By Shaun Prescott
Copyright pcgamer
Skip to main content
Close main menu
THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES
View Profile
Search PC Gamer
PC Gaming Show
Movies & TV
Affiliate links
Meet the team
Community guidelines
About PC Gamer
PC Gamer Magazine Subscription
Why subscribe?
Subscribe to the world’s #1 PC gaming mag
Try a single issue or save on a subscription
Issues delivered straight to your door or device
From£35.99Subscribe now
Borderlands 4
Essential Hardware
Battlefield 6
Don’t miss these
Silksong Easter egg hides a secret, super-hard permadeath mode, for those who want to suffer even more
If Silksong’s corpse runs and double damage hits are too demanding, here’s a pair of mods to tone down the difficulty just a notch
It only took a week for the ultimate Silksong sicko to beat every boss in the game without getting hit
Silksong achievement suggests it’ll take at least 10 hours longer to 100% complete compared to Hollow Knight—even for the fastest players
Hollow Knight: Silksong player melts its hardest bosses with an endless fountain of tools: ‘I think I unlocked easy mode’
Yes, there’s a bench in Hunter’s March, Silksong’s first real nightmare area
How to escape The Slab in Silksong
If you’re having trouble with Silksong’s difficulty, keep going—Act 2 is worth the pain, and it does get ‘easier’
How to get through The Mist in Silksong
How to unlock Act 3 in Silksong
How to complete the Silk and Soul quest in Silksong
Working out how to fix the Sinner’s Road bench in Hollow Knight: Silksong has convinced me that Team Cherry just doesn’t want me to sit down anywhere
Silksong players are wrestling with the game’s ‘stabs you and kicks you for crying about it’ difficulty
Silksong too easy for ya? Here’s a mod that increases ‘boring double damage’ to triple for the true sickos
How to beat Silksong’s Widow boss, the speedy spinstress
Hollow Knight: Silksong
How to unlock Steel Soul Mode in Silksong
Shaun Prescott
18 September 2025
There are two ways to unlock a permadeath mode in Hollow Knight: Silksong—here are both.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Team Cherry)
If Hollow Knight: Silksong is too easy for you, or you’ve finished it and want further punishment, there is a much more difficult way to play it: on Steel Soul Mode. In the original Hollow Knight, accessing Steel Soul Mode meant defeating the main game at least once. In Silksong the same is true, except there is also another easier and quicker way to unlock it too.
But first, what is it? Steel Soul Mode is basically a permadeath mode for Silksong. When you die it’s game over, and if you try to re-access the save file you’ll be asked if you want to overwrite it. There’s no going back, and as a result some items related to death have also changed in Steel Soul mode. For example: the Dead Bug’s Purse, a tool which lets you retain half of your rosaries on death, becomes a Shell Satchel, which increases Hornet’s tool pouch size.
If Hollow Knight’s Steel Soul mode is any indication, there will also be some minor changes and additions in the adventure that will make the punishment worthwhile for completionists.
Related Articles
Silksong Easter egg hides a secret, super-hard permadeath mode, for those who want to suffer even more
If Silksong’s corpse runs and double damage hits are too demanding, here’s a pair of mods to tone down the difficulty just a notch
It only took a week for the ultimate Silksong sicko to beat every boss in the game without getting hit
How to unlock Steel Soul Mode in Silksong
The most legitimate way of unlocking Steel Soul mode in Silksong is to simply complete the main game. But if you want to dive straight into it before that, you have to head to the “Extras” screen from the main menu and input the following:
Up, Down, Up, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right
Yes, that is a shortened version of the Konami code.
If you input these commands correctly you’ll hear a deep “whoosh” sound, and the screen will flash white very briefly. Then, when you start a new game in an empty save slot you’ll be given the option to start in Steel Soul Mode:
(Image credit: Team Cherry)
If you die on your run—and I mean, you probably will?—this is the new death screen you’ll encounter:
The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.
(Image credit: Team Cherry)
Silksong guide: Home of all our bug-battling tips
Silksong flea locations: Gather the lost fleas
How to beat Moorwing: How to cheese or beat it
Hunter’s March bench: Yes there is one
Silksong simple key: Where to use the costly key
Shaun Prescott
Social Links Navigation
Australian Editor
Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
Silksong Easter egg hides a secret, super-hard permadeath mode, for those who want to suffer even more
If Silksong’s corpse runs and double damage hits are too demanding, here’s a pair of mods to tone down the difficulty just a notch
It only took a week for the ultimate Silksong sicko to beat every boss in the game without getting hit
Silksong achievement suggests it’ll take at least 10 hours longer to 100% complete compared to Hollow Knight—even for the fastest players
Hollow Knight: Silksong player melts its hardest bosses with an endless fountain of tools: ‘I think I unlocked easy mode’
Yes, there’s a bench in Hunter’s March, Silksong’s first real nightmare area
Latest in Action
Exhausted by Silksong? This breezier twin-stick spin on old school Metroid might just be the genre’s second best this year
Ubisoft’s Saudi-funded Assassin’s Creed DLC provokes staff unrest, but the publisher insists partnering with the controversial regime is A-OK: ‘Talking with partners who do not share our democratic values does not mean abandoning them’
Yakuza fans smell blood in the water as RGG studio accidentally puts the words ‘Kiwami 3’ on its website
Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag remake reaches unprecedented levels of leaked, despite Ubisoft’s best efforts to stomp on yapping actors
All Silksong mementos and how to get each one
The next Silksong update helps the bosses but does little to allay our own, interminable suffering
Latest in Guides
How to unlock Steel Soul Mode in Silksong
How to get the Rainbow Vomit in Borderlands 4
How to get the Kickballer in Borderlands 4
It turns out Borderlands 4’s weakest character can do a quadrillion damage in a single punch
The best XP farms in Borderlands 4 to level up fast
All Borderlands 4 vault key fragments and vault locations
HARDWARE BUYING GUIDES
LATEST GAME REVIEWS
Best SSD for gaming in 2025: the fastest and the best value solid state drives to perk up your PC
Best gaming laptop in 2025: I’ve tested a ton of notebooks this generation and these are the best in every category
Best Hall effect keyboards in 2025: the fastest, most customizable keyboards for competitive gaming
Best PCIe 5.0 SSD for gaming in 2025: the only Gen 5 drives I will allow in my PC
Best graphics cards in 2025: I’ve tested pretty much every AMD and Nvidia GPU of the past 20 years and these are today’s top cards
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor review
Humanscale Freedom Chair with Headrest review
Strange Antiquities review
Hollow Knight: Silksong review
Asus ProArt Case PA401 review
PC Gamer is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.
Contact Future’s experts
Terms and conditions
Privacy policy
Cookies policy
Advertise with us
Accessibility Statement
Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury,
BA1 1UA. All rights reserved. England and Wales company registration number 2008885.
Please login or signup to comment
Please wait…
