While Hollow Knight: Silksong is garnering acclaim from both critics and players so far, it seems not everyone is a fan of Team Cherry’s highly anticipated sequel, and it has nothing to do with the gameplay at all.
If you check out Hollow Knight: Silksong’s Steam page right now, it’s slid to a “Mixed” rating.
The game is being criticized by Chinese players due to its lackluster localization.
Sliksong’s Botched Simplified Chinese Translation Acknowledged
Chinese players have vented on social media about how Hollow Knight’s translation “The current Silksong CN translation reads like a Wuxia novel instead of conveying the game’s tone. This isn’t about effort, but about taste and direction, and speaking from experience likely can’t be fixed without replacing the translator,” one user has said.
Not only that, but one person even used DeepSeek AI, and mentioned, “While AI has its limitations, its translation is undoubtedly far superior to the translator you hired—not even in the same league.”
Another gamer says the translation “ruins the game experience.”
If you check for the game’s audience playing in the ‘Simplified Chinese’ language, only 44% left a positive review (per Eurogamer).
Thankfully, Team Cherry is aware of the issue, as marketing man Matthew Griffin has announced, “We appreciate you letting us know about quality issues with the current Simplified Chinese translation of Hollow Knight: Silksong.” and added that they’ll be working to improve the translation in the coming weeks.
Hopefully, this localization update does the trick, and perhaps it could be released alongside bug fixes as well, though there’s not a lot of it based on my experience on the console version.
This shows that there’s so much more to a game than just the gameplay, as other factors like this can affect the game experience.
If you need help in the game, we have a bunch of guides up, such as the best early game tools you can equip, how to get different Crests to shake up the combat, and more. We even have a complete guide and walkthrough available in case you need it, just be aware you’ll still need to land those platforming jumps and killer blows the bosses yourself.
Hollow Knight: Silksong
- Released
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September 4, 2025
- Developer(s)
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Team Cherry
- Publisher(s)
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Team Cherry
- Engine
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Unity
- Franchise
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Hollow Knight
- Number of Players
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Single-player
- Steam Deck Compatibility
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Verified
