While this blog post does contain specific mechanical spoilers about Hollow Knight: Silksong, they're only at the very end, clearly marked, and hidden by default. Most of the post is spoiler-free.

Many games, video and otherwise, are structured in a way that presents the player with both challenges tools they can use to address those challenges. In video games specifically, much hay is made online of the challenges themselves: everyone talks about Ornstein and Smough, Absolute Radiance, or Balteus. But to the player in the moment, the shape of the tools they use determines as much or more about their actual experience.

Tools aren't just in-game items. They're anything that aids the player or allows them to engage with the game, from their character's stats to movement mechanics to the very concept of "make your character not be where the attack is". In sports, the players themselves are the most important tools. In chess, the pieces are tools but so are rules castling and stalemates. It's an intentionally broad term to discuss a broad set of game structures.

These tools are not only the ultimate determiner of how difficult the challenge is^[1], a well-designed arsenal gives players the opportunity to sculpt their experience, creating a mode of play that fits both the needs of the challenge at hand and their own personal preference. Often players end up self-sorting into two rough camps: those who choose one set of tools (a "build") and stick with it for every challenge and so experience challenges that may be easy for others as very difficult when the tools they've chosen don't line up well, and those who see each challenge as an opportunity to puzzle out the exact optimal set of tools and so take down the challenge as easily as possible. I myself fall into either camp depending on the specific context^[2].

One of the first thing a player will ask when choosing which tools to use is, "what's the most powerful?" And in some cases the answer to this is straightforward. In Dark Souls, the Straight Sword Hilt is certainly among the weakest weapons you can use by any objective measure. But in many cases the answer is unclear. There is no consensus "best" weapon in Dark Souls nor its successors, because what "power" even means depends on the player's play style, their goals, and to a substantial degree, their skill.

Defining Skill

I want to take a moment here to clarify what I mean by "skill", at least for the purposes of this post. I don't really want to get into the weeds discussing video game difficulty here and now, but I do think that discourse has made it difficult to mention skill as a concept without raising everyone's hackles and bringing in a bunch of extra baggage. So I'll try to be explicit about how I'm using the term here.

I'm not talking about skill as in some sort of innate talent at video…