Expedition 33 is considered the big surprise of the current year. Now users have discovered a hint at the popular game in Hollow Knight: Silksong. Silksong has been available on Steam since early September 2025.
Expedition 33 is among the most popular games of the year and many already see it as the game of the year 2025. The reviews on Steam also speak for themselves: Out of around 109,000 reviews, 95% are positive (Extremely Positive).
The game is so popular that now even the new hit on Steam, Hollow Knight: Silksong, has a small reference to Expedition 33 hidden within.
A sentence in a cave is supposed to reference Expedition 33
Where can one find the reference? If you go west of Wormways to Weavenest Karn and play the Needolin there, the text “For those who come after.” appears above your head. In German, this means roughly “For those who come after us.”
The Needoline is a musical instrument that allows Hornet, the protagonist of the game, to open certain doors in the world of Silksong.
What kind of reference is this? This sentence connects with the community regarding Expedition 33. For this sentence is the foundation of the promise of every expedition to continue despite all adversities. Moreover, you will find an almost identical sentence in a diary entry right at the beginning of the game: “Learn from those who came before you, and pave the way for those who come after you.”
Additionally, this is also the name of a song in the soundtrack to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 – as the English magazine PCGamer reveals.
Of course, it is also a rather common phrase, as found in many memorials, and the reference could be coincidental. But the shared musical context leads many players and testers to believe that Team Cherry intended this connection. By the way, the developers of Silksong have not commented on this yet.
The role-playing game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is considered the big surprise hit of the year. Many players were so excited that they started a new run right after their first completion – but some have overdone it again to uncover new secrets: Players spend 300 hours in Expedition 33, hoping for something very specific, only to be disappointed
