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When it comes to Metroidvania games like Hollow Knight: Silksong, the map is arguably the most important item to have, as it shows where you’ve explored and where you need to go next. And, like a lot of aspects of this game, it’s not meant to be easy.
Silksong, like its predecessor Hollow Knight, has a map feature you can expand as you play, but you have to find one particular NPC to unlock it. Once you find that character, the game will feel slightly easier in getting around its nooks and crannies — until it crushes you with difficult sequences and boss fights.
Read more: Hollow Knight Silksong Guide: Read These 11 Tips Before Starting
To get a map, you’ll need to go from the hub center of Bone Bottom to The Marrow, which is directly to the east. While exploring the area, the sound of someone singing will quietly echo. Following the singing will take you to Shakra, the bug warrior who also does cartography.
Shakra will introduce herself, and if you continue to talk to her, she will tell you about her map-making skills. This is when she’ll officially become a merchant and sell all the map items you could want.
At the start, Shakra has several items for sale, but the most important ones are maps, a Compass and the Quill.
There will be two maps for sale when you first meet Shakra: The Mosslands map and The Marrow map. The first will cost you 40 rosaries — the in-game currency — and the other will cost 50 rosaries. As you progress into a new area of the game, return to Shakra, and she will have the map for that area available for purchase.
The next item to buy from Shakra is the Quill. It costs 50 rosaries, and whenever you rest at a bench, Hornet will quickly mark on the map where she’s been.
The last item you’ll want to buy is the Compass. It’s an equipable tool that will show an icon of Hornet’s current location on the map, giving you a clear idea of where you are. This will cost 70 rosaries.
Shakra also has other items available to buy, such as Bench Pins that show where you can rest at a bench and Shell Markers to indicate where something important is on the map.
This will cost a lot of rosaries to get them all, but luckily, if you continue exploring The Marrow, you will find a bench as well as a passage to loop back to the Mosslands, where a shortcut to Bone Bottom will be waiting. This creates an easy setup to kill enemies for rosaries, rest and repeat. This is a good opportunity to get these important items without risking much and also developing your combat skills.
Depending on the platform, there is a map button (it’s left bumper on the Xbox). Hold the button and the map overlay will appear. You can even move Hornet around while you’re viewing the map.
One thing to note is that the map doesn’t auto-populate as you explore. Maps come with an outline of the area, and you still need to go through the area to fill it in. Once Hornet rests at a bench, she will mark up the map to indicate where she’s been, what markers she’s come across and so on.
When you take out the next boss, the Bell Beast, Shakra will move her store to Bone Bottom. She’ll be located in a section above the other denizens that you can reach by following the hanging metal rings. She will hang out here until you find her again throughout the game. Even when you meet her somewhere else, once you finish interacting with her and rest at a bench or die, she will head back to the Bone Bottom.
As you explore more areas, Shakra will also have more maps and more items, so always make sure to head back to Bone Bottom.
