We lost monitor of the quantity of instances our pal Ibby tried to convey his love for the attractive Choral Chambers theme from Silksong, asking us to hear to this bit or the flutey bit, or another haunting, melancholic bit we couldn’t really hear because of GameChat’s music-muting tech.
We did, however, hear a heated debate he had with his Mum (it actually does catch them voices!), which wasn’t the form of environmental storytelling we were going for, actually. It turns out you can selectively decrease the quantity for totally different pals (and their Mums) in the chat – helpful!
Stories abound. For a period this 12 months, Silksong and GameChat was like a pub to me and some pals. Whereas beforehand of an night there might be memes or Smash Bros. smacktalk in the WhatsApp chat, instantly the group was quiet. But I could flip up to the Switch about 9pm and reliably get a notification toot (after that barely thrilling anticipation lag) that three pals were online and there was a GameChat invite. Click that ‘C’ button!
Four of us had purchased Silksong (only two of whom had completed Hollow Knight) and embarked on its punishing, rewarding, sprawling journey collectively. Smash apart — I essential as Corrin — I’m not actually one for online multiplayer or co-op, and don’t know the pleasures of being a sun-praising Soulslover who summons others to duet a boss (and I’ve only performed Dark Souls 2, sorry!).
But taking part in Silksong as a Silkchorus was a 2025 spotlight, a single-player journey but shared through GameChat, with new (or new to Nintendo) prospects instantly enabled.
I never watch Twitch but now discovered myself flicking across GameChat screens of an night like channels on the telly.
Now we had reside struggle evaluation for some bosses, like the time Ibby was struggling making an attempt to beat First Sinner, that frantic, implausible, optionally available boss discovered in the Slab prison, fwoomp-ing in and out of the area like Nightcrawler amidst a relentless barrage of lacerating silk and the music swells with violin violence.
But watching his screen, I observed he wasn’t making use of the hookshot — I don’t think it’s called a ‘hookshot’ — to gain that essential horizontal distance and security between threads. And so I informed him, and he did, and bit by bit he started to make progress.
Though still not enough – there was a section two. Just one more go before calling it for right now, we agreed, and I watched his last run, the clean control and last-hurrah focus, and now it was section two but I was preserving silent so as not to jinx it. Then I erupted as the Sinner went down.
At other instances it was more rally-style co-driving, like when Sunny fought Disgraced Chef Lugoli in Sinner’s Road, the screen busy with putrid globules and sideways bum barges, all of us chipping in to offload the overwhelm with shouts of “Cogflies Cogflies!” or “Heal heal heal!” at just the proper second.
(In concept. The chef went down later.)
An underrated impact of all this screen-sharing is that we’d get to repeatedly expertise generational leaps in gaming, acclimatising to the fuzzy 10fps jerkiness of someone else’s Pharloom, then — cool platforming part over — going back to our own recreation in gloriously wealthy, high-fidelity, full-screen surprise. In handheld particularly, you get that surprising, popping readability that appears like print, like a storybook given life. Silksong remastered!
So I began to actually get pleasure from this Silksong TV. I never watch Twitch but now discovered myself flicking across GameChat screens of an night like channels on the telly. And because of the recreation’s commendable open-ness — and tough-as-nails-ness — everyone would be somewhere totally different. There were rumours of a new space above west Greymoor, or a magical cube in the Blasted Steps that is needed, bro. Party members scouting out and reporting back with what the totally different key doorways unlocked, telling each other to open our maps and go away waymarkers for secrets and techniques at locations of curiosity we hadn’t even got to yet. This was our new model of the fabled playground chatter of yore, a co-created web of Silksong strategy (instead of whispers of a bare Lara cheat).
And for the report, we performed loads ourselves, too. I am, after all, primarily a solo, in-conversation-with-myself-and-the-game form of participant. But even then, there was that good background awareness of a wider dialog, of having people to whom we could later recount the issues we’d seen and executed.
Now hear me out – would it be a stretch to call all the precise chatting a recreation mechanic, too? Not just because of the shared intel and teaching, but because of that kind of side-play headspace you sometimes get into while chatting, like the long car drive catch-up where you barely discover the journey. We’d faucet into the automaticity and free reps of working a part on repeat (that Bird’s Nest gauntlet owes me hours) while chatting life nonsense that stored the issue and seriousness just off the boil enough to get the particulars down. Then go off chat to lock-in and end the job, sharing a video from the Nintendo app the next morning of you finally beating the Savage Beastfly.
(These posts were weirdly expressive of the other ways we’d all play. It was watching Mozo’s clean AF efficiency on Beastfly that taught me the usefulness of short-hop hits, even though he didn’t appear to do the badass last-minute ground dodge like Gothmog in Return of the King.)
Anyway, I got more engrossed than most and ploughed through straight to the finish of Act 3 and its gloriously exacting remaining battle, feeling the patterns out on repeat, going off chat for the remaining few goes, then re-entering and making an attempt to act nonchalant when I’d crushed it. I’ve performed it again since and it’s virtually just rhythm motion sample matching now. Power in progress.
But the other guys fell off a bit after Act 2. New Hades had come and supplied some lighter respite, and another’s member of the family had begun some medical therapies. Just a small Silksong break, but it never picked up again. And so that particular pub made of joint momentum and shared moments had closed.
What a beautiful place, though. What a cool Switch 2 time. Bring on the Sea of Sorrow.