Is it really that bad? The beginning definitely ramps things up, but I don't think anyone who beat Hollow knight would call Silksong "punitive", at least not for the 10 hours I've played so far. The area I struggled in the most was clearly one I wasn't "supposed" to go into yet, but otherwise the difficulty curve is only slightly steeper than HK's early game.

Some discourse makes it sound like we're thrown 20 hours into HK at the beginning of Silksong. I know I'm biased as someone who beat 100% of Hollow Knight (granted, there's 112% of completion, so I did not in fact beat ALL the content), since I've played more HK than average.

It is that bad, at least for me. I enjoyed the first 8 hours of Silksong, but it turned very quickly after that because the punishments were just completely outweighing the rewards. No health upgrade in that time, no meaningful combat upgrade, and just an endless amount of bullshit.

Like those birds that will always mirror your movement to stay just out of reach, move erratically otherwise so you're guaranteed not to get a hit in (forget about hitting them with your spear when they're in the air), and just when you managed to get under them where you might be able to land a hit they'll drop down on you to deal contact damage and flutter away again.

10 hours in, and I've not even started the game since Saturday afternoon, when I was expecting not to be able to drag myself away from it (being a huge fan of the first Hollow Knight).