Since early 2019, fans and members of the Hollow Knight community have been anxiously waiting for news on the upcoming sequel Silksong to bring a whole new experience to players. However, if this new titled is going to best live up to Hollow Knight's legacy, Team Cherry may have already started laying down the path for where the sequel will take off from the original's various endings.
Of course, when it comes to dissecting the storyline of Hollow Knight: Silksong and its predecessor, the task becomes a bit complicated as Team Cherry has taken a minimalist choice for the the original game's narrative. On top of this, there are a few different ways that the game can end, depending on how far the player dives into some of Hollow Knight's Dream Nail mechanic and the DLC found in the Voidheart Edition.
Hollow Knight's Various Endings
The original release of Hollow Knight brought with it three endings, with two offering a slight variation on a darker tone with the infection being contained within The Knight, and a final ending where the player defeats the source of the infection. Both of these make use of the protagonist's affiliation with the Void in order to either become a perfect vessel for the final villain, The Radiance, or to destroy it and free Hallownest. Then there's the Godmaster DLC that introduced two new endings to the world of Hollow Knight, both of which might lead directly into the new storyline following Hornet in the sequel.
Some fans may not be quite as familiar with the Godmaster endings, due in part to the fact that each one of these are incredibly difficult to obtain. Each of these endings require the player to beat all of Hollow Knight's metroidvania inspired bosses in the Pantheon of Hallownest, a seemingly endless gauntlet at the end of the Godmaster DLC. This all leads to the Absolute Radiance being destroyed and a seemingly new villain bursting out into the world in the form of the Void Entity.
Sequel or Prequel
One source of debate for fans trying to dissect everything Team Cherry has released about Hollow Knight: Silksong is whether or not the upcoming title is a sequel or a prequel. Many players assume that the story told in the upcoming game will show the adventures of Hornet leading up to her eventual return to Hallownest before testing and ultimately assisting The Knight defeat The Radiance. On the other hand, some players assume that this new ending at the end of the Godmaster DLC might imply that players will be leading into a sequel with the Void Entity become a new villain.
While the exact timeline of Silksong isn't entirely known yet, much of the conversation around it does generally refer to the game as a sequel. Considering that the new Hollow Knight actually originated as DLC that eventually grew beyond its original bounds into a full-fledged title, it's likely that the original plan was to pick up where the previous game left off. So, it's more than likely that the figure approaching Hornet in the Godmaster endings will be fully revealed as a major part of the next game as the series moves forward.
Community Theories
As is often the case for Soulslike titles like Hollow Knight, the minimalist storytelling that has become a staple of the genre has led to a community that endlessly dives into every tiny piece of lore and how it connects to the story. From there, these fans have already begun dissecting everything that Team Cherry has revealed in announcements and trailers for Silksong so far to see what the new game will be about. The most prominent theory that has immerged from this community digging so far seems to be that the upcoming title won't only look at what happens after the ending of the original, but also before these events.
Essentially, this new character introduced in the Godmaster DLC, the Void Entity, will be the new villain that appears as the opposite of The Radiance, but might be equally as dangerous. However, fans hope that the game will look back to the events before Hornet and The Knight appear in Hollow Knight to retroactively give more backstory to this new antagonist. It might be some time before players actually get to see what Team Cherry has planned for the sequel, but this could be one of the best ways to utilize what has been established in the original title.
Hollow Knight: Silksong is currently in development for PC and Switch.