Hollow Knight: Silksong Difficulty to Be Toned Down Following Player Feedback

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However, some have criticised Silksong for being a bit too punishing, as its typically faster pace pushes you to be even more focused.

In particular, the title's tricky opening hours have been catching some players off guard, and that's what Team Cherry's looking to address via the game's upcoming patch.

It'll feature a "slight difficulty reduction in early game bosses Moorwing and Sister Splinter".

I haven't kept up with news about the game. Is the game that difficult compared to Hollow Knight?

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Kind of clickbait, they only slightly nerfed two early game bosses, and it orobably won't be a big difference.
Moorwing nerf was warranted since it's tanky for a flying boss. Small balance adjustment =/= they're toning down the difficulty.
It'll feature a "slight difficulty reduction in early game bosses Moorwing and Sister Splinter"
This is not the problem. The boss fights are actually a pretty good difficulty. The issue largely comes from the large amount of enemies that hit for 2, the AI of flying enemies, and the increase in gauntlet fights.
I haven't kept up with news about the game. Is the game that difficult compared to Hollow Knight?
The beginning areas of the game are equivalent to Hollow Knight's mid game. It's noticeably harder, but not to the point where I would want a big patch. I wouldn't hate an "easy mode" addition to make the game more accessible though
- I got pummeled so hard by the Craw Lake gauntlet with its awful erratic flying enemies that by the time I beat it I had finger blisters. XD
  I wouldn't mind it if they toned down the gauntlets a little.
  
  Got there this weekend. Took many attempts to beat it, but I did! The bouncing challenge after that though... -.-
  
  Me too, buddy.
  I ended up abandoning that fight after ~10 attempts and plan to come back after I have a little more playtime under my belt.
It's unforgiving. You can't make too many mistakes, every fight is a real chance to die. Money is scarce.
My early read is that it seems to be trying to do the same thing FromFoft was doing with Sekiro, vis à vis how the moveset and the character you play as rewards you for adopting the fighting style of the main character. The last game gave you a lot of leeway to do whatever works, but this one wants you to fight like Hornet and make it look good.
There was always going to be a lot of spilled ink about this game, and I think it's too soon to be saying anything definitive. There's a continuity of game design ideas that does seem to have evolved though, and like any game that asks a lot of the player, it's going to divide opinion strongly.
It might be telling that they're only tweaking certain things moderately, which speaks to the fact that they think most of the difficulty is close to where they think it should be.
- I'd say Silksong has more flexibility than Sekiro, with the crest system.
  
  I'm not far in enough to have more than a few tools and ~~crests~~ edit: items (I only have one crest so far), all I'm saying is that coming to Sekiro from DS3 felt deliberately limiting with the same basic idea as what I'm seeing so far.
I beat Sister Sprinter not long ago, she was way easier than Moorwing but I wouldn't call either extremely difficult. Sure it probably took me 20+ tries but I'm not a godly hollow night player. It's been quite some time since I'd played hollow night but I remember many bosses in that game taking just as many if not more attempts.
- Yeah, Moorwing I could see nerfed very slightly. Sister Splinter was not difficult at all.
  
  Once I figured out that you can just hit the vines to break them the fight became very easy, this isn't really communicated that well I don't think. I understood easy enough that I could have her hit her own vines to break them but I didn't get that I could break them until several attempts in when I did it by accident fighting a minion.
I love this game, and saw credits at 20ish hours. It wasn't easy but it didn't feel impossible at any point. You feel squishy, but with the amount of movement you have every tool to learn how to dodge and the healing mechanic feels easier to pull off when you know the boss patterns than in HK. I get if you're struggling with some bosses, but generally you can just get more equipment and learn when to use your equipment to improve dps.
- Double damage is annoyingly common, and really is the only complaint I have. So many enemies and even floors/ceilings that hit twice.
  
  As soon as I realised I was getting hit for 2 masks, what I read from it was "at some point in this game I will have at least 7 masks". I don't want to spoil myself, but I only really agree with you if that isn't the case. If you haven't reached that point either, just imagine how nice it'll feel
- I disliked the healing system at first, but it actually lets you get away with healing more often than HK. You can even heal in the air!
It doesn't seem much harder to me. I'm maybe 5 hours in. This just reminds me of journalists failing to play the cuphead tutorial
- It is considerably more difficult. I picked up Hollow knight as my first metroidvania since Metroid prime on the GBA. It taught you at a reasonable pace as you went. I think I would have given up if Silksong had been the first one I picked up.
  Widow is an earlyish necessary boss in Silksong. I'd put the technical difficulty around Grimm (OG not NKG) BUT Widow does double damage and you only have 5 masks (probably) when fighting her. Compared to Grimm who is a late game optional boss.
Does “opening hours” truly mean a little ways into the game, or is it like the Armored Core helicopter again?
- You're hitting enemies that hit for double-damage within the first hour of the game. In Hollow Knight, that didn't start happening until at least halfway through, if not later. At the same time, you start the game with the same amount of health, and with the way the healing system has been reworked, healing is both a bit more costly, and dis-incentivized. Ultimately, the game incentivizes perfect play WAY more than Hollow Knight did, from the outset.
  That said, I love the game, and LIKE most of these changes. I like that they found a way to make this game not just Hollow Knight, with a different story and different characters. I just really don't understand the decision to make double-damage so common. I really really hope it doesn't mean triple-damage is coming, in the late game.

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