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• Comment: As someone who has made a number of fictional area articles, I'm not seeing any independent notability here whatsoever besides Valnet sources. It should be integrated into the reception or development of the main Silksong article. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 11:25, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

This is a draft article. It is a work in progress open to editing by anyone. Please ensure core content policies are met before publishing it as a live Wikipedia article. Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL Easy tools: Citation bot (help) | Advanced: Fix bare URLs · Article logs · Draft logs. Last edited by Zxcvbnm (talk | contribs) 4 days ago. (Update) Finished drafting? Submit for review or Publish now

Bilewater is a fictional swamp area in the 2025 Metroidvania Hollow Knight: Silksong by developer Team Cherry. It features the Stilkin tribe, led by Groal the Great, the area's boss. It has received a mostly negative reception by critics, with common complaints being its "runback", its enemies—especially "Muckmaggots"—and its overall level design.

Bilewater is a dark, polluted, swamp area found in Pharloom, the fictional kingdom that Silksong is set in. It can be accessed via multiple areas, such as Sinner's Road. In the area, enemies like the Stilkin can be encountered. If Hornet falls into its dirty water, she will get infected by Maggots, making her unable to heal, while also slowly losing Silk. The area features few "benches", Silksong's checkpoint system, which causes a long "runback" back to the boss when failing.^[1] A hidden closer bench can be found.^[2] Bilewater features the frog-like boss Groal the Great, with an enemy arena as his precursor. Defeating him grants Hornet the "Seeker's Soul" item,^[1] which is required to unlock Act 3.^[3] In the game's lore, the area was once clean and unpolluted,^[4] before waste from its antagonistic Citadel poisoned it.^[5] Groal, who leads the Stilkin tribe, despises the Citadel for this, "forever raging" against them.^[6]

Like the rest of the game, Bilewater was designed by Team Cherry co-founders Ari Gibson and William Pellen,^[7] drawn by Gibson,^[8], programmed by Pellen and Jack Vine,^[9] and had its theme composed by Christopher Larkin.^[10] According to maps shown at ACMI, the area was not initially planned for Silksong, with its space originally being taken up by other areas. Those areas were later removed around 2022, getting replaced with Bilewater.^[11]

In an interview, Pellen revealed that the team "just love a big swamp", stating that they "wanted some kind of poison status for ages". When asked what he was thinking when adding the area, Gibson said, "It's all in the name". He also said that the area is meant to act as "a final test in Act 2", stating, "it’s the hardest challenge that act presents, but it’s also the primary gateway into Act 3. If players manage to overcome the enormous challenge that Bilewater presents, they’re probably quite capable of overcoming the challenges that Act 3 will now bring." Pellen described the area as having a "different sort of pressure than other areas", calling it "distinct" from the "Citadel" region. He also stated that the area's music was designed to add "at least one element that's not exerting constant pressure on you", a strategy he noted that they previously used in Hollow Knight with the difficult White Palace area.^[10][12]

A reader poll conducted by IGN resulted in Bilewater's boss runback winning "worst runback in a Souls game", with 16.2% of the vote.^[13] Editor Rebekah Valentine wrote that the runback is "still bad", even when using a guide,^[13] and called the area a "massive, disgusting zone" that is "awful".^[2] Shacknews' John Scutt and Screen Rant's Lee D'Amato both called the area one of Silksong's worst, and noted that finding its map is especially difficult, making navigation gruelling.^[14][15] Harvey Randall of PC Gamer called the area "terrible", stating it's "home to one of the most obnoxious runbacks",^[16] while also later praising it after completing the game, writing "after saving Pharloom, I sat there and asked myself if the journey would've been as memorable without the many thorns on the stem of its rose. And my answer is a solid no", and noting that the area's difficulty led him to discover new strategies.^[17]

Writing for GamesRadar+, George Young described Bilewater as being "Silksong's most-hated area", and criticized the status affect given by its Muckmaggot enemies, calling it "one of the worst ... in the game", while also praising a nerf to it in a patch, following complaints.^[18] PCGamesN writer Ben Sledge echoed other critics' sentiments, calling the area "particulary tricky", and the Muckmaggots "annoying".^[19] GameSpot's Blair Marnell noted the Muckmaggots as being what "make[s] things so difficult in Bilewater".^[20] Jared Stewart of Game Rant compared the area to FromSoftware-made "poison swamps" such as Blighttown, describing it as a "horrid sum of Hollow Knight: Silksong's lackluster parts", writing "grating Stilkin RNG and heal-negating Muckmaggots, as well as an egregiously long and winding runback to the boss, even with the secret bench secured, make Bilewater a true horror."^[21]

Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier criticized the Bilewater area, stating that he "briefly wonder[ed] if Gibson and Pellen might perhaps be sociopaths" due to them designing the area,^[22] but praised its theme, calling it "the best banger [Christopher Larkin] possibly [could have come up with.]"^[10] GamesRadar+ writer Karin Serin called the area "brutal", and described its song as being "wistful [and] almost melancholic", writing "a sad piano, a crying violin, and a ghostly choir do a lot in the context of Bilewater."^[12] DualShockers' Monica Phillips described the track as "imbu[ing] a sense of beauty and purpose into an area that is otherwise exclusively comprised of filth".^[23]

Eurogamer's Kelsey Raynor thought that the area is "one of Silksong's worst regions", and called Groal "one of [its] worst bosses too". She stated that while Groal himself "isn't all that bad", the runback to his fight, and the gauntlet before it, makes the battle as a whole a "true test of patience".^[1] Contrary to Raynor, TheGamer writer George Foster criticized the Groal fight itself, stating "Groal takes the worst parts of the Bilewater, the Muckmaggots and the poison they inflict on Hornet, and shoves it in your face with an arena that makes it near impossible to fight him fairly."^[24] Rock Paper Shotgun writer Ollie Toms, like Raynor, found Groal to be "quite simple really", stating "it's just more of a challenge facing him at the end of such an ordeal".^[25] IGN staff wrote that it "require[s] a large amount of perseverance just to reach [Groal], let alone defeat him", calling him a "large formidable enemy".^[26]

• Bilewater on the Hollow Knight wiki