Hollow Knight: Silksong is a tough game. Its bosses hit hard, your early arsenal of abilities can feel quite limiting in combat encounters, and its volatile level design can send you accidentally tumbling down into a chasm and losing an hour of progress. But while these kinds of challenges were arguably all to be expected from a sequel to the challenging original, there’s one brand of platforming segment whose sheer difficulty is catching players off guard, especially if they miss an optional upgrade early on in the game.
Hornet, the needle-wielding hero of Silksong, starts off the game with a downward diagonal aerial strike that is used as both an anti-air attack as well as a platforming tool in sections where she must basically bounce on pods to get some verticality and reach higher areas of the map, using her needle as a pogo stick. By default, this attack has a diagonal slant that makes it difficult to precisely strike these pods and position yourself in an optimal way to reach the next one. Though there’s an available, optional upgrade that can make traversing this section much easier, many players miss it,, and because getting through these sections without it is hard but not impossible to pull off, a lot of fans think these are simply mandatory skill checks for your timing and positioning, and are uploading clips of themselves trying, failing, and crashing out.
The thing is, these sections don’t have to be as hard as some folks have been making them out to be, but Silksong’s non-linear nature means not everyone is finding the upgrade that makes them significantly easier. Crests are equippable items you’ll find throughout Silksong that allow you to swap between different builds, and the Crest of the Wanderer swaps out Hornet’s diagonal air attack for a standard downward strike similar to the one the Knight can perform in the original Hollow Knight, allowing you to more easily and precisely pogo your way through these sections. Getting them isn’t an easy task, however, as you’ll have to unlock a few areas, abilities, and items to do so. Here’s IGN’s rundown of how to find the Crest of the Wanderer:
Keep in mind that this will also cut down the range on Hornet’s attacks, so you’ll have to get in closer in combat. Switching out crests is all about give and take, so it’s up to you to decide which perks and drawbacks are worth it to you. But if you, like many others, are tired of falling into lava and spike pits while you’re trying to pogo on these pods, now you know there is a better way.