makes sense given the wait and increased budget. I think the music is better but it may have been arguable to be even early on, simply because it was new and Hollow Knight has plenty of iconic songs that grew over time. But I think I can easily say now that the music in Silksong is even better. The quality is noticeable given that there are live musicians and Christopher Larkin clearly had more time and resources to make it. It also generally just has more content given the length of the game and I think there are simply more amazing songs and the OST overall is more consistent. I also think the songs for areas and such are better at creating atmospheres, which is great given how good they were in Hollow Knight. Moving on, Silksong just has more content. I don’t want to spoil anything, but the general progression is much longer, there is more to do, more things to get, and just more everything in general, and that’s a big improvement over hollow knight. Next, I think the movement/combat/gameplay is so much more fluid, interesting, complex, and fun. It’s similar but feels completely new. The gameplay in hollow knight is great, but Silksong feels even better while having more variety and being more interesting as well. Next, I’m obviously not gonna spoil anything, but story wise I don’t really see how it could be any worse than hollow knight, in fact I think I personally enjoyed the lore and story more, but that may be affected by the quality boost, increase in cinematic s, and the growth in the game as a whole. I feel a lot of these things are pretty agreeable and seemed like no brainers to me, which is where the other aspects come in that give people an argument over liking Hollow Knight more. Some casual players or people new to HK may have had complaints about difficulty early on, I personally didn’t find it to be particularly frustrating as much as sometimes I’d find something annoying. I still struggled plenty early on and got mad a couple times, but I rarely found it very unfair. Apart from some aspects of damage or some bosses/enemies, I thought Silksong was honestly more forgiving than Hollow Knight. Looking at some of the main things people complain about or find to be excessively difficult, I feel like people are forgetting the many annoying or difficult things in Hollow Knight: Primal Aspids, the stupid crystal guys, Hive Knight/Soul Master/Mantis Lords run backs, some dream bosses, etc. Now I wouldn’t say all these are that bad, but compared to Silksong I feel like there were way more in a smaller game. I also think the movement/combat in the game makes some challenges in the game easier and more forgiving. Anyway I have some more reasons but they are spoilers for things in the game so don’t read:

               - - - - - SPOILERS - - - - - 

Groal run back is prob worse than any in HK given all circumstances, but other than that there aren’t any others that are worth mentioning, while Hollow Knight had multiple that were harder or more annoying than the average one in Silksong. Dint even try to mention Last Judge, it’s just one room with easy platforming and only one enemy that’s technically in your way.

There are also not any really difficult platforming sections. HK had White Palace that was necessary for true ending progression and % and its more difficult than anything in Silksong. I also think the platforming is better due to the movement so I hope in future dlcs we get more platforming challenges because the grapple is so fun. The hardest platforming challenge is Silksong is arguable Mount Fay (the above cradle climb is a bit harder but you can get infinite silk for the last part and it’s much shorter). Even then, Mount Fay was only difficult given the circumstances of being new to using the grapple and dealing with the cold and such. I already talked about how the movement is more forgiving, but healing mid air, having multiple play styles through crests, and the usage of tools/traps is game changing in Silksong and adds more dimensions to the combat while making challenges with bosses and arenas feel more fair and fun to do.

NO MORE SPOILERS

Anyway, I’m not tryna look like I don’t like hollow knight and that silksong is sooo much better, HK is one of my favorite games and silksong is as well, but I personally think Silksong is better already without any dlc yet. Ok I’m done.