The release of Hollow Knight: Silksong in September 2025 means Adelaide-based composer Christopher Larkin is back with a new score. And this is flat out one of the best of 2025 in any entertainment industry.
It’s a rich and orchestral work with incredible production values for what is, despite its immense hype, an indie game created by a small studio in Adelaide. All immensely impressive! Have a listen and enjoy.
Christopher Larkin’s Incredible Silksong Score
Gareth Coker’s score to Ori and the Will of the Wisps (2020) is a close example to what Larkin has aimed for. Coker’s work is phenomenal and the absolute peak of video game music excellence.
These are both Metroidvania games with similar themes (grief, suffering, loss, overcoming the odds) and the scores add important clout to the gameplay.
Will of the Wisps and Silksong share the same melancholic themes, with Larkin’s work more traditionally orchestral. There’s a lot of impeccably well used violin, which is often complemented by piano (hear Bone Bottom here).
Some of the pieces have choral elements, reminding us of Jeremy Soule’s phenomenal score to Skyrim (one of the best pieces of video game music ever).
Larkin told Polygon in an August 2024 interview that it’s actually Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda series that influenced him. That and Squaresoft’s 1997 classic Final Fantasy VII.
What’s so impressive with Larkin’s work is the relentlessness of its brilliance. Every new area you travel to in the game boasts some incredible new bit of music.
Once your get to Far Fields, for example, the mournful and yearning. It reminds us of Vichnaya Pamyat (“Memory Eternal”) by composer Hildur Guðnadóttir, whose music covered 2019’s critically acclaimed Chernobyl with a dark grace.
In Polygon’s Christopher Larkin interview he told them how he goes about his creative process.
“There is one piece in Hollow Knight called Mantis Lords, which takes heavily from and plays on the idea of baroque string pieces, particularly the music of Vivaldi. The choice to do this was largely inspired by the Mantis Lords in the game, who are an elite race of mantises that dutifully protect their village. They are proud, swift and deadly. The music of Vivaldi is equally swift, virtuosic, and precise. Whether ‘elite’ is the correct word, I am not sure, but while I have not personally studied string playing to that extent, I think it is safe to say this music requires a significant amount of discipline and study, perhaps reflecting the sense of dedication and duty of these in-game characters.
The allegro movements of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons were the big reference point, with use of a lot of tremelo strings and harpsichord.”
The variety of instruments he’s used includes a viola, flute, oboe, cor angalis, full string section, brass, organ etc. It’s a full suite of epic orchestration that, again, has been covered before in gaming. But Larkin’s application of it all is world class, as if every piece was crafted a century ago as a timeless classic.
And it really is with the piano and choral pieces where Larkin is at his best. Choral Chambers being a particular highlight from this sprawling adventure.
Some sections of the score do lapse into the exposition drivers and for frenetic action moments. The filler bits, essentially, but the melodic core of the score is what provides the experience with its incredible focus.
An absolute triumph, then, and already contender for the best video game music of 2025.
Silksong: The Complete Score
If you have a spare two hours, Larkin has kindly uploaded the entire work on his YouTube channel.
Larkin studied at the Elder Conservatorium of Music at Adelaide University. His education was in classical music, but he kept the electronic genre and video games at the forefront of his mind during that time, which led to his first gig in the gaming industry. That was in 2014 on Wastelander Panda: Exile.
Then he was hired for the first Hollow Knight game (2017) and the rest is history!
He wouldn’t have known it at the time, but that game was to become a global sensation and his work respected across the world. It is what he’s best known for (at the moment, anyway, still early in his career) and he gives few interviews, so we’re not sure what he’s on with next. But we look forward to hearing it. This guy is mega talented.
