runbacks, level design, and boss fights

(yeah this is about hollow knight: silksong but it’s bigger than that.)

we cannot escape the firehose of discourse around silksong’s challenging nature. i’m not here to talk about difficulty really, but to touch on one of the topics that people feel strongly about: runbacks.

blasted steps in hollow knight: silksong. iykyk.

runbacks refer to the traversal between the last checkpoint and the boss fight you keep dying on. sometimes the checkpoint is near the boss encounter, making for a quick return after death, and sometimes you spend longer getting back to the fight than you do actually in the fight before dying again. if you listened to reddit, every boss encounter should have a checkpoint three feet away from it, but i’m here to make a case for the runback:

the runback to the boss fight is also the boss fight.

whenever i’m in a boss deathloop, i find myself thinking about the runback and what makes it so interesting to me. when does it become annoying? is it based on potential for taking damage or complexity of the route? is it how long it takes? it’s naturally some amount of all these things but it can be distilled down to “when does good friction cross into bad friction?”, a notoriously subjective and contentious topic to gamers everywhere.

it wasn’t until i saw this thread from kayin about his own game when it clicked for me:

@kayin.moe on bluesky, good poster, go follow

silksong’s own trailer boasts “over 40 legendary bosses” with no mention of platforming/level design challenge, implying it too is pushing a “boss fights are the real part of the game” design narrative. but in execution it’s not at all saying that – the platforming mechanic unlocks are very carefully paced with the level design in a way that impresses me more than most of the boss fights do. especially some of the runbacks.

there’s one zone in particular called the blasted steps, pictured at the top of this post, that is a sandstormy wasteland of precarious ledges and worm-infested sandpits ready to ruin your day. and sure enough, there’s a boss at the top of a climb that is gonna kick your teeth in, forcing the runback on you. so there you go, dash jumping and wall climbing and ledge hanging and pogoing over enemies to avoid damage on your way back up the climb and… that’s a decent amount of challenge focused in one “encounter” isn’t it?

the runback is phase 0 of the boss fight. the “skill check” of the boss encounter isn’t just about your combat skills, but in your consistency in reaching the fight again. you progress through the same kind of lessons, improving and optimizing the route instead of your reactions in the fight. learning to reach the boss with full health is itself mastery over the encounter and part of the greater fight itself. the level design and platforming can each get their own phase of a boss fight.

the entire mega man series is basically predicated on this.

mega man is runbacks: the video game

that doesn’t mean it can’t be shitty, of course, just like how a boss can be too easy or too bullshit or whatever. just like the combat phase, the platforming phase requires iteration and playtesting and careful consideration to get just right. but think about this when you see the redditor or maybe even yourself want the checkpoint right before the boss. what is lost when a game does this? what is being conveyed to the player about what is most important? checkpoint placement, especially in something like silksong, is done with great intention and has great effect on nearly every other design in the game.

the designer is trying to actively manage tension in the player, and this is imo ultimately what a lot of the negative feedback surrounding the game is about. tension’s role in game design is critical, but that’s a whole different blog post for someone else to write.