Hollow Knight: Silksong Act 1 walkthrough: every area and boss
Hollow Knight: Silksong Act 1 walkthrough in route order: Moss Grotto to the Last Judge, every boss, bench price, map and ability, verified on Patch 5.
Checked against Patch 5 (1.0.30000) on 1 Nov 2026. We re-test every guide after major updates; if something changed, tell us.
This Hollow Knight: Silksong Act 1 walkthrough takes you from Hornet waking up in Moss Grotto to the Grand Gate opening above the Blasted Steps, in the order the game wants you to play it. As of November 2026 the game runs on Patch 5 (version 1.0.30000), which Team Cherry has called its last significant update before the free Sea of Sorrow expansion, so every bench price, boss and unlock below matches the current build on PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Switch.
Act 1 covers the lower half of Pharloom: eight story bosses, four movement abilities (Swift Step, Drifter's Cloak, Cling Grip and the Needolin), the Bellway fast-travel network and a finale against the Last Judge. Expect 8 to 12 hours on a first run. For more, see the Hollow Knight: Silksong hub or our other walkthroughs.
Act 1 route at a glance
Pharloom is open-ended, but hard gates set the order: Far Fields needs Lace beaten, Greymoor needs the Drifter's Cloak, and Widow in Bellhart sits behind Cling Grip from Shellwood. Follow this sequence and you will never hit a wall you cannot climb yet.
- Moss GrottoLearn the basics and beat Moss Mother.
- Bone Bottom and The MarrowFirst map, Silkspear in Mosshome, Bell Beast for fast travel.
- Deep DocksSwift Step, the Forge Daughter's shop and a duel with Lace.
- Far FieldsDrifter's Cloak from the Seamstress, then the Fourth Chorus.
- Greymoor, then ShellwoodMoorwing opens Bellhart; Sister Splinter leads to Cling Grip.
- Bellhart, then Blasted StepsWidow gives you the Needolin; the Last Judge ends the act.
Patch 5 (1.0.30000) cut the Last Judge's death explosion from 3 damage to 2 and made the Magma Bell block every fire-type explosion. Patch 1 had already softened Moorwing and Sister Splinter. Older guides calling those fights brutal describe a version you are no longer playing.
Moss Grotto: Moss Mother and the Ruined Chapel
Before heading left from the crashed cage, walk right into the wall of the starting structure: a hidden room with a Marrowmaw drops your first Beast Shard. Then push left across the swamp, up through the moss-insect nests and over the long gap in the glowing tunnel, always climbing up and left. Cut the vines at the top to reach the Ruined Chapel and your first bench; the boss door is directly above it.
Moss Mother has two moves. She dives across the arena (jump it, then hit her with the angled down-slash as she passes) and after two or three dives slams the ceiling, dropping debris and larvae onto dust marks. Stand where there is no dust and kill larvae fast. Climb the rope afterwards; Hornet collapses, wakes beside the Chapel Maid and gets her objective: the Citadel at the top of the kingdom.
Tip: Hornet's down-attack is diagonal, not straight down. Practise it here, because Bell Beast and Moorwing both punish anyone who cannot pogo at an angle.
Bone Bottom and The Marrow: Silkspear and Bell Beast
In Bone Bottom, Pebb sells a Mask Shard for 300 Rosaries, the cheapest health in the game. Take the upper path right, past Sherma singing at a locked gate; the long way round drops you behind it, where a lever opens the shortcut and a 30-Rosary mechanism activates the bench before The Marrow.
The Marrow is a bone shaft of crumbling platforms that respawn. Early on, a signpost leads to Fleamaster Mooshka and the Flea Caravan: accept The Lost Fleas wish and use the free bench. Higher up, Shakra sells the map and the Compass. The tunnel left of her loops into Mosshome, a hidden village whose platforming climb ends at the idol for Silkspear, your first Silk Skill. You need it: back past the Mooshka signpost, a beast is cocooned in web. Silkspear the web and Bell Beast wakes.
It has four attacks: a ground charge (jump and stab down as it passes), a leap to the far wall (chase it and hit on landing), a two-bell toss, and, once wounded, a roar followed by bells raining from the ceiling. Hug a corner during the rain and treat every charge as your damage window. Winning restores Hornet's silk regeneration in a memory sequence and switches on the Bellway network; a lever to the right activates a bench.
Keep climbing: free the caged Lost Flea, kill the enemy carrying the Pilgrim Shawl, blow the flaming nodes for a Craftmetal, rest at the doorway bench and beat Skarrgard, a shielded mini-boss. Drop past the bench, step on the floor button and ride the platform into the Deep Docks.
Deep Docks: Swift Step, the Forge Daughter and Lace
Buy Shakra's map and activate the Bellway beside her for 50 Rosaries. Head right, drop through the lever gate and break the wall on the first left ledge for a Shard Bundle worth 80 shell shards. At the bottom, take the right fork into an arena; clearing it opens the lift to the Forge bench and the Forge Daughter, who sells the Sting Shard and the Magma Bell. Buy the bell: it halves lava damage and, since Patch 5, blocks all fire-type explosions, which is exactly what the Act 1 finale throws at you.
Ride the lift by Shakra to the top-right exit, cross the Smelt Shoveller platforms and scorching rocks, and hit the explosive node on the ceiling to open a passage. Climb through two Skarr gauntlets, drop down the far side and go left to the idol for Swift Step, Hornet's sprint-dash; it also opens a shortcut to the 30-Rosary bench you passed. The dash reaches a Lost Flea on the ledges to the left and, back above the Forge bench, a lever that opens the gate to Lace.
Lace's two-swing combo and half-arena thrust are both jumpable, but her leap-and-dive catches players who Swift Step toward her, and hitting her while she holds her blade overhead triggers a parry and counter-flurry. Stay just outside thrust range, let her commit, land two or three hits, repeat; enough hits stagger her. When wounded she draws a white sphere and slashes inside it, so step out and Silkspear her as she lands. She escapes rather than dies, and the lever beyond rings the bell that opens Far Fields and activates a bench.
Far Fields: Drifter's Cloak and the Fourth Chorus
Activate the 30-Rosary bench and 50-Rosary Bellway at the end of the opening platforms, buy the map from Shakra below (50 Rosaries) and grab the Warding Bell tool in the shaft left of the first Skarr camp. Then cross the lava east to the red tent of the Seamstress. Her Flexile Spines wish asks for 25 Spine Cores: bait the floating Hokers in the cave right of her tent into firing, break the spines stuck in the ground, collect. Ten minutes later she sews the Drifter's Cloak, which lets you hold jump to glide and ride updrafts. It is the most important item in Act 1 and the only way to Greymoor.
The passage at the bottom-left of her hut wakes the Fourth Chorus, a giant with three attacks: a telegraphed hand slam that breaks platform segments, a glowing low sweep you jump or glide over, and a ceiling slam that drops slow boulders. Only the head takes damage and only when it dips, so hit it twice after each slam and back off. It takes three to four minutes and the platforms regrow. Afterwards, glide up the steam west of the hut for a Mask Shard under a hanging lava stone.
Common mistake: paying 30 Rosaries to enter Pilgrim's Rest in the north-east. The door mechanism is breakable; smash it and the bench and Mort's tool shop are free.
To leave, head east, destroy the cage and ride the updrafts through two hatches, hitting every lava sphere to feed the steam. Hornet bursts out of the ground in Greymoor.
Greymoor: Reaper Crest and Moorwing
Shakra and a temporary bench are just east of where you land. Clear the east side first: Craw Lake, a gauntlet that unlocks bounce pods, a proper bench, the Thread Storm Silk Skill at the top of a spiked climb and the Threefold Pin behind a Tallcraw. Then go west to Halfway Home, a tavern with a bench, a bartender who heals for Rosaries and Nuu, who hands over the Hunter's Journal. A gauntlet beyond it guards the Greymoor Bellway and the tunnel down to Moorwing.
Detour first through Garmond and Zaza's tower to the Chapel of the Reaper: a short climb and gauntlet for the Reaper Crest, whose wide downward sweep is the best Act 1 crest against flying bosses. Once you have laid eyes on Moorwing, talk to Garmond and Zaza and the knightly pair join the fight.
Moorwing swoops, claws and throws a boomerang talon; after its roar it adds a second talon and speeds up. Every hit does two masks and there is no nearby bench, so jump the dive and strike down from the air, aim high in the flurry, step through the first talon and away from the second, and heal when it drops dazed. Beating it opens the tunnel left into Bellhart. If you have freed five Lost Fleas, Mooshka offers a one-time caravan ride that skips Moorwing entirely; the boss simply moves outside the Bellway tunnel for later.
Shellwood: Sister Splinter and Cling Grip
Walk through the silk-strangled Haunted Bellhart (sit on the bench; nothing else works yet) and out the far left into Shellwood, a green maze with three 40-Rosary benches. Head left across the water, grab the Longpin behind a pink node, clear the gauntlet below the bench signpost and take the lift down to Shakra, who sells the Shellwood and Bellhart maps. Above her, Greyroot offers the Rite of the Pollip: six Pollip Hearts for the Pollip Pouch, a venom coating for tools. Collect the ones on your route and come back for the rest with wall-jumps. The Bellway is left of the three-way junction; a Mask Shard hides behind vines on the lower path.
Take the lift up and left to the thorn-walled arena of Sister Splinter. She pounds the ground in sets of three (dash away each time), retreats into the ceiling to drop vines that take three hits each, and in phase two summons Splinterbarks that deal two damage. Silkspear one-shots a Splinterbark and clears the vines around it; stunning her clears every vine. Finish with jumping up-slashes. Past her, hop the flower buds, glide the spike gaps and inspect the idol at the far right: Cling Grip. Return to the thorn arena, climb its right wall and smash the bells to enter upper Bellhart.
Bellhart: Widow and the Needolin
Upper Bellhart is a dark bell-tunnel of Furms. Grab the Lost Flea top-right when the Winged Furm sinks, slide down the spiked shaft, follow the Winged Furms ledge by ledge and drop through the hole into Widow's nest.
Widow dive-bombs into a running flurry (dash under, jump the run), drops debris that stays dangerous while on screen, and shrinks to sprint across the floor sending eruptions ahead of her. In phase two she keeps only the flurry and doubles the debris. Hug the right wall, where debris cannot reach, meet her corner charge with a mid-air down-slash and Silkspear her while grounded. Never chase her between appearances.
Her death breaks the curse and grants the Needolin, which plays silk melodies to open Weaver doors and briefly bind enemies. Bellhart comes alive: a central bench, a Wishboard, Frey's shop (a Spool Fragment and the Multibinder after My Missing Courier), a Bellway below and Pinmaster Plinney, who gives your needle its first damage upgrade. Do that before Blasted Steps.
The hunt is on! Hollow Knight: Silksong is available now on all platforms, including day one on Xbox Game Pass!
— Team Cherry (@TeamCherryGames) September 4, 2025
Optional Act 1 areas worth doing first
None of these gate the ending, but each makes the Last Judge easier, and with Cling Grip, the cloak and the Needolin you can clear them all now.
- Hunter's March (west of The Marrow): 70-Rosary map, a booby-trapped bench disarmed by a lever in the hidden room to its left, Mottled Skarr's Fractured Mask, and the Savage Beastfly in the Chapel of the Beast for the aggressive Beast Crest.
- Weavenest Atla (east Moss Grotto, Needolin door): Eva upgrades the Hunter Crest, plus a Spool Fragment, a Mask Shard and a two-Moss-Mother ambush that pays out a Weavelight.
- Sinner's Road, The Mist and the Exhaust Organ: a long detour ending at Phantom, who drops the Cross Stitch Silk Skill. Navigate the Mist by playing the Needolin to the butterflies.
- Wormways (Shellwood's west bench, or a 500-Rosary Simple Key from Pebb): a Mask Shard, a Lost Flea and the Plasmium Phial.
Mask Shards are the priority. Pebb's, the Far Fields stone, the Shellwood vine and Weavenest Atla's lava room make a full fifth mask before the finale.
Blasted Steps and the Last Judge
From Shellwood's upper bench go left, climb, and pay 80 Rosaries for the border bench. Blasted Steps is a sandstorm staircase of worm-infested sand (land on platforms, never sand), armoured Judges and hanging bells you pogo across. Work up and left, pull the lever under the first ledge for a shortcut, loot the Memory Locket and find Shakra on the far right for the map. Near the summit, the left branch has a 60-Rosary bench and an 80-Rosary Bellway; activate both, because the runback is the worst part of the fight. Past Lumble the Lucky, the Great Conchflies guard the path to the Pinstress, who teaches Needle Strike, a chargeable heavy attack.
Right from the bench, glide the gaps, climb the bell towers and follow the descending path past the Craftmetal node to the inert Judge statue. At the end a Tall Pilgrim stares at the Grand Gate. Talk, play the Needolin, and the Last Judge steps out of the background.
Phase one is a flail fight. It throws its bell past you and yanks it back (hit the body as it sails overhead, then jump the return), swings and spins the chain (back off until it slows), leaps to smash where you stood (dodge on landing, punish the recovery) and sometimes just stomps. Dash behind it on every wind-up; two or three hits per opening is plenty.
When it salutes and lights the bell, every move leaves fire: the spin sheds expanding rings you stand between, the smash spits flames sideways (jump straight after impact), the pull leaves a burning trail, and a new Flame Charge drags the bell along the ground with steam marking where pillars erupt, so cross its path early. The Magma Bell halves the burn and, since Patch 5, its death blast only does two masks. Heal only when it is mid-spin far away. Our Elden Ring Nightreign Nightlord walkthrough uses the same dodge, count, punish rhythm if you want more of this.
Tip: Die on the left side of the arena and your Rosaries drop where you can collect them on the runback without triggering the fight.
The Grand Gate opens, the Citadel rises, and Act 2: Citadel of Song begins the moment you step through; the lift inside drops you into the Underworks. With 15 Lost Fleas, Mooshka's caravan relocates to the Judge's arena and hands over a Spool Fragment. For a very different combo-heavy action game, Jules also covered the opening hours of Phantom Blade Zero.
Official sources: the Hollow Knight: Silksong site, the Steam store page, Team Cherry's Patch 5 notes, the studio's Sea of Sorrow announcement and the community-run Hollow Knight Wiki.
FAQ
How long is Act 1 in Hollow Knight: Silksong?
Plan for 8 to 12 hours on a first playthrough with Hunter's March and a few side wishes. The bare critical path can be done in around six hours; a full sweep of Lost Fleas, Mask Shards and crests pushes past 15.
Which bosses do you have to beat to finish Act 1?
Moss Mother, Bell Beast, Lace, the Fourth Chorus, Moorwing, Sister Splinter, Widow and the Last Judge. Moorwing can be bypassed once with the Flea Caravan; Skarrgard, the Savage Beastfly, the Great Conchflies and Phantom are optional.
Where does Act 1 end and Act 2 start?
Act 1 ends when the Last Judge dies at the Grand Gate above the Blasted Steps. Act 2: Citadel of Song begins immediately, and the lift inside the Grand Gate drops you into the Underworks.
What should I buy before the Last Judge?
The Magma Bell from the Forge Daughter, Pebb's 300-Rosary Mask Shard, Pinmaster Plinney's needle upgrade in Bellhart, and the Blasted Steps bench and Bellway (60 and 80 Rosaries) to shorten the runback.
Is Sea of Sorrow out, and does it change Act 1?
Not at the time of writing. Team Cherry announced the free expansion in December 2025 for a 2026 release and has not dated it since; Patch 5 in March 2026 was described as the last significant update before it. No patch so far has changed the Act 1 route.
Has finished every FromSoftware game at level 1. Writes the boss guides and checks them on every patch.