There will be no prizes for correct guesses. Hollow Knight: Silk Songfirst expansion Sea of ​​Sorrowwill include a) the sea and b) some kind of negative emotion. But there's growing evidence that the watery DLC will restore or be inspired by locations and mistakes that developers Team Cherry previously left on the Silksong cutting room floor, but which were featured in the base game's marketing back in 2019.
All credit for this goes to Master of the Empty Knight Story on YouTube Mossbagalong with the cute psychos who support (not Fextralife) Hollow Knight Wiki. Mossbag's rain-drenched compass indicates that The Sea of ​​Sorrows is at least partly based on Farlum Baywhich, according to early development materials, was supposed to be located in the far east of the Silksong map, near (ugh) Bylewater. Farlum Bay never made it into the game, which was finally released in September of this year, but Silksong's original trailer at 1:13 shows a distinctly marine region covered in shells and home to at least one shell-dwelling NPC:
This area was also never found in the game, so it's safe to say that it had to be Farlum Bay. And as Mossbag points out, this old footage also shows the area being illuminated by distinct bell-shaped lights in a scythe shape, almost identical to the braided structure design we see in the very first frame of Sea of ​​Sorrow's own teaser.
Pharloom Bay may not be the only concept being revived. The mysterious glass chamber struck by lightning shown in the middle of the Sea of ​​Sorrow trailer is very similar to the Spire of Lifeblood, another cut area that was documented before the release of Silk Song. In particular, the helpful Australians who photographs taken Hollow Knight exhibition at the ACMI (Australian Center for the Moving Image) Melbourne Museum in Melbourne. This movie never made it into the trailer, so yay folks.
I don't mean to make it sound like I despise the practice of developers recycling ideas for DLC or expansions. If anything, it's pretty cool to see how individual concepts come and go during the game making process, and to wonder – sometimes out loud – how they might have changed over time. Silksong itself has another interesting example that I'll talk about if you don't mind some mild spoilers. See the coral-covered, seemingly underwater environment at 0:23 in the trailer? Experienced skongers know that colorful design is only a tiny, optional part of the game. incredibly difficult final actbut by paying attention to the story bits, you'll see that Team Cherry has reworked the wider region into the Sands of Karak: the same coral kingdom hinted at in the earlier trailer, but lost to time, dried up and taken over by the desert.
Whether or not Farlum Bay has undergone equally drastic changes, Sea of ​​Sorrow is currently scheduled for release in 2026. Just like the original Hollow Knightexpansion, it will be free for owners of the base game.
