Silksong Review Bombed Following Massive Release, Developer Responds

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The highly anticipated sequel to the indie game Hollow Knight: Silksong has been released, causing a surge of excitement and acclaim among players. With its polished mechanics and affordable price tag, the game is already attracting a large number of players. Yet, despite its success, there’s a group of fans who express dissatisfaction with the game.

As a passionate gamer diving into the world of Steam, I’ve noticed a wave of frustration among fellow players regarding the Chinese translation of the highly anticipated game, Silksong. It seems that the Chinese translation is receiving a lot of flak due to its perceived inferiority compared to the original Hollow Knight. Players feel that it leans too much towards archaic speech and pretentious prose, which doesn’t sit well with many of us.

While Silksong still enjoys a “Very Positive” rating across all languages, the Chinese reviews (Simplified Chinese to be specific) have only managed to muster a 51% “Mixed” rating. This has caused a slight dip in the game’s overall average compared to languages like English, where it has soared to an “Overwhelmingly Positive” standing.

As a community, we hope that the developers will address these concerns and improve the Chinese translation to ensure all players can enjoy Silksong in its full glory.

Team Cherry Responds to the Translation Backlash

In a swift and concise manner, a spokesperson from Team Cherry acknowledged the translation problems in their game, Hollow Knight: Silksong, specifically concerning the Simplified Chinese version, and offered an apology. Furthermore, they expressed their intention to rectify these issues in the foreseeable future. To illustrate their sentiments, Matthew Griffin, a representative of Team Cherry’s marketing & publishing department, penned on X: “To our cherished Chinese-speaking fans: We value your feedback regarding the current issues with the Simplified Chinese translation of Hollow Knight: Silksong. Rest assured, we are actively working to make it better over the coming weeks. Thank you for your support.

In simpler terms, this criticism suggests that the current translation is not well-received, much like changing the dialogue to Middle English within a game series, altering the previously established tone significantly. One user on X platform likened the writing style to a “wuxia novel penned by a teenager.

Translating Chinese texts can often be challenging in the Western indie scene due to their intricate nature. Last year, even the popular game Stardew Valley faced difficulties when trying to rectify translation issues via an update, causing a stir and resulting in a reversal. The precision of Chinese character strokes is crucial for proper reading, yet specific fonts can pose problems as characters may resemble each other or share multiple meanings depending on the context.

Players of Western games in China frequently voice concerns over the translation quality, which hasn’t significantly improved even as Chinese-speaking customers become an increasingly significant portion of a game’s potential market. This year, GameDiscover reported that Simplified Chinese became the predominant language among Steam users for the first time in 2024, highlighting the importance of improving translation quality into Chinese.

It appears that with the launch of a large-scale game like Silksong, translation issues are becoming increasingly influential on user and review ratings. This means developers will likely invest more resources into creating higher-quality games to avoid poor translations. It’s no longer a minor concern as most users on platforms such as Steam have their primary language set to something other than English. The platform itself is addressing this issue, having recently updated how review scores are presented to acknowledge the “significantly varied experiences” players have in different languages for the same game.

What do you think about the negative reviews of Silksong due to the disliked Simplified Chinese translation? Was it fair for gamers to express their dissatisfaction, and should the game’s overall rating be lowered as a result of this mistake?

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2025-09-05 20:11