Silksong Isn’t as Brutal as It Looks — 87% of Players Have Beaten the Bell Beast
Public achievement data for Hollow Knight: Silksong show many players are clearing major encounters and unlocking milestones, even as online discussion focuses on the game’s difficulty.
- Early boss clear rates are high: 87% of Steam players beat the Bell Beast, and 83% of PlayStation players have the corresponding trophy.
- Some later bosses still show substantial clear rates: for example, Widow has a 46% clear rate on Steam.
- Overall completion and challenge-mode stats vary by platform: about 6% of Steam players have finished the game, while 0.17% of PlayStation players have done the same.
Achievement numbers at a glance
According to public stats, Steam achievement data show that 87% of players have defeated the first major boss, the Bell Beast. Meanwhile, PSN trophy data report a similar clear rate of 83% for that fight.
For comparison, publicly available stats for the original Hollow Knight list lower early-boss clear rates: 71% on Steam and 59% on PSN. Additionally, some later Silksong encounters keep sizeable clear rates; for instance, Widow sits at 46% on Steam.
Platform differences and notable stats
Public figures show different completion rates across platforms. On Steam, roughly 6% of players have reached the end of the game, while PlayStation totals list about 0.17%. Also, Steam shows no recorded completions for the game’s permadeath mode.
Less than half of players on both platforms have collected four mask shards, which corresponds to playing with five health units rather than fewer. Fewer players have progressed far enough to access some upgrades tied to later bosses.
Mods, player counts and audience size
PC modding is present: many popular mods on PC adjust difficulty. However, public achievement pages do not provide direct evidence that mod usage has dramatically shifted aggregate progress statistics.
Separate player-count reporting noted that Silksong passed several million players early after launch; for one analysis, see this write-up.
Speedruns, permadeath and other extremes
According to the public stats, no Steam player has recorded a completed permadeath run, which also means no one has achieved 100% completion on that mode through Steam’s achievement data. On PlayStation, fewer than 1% of players have finished the game in under five hours.
What the numbers can and cannot show
Achievement counts give an objective snapshot of which milestones players hit, but they do not show how much time, retries, or frustration those achievements required. Public stats do not record session length, number of attempts, or individual player experiences.
“This is inhuman,” one Reddit post reads. “I have no idea how this is even possible,” the post later continued. “I’ve played hundreds of games, including Hollow Knight, and I’ve never seen something that just completely stumps me like this.”
At the same time, public achievement percentages show many players do progress through multiple bosses and areas, and a nontrivial share reach late-game milestones.
Finally, public-facing stats are a partial view: they capture achievement thresholds and platform differences, but they do not capture qualitative player reactions or the precise causes behind any design changes announced by the developer.
