Bellhart in Silksong: location, design, and what to expect

Bellhart in Silksong: location, design, and what to expect

The most direct answer to the search query “bellhart silksong” is also a measured one. Bellhart is a named settlement in the kingdom of Pharloom, the setting for the Hollow Knight sequel Hollow Knight: Silksong. It was first surfaced in an official Team Cherry blog post in late 2018 as part of the game’s expanding world map, and it has continued to appear in trailers, demo coverage, and developer commentary ever since. For a player, the question is rarely just “where is Bellhart on the map” because the settlement doubles as a quest hub, a transportation node, and a narrative checkpoint within the game’s larger structure.

Game development readers tend to ask a slightly different set of questions. They want to know how a settlement like Bellhart fits into the studio’s worldbuilding approach, what design patterns it borrows from the original Hollow Knight, and what tradeoffs Team Cherry made to keep a hand-drawn world readable at scale. This article treats Bellhart as both an in-game location and a design object, so it is useful whether you are planning a route through Pharloom, studying Metroidvania hub layout, or comparing the sequel’s environmental storytelling with its predecessor.

What Bellhart is inside Silksong

Bellhart is described by Team Cherry as one of the larger fortified settlements in Pharloom, set high above a chasm that connects several of the game’s regions. In the 2019 Hollow Knight: Silksong reveal trailer it appeared as a clustered group of stone and timber structures connected by bridges, with silken banners strung between rooftops, suggesting a civilization that has integrated the kingdom’s silk motif into civic life rather than treating it as a foreign material. The settlement is shown as inhabited, lit, and operating, which already separates it from the abandoned or haunted villages that dominate parts of the original Hollow Knight.

That single design decision matters. In the first game, City of Tears and the Forgotten Crossroads were the main populated hubs, and both were careful to feel partly decayed. They were not empty shells, but they were clearly in decline. Silksong is deliberately shifting the baseline. Pharloom is a kingdom in motion, and Bellhart is one of the places where that motion is visible. For a developer, this is a useful counter-example to the common Metroidvania pattern of every hub being a ruin; the sequel argues that a living hub can carry just as much atmosphere if the visual language is consistent.

For a player, the practical implication is that Bellhart is more likely than not to function as a quest giver’s hub, a shop, and a fast-travel adjacent node, based on the precedent set by City of Tears and the way Team Cherry has framed the settlement in trailers. The team has not committed to a specific mechanic, so any stronger claim should be treated as informed interpretation rather than confirmation.

Where Bellhart sits in Pharloom

Bellhart occupies a high, central position in the Pharloom map, sitting on a rocky spine above a deep ravine. The location is not arbitrary. In a 2D Metroidvania, vertical placement is one of the strongest signals a designer can send about a region’s intended role. A settlement placed high in the world suggests that it was built for defense, that its economy is tied to overland routes, and that it serves as a waypoint between low valleys and the upper citadel. Bellhart’s silhouette in the 2019 trailer matches that pattern, and the in-game geography in the recent demos lines up with it.

That table is an interpretation rather than a confirmed map. Team Cherry has not published a final region list, and several areas shown in early demos have been renamed or merged in later coverage. Still, the directional logic of the layout is stable, because vertical separation is one of the cheapest signals a 2D map can carry, and it has been consistent across the original Hollow Knight and the Silksong previews.

The ravine beneath Bellhart is more than decoration. A settlement that spans a chasm is one that depends on its bridges. If a designer wants the player to fear the loss of a hub, the easiest way is to make that hub feel like a feat of engineering rather than a natural feature. The original Hollow Knight used the City of Tears’ aqueducts and the Deepnest’s webbed chasms for the same purpose. Silksong appears to be carrying that pattern forward, with Bellhart’s bridges as the visual hook.

How Bellhart differs from the original game’s hubs

City of Tears was the closest analogue in the first Hollow Knight, and the differences between that city and Bellhart are worth tracking because they show how Team Cherry is revising its hub design. The list below summarizes the most relevant contrasts, based on what’s visible in trailers, demo footage, and the studio’s commentary.

• Population density: City of Tears was populated but always felt partly emptied. Bellhart appears busier, with banners, lit windows, and NPCs shown in motion during the 2019 trailer.
• Surface palette: City of Tears used cool blues and purples to suggest rain and stone. Bellhart leans on warm stone tones, soft lamplight, and pale silken accents, giving the settlement a more inhabited feel.
• Vertical play: City of Tears’ verticality came from its aqueducts and its layered architecture. Bellhart’s verticality comes from the chasm beneath it and the bridges that span it, which makes the map read as a single connected silhouette rather than a stack of districts.
• Narrative weight: City of Tears introduced several key NPCs and a central covenant. Bellhart appears to be carrying that role forward, with at least one named character already shown in the settlement.
• Silk motif: City of Tears was untouched by the silk theme. Bellhart visibly integrates it, both in the banners and in the way some structures drape fabric across walls, which is consistent with Pharloom’s broader silk-as-building-material language.

None of these contrasts is a hard break. Team Cherry’s design language is continuous across both games, and the team has been careful not to reuse the same map twice. The differences are useful, though, because they tell a developer where the sequel is willing to evolve the hub formula and where it is staying close to the original’s bones.

Silk as a building material: the design language around Bellhart

One of the most consistent visual cues in Silksong’s trailers is the use of silk as a structural material. Bridges are reinforced with woven strands, walls are patched with fabric, and ceremonial banners hang from rooftops. The original Hollow Knight used silk mostly as a collectible and a traversal item. In Silksong, the material has been promoted to a civic scale, and Bellhart is one of the clearest places where that change is visible.

For a technical artist, this is a significant constraint. A team that decides silk is woven into walls, ropes, and bridges has committed to a specific kind of texture work. Silk reads as soft, slightly translucent, and prone to catching light. That means every panel that uses the material has to be drawn with a soft highlight and a deliberate shadow, and any animation on it has to behave like a fabric rather than a banner. Team Cherry has historically hand-drawn its environments, so the studio is paying for that decision in art hours rather than in shader complexity. For a small team, that tradeoff is a deliberate one. They could have used silk as a magical glow effect instead, and they chose not to.

Bellhart is part of the worldbuilding that began with the original Hollow Knight’s living kingdom of Hallownest, and it expands on the studio’s interest in civilizations that are defined by their craft. Hallownest was a kingdom of miners, bugs, and forgotten covenants, and its visual identity was built around a small set of recurring materials. Pharloom, by contrast, is a kingdom of weavers, pilgrims, and silk-bearing creatures, and Bellhart is one of the first places where that identity is on full display. The Hollow Knight series overview on Wikipedia tracks this evolution in broad strokes and is useful for a reader who wants the historical context.

For a player, the visual continuity is what makes Bellhart feel like it belongs in Pharloom rather than being imported from another setting. The same silk that binds the bridges is the silk that Hornet can use as a tool. That kind of material consistency is a teaching moment for any level designer building a coherent game world, because it lets the player read the environment without being told.

Quests, NPCs, and the role of Bellhart as a hub

Team Cherry has shared a small but consistent set of details about the NPCs who appear in Bellhart. The settlement is home to at least one named character who is connected to Pharloom’s political structure, and the area has been used in trailers to demonstrate the new quest system, where Hornet accepts tasks from a board or NPC and tracks them through an in-game journal. The For additional context, differences and new features guide for Hollow Knight: Silksong summarizes several of these hooks, including the wider quest tracker and the heavier use of named NPCs compared to the first game.

Three practical expectations follow from that pattern, and they are useful for a developer thinking about how a hub scales a game’s quest density.

1. Bellhart is a likely target for a “first major quest hub” milestone early in the player’s route through Pharloom, because the settlement is visually central and its NPCs are connected to the kingdom’s primary factions.
2. Bellhart’s shops and bench locations probably serve as a soft checkpoint, similar to how the City of Tears functioned in the original game, with one fast-travel-style node at the settlement’s heart.
3. Bellhart’s bridges and chasm are likely to play a role in late-game traversal, because that is where the studio’s map geometry tends to reward route mastery.

These are informed expectations rather than confirmed features. The studio has been explicit that some demo content has been changed, renamed, or removed between public showings. Any specific quest tied to Bellhart should be treated as preliminary until the studio’s final release notes confirm it.

How Bellhart compares to other Silksong regions

Bellhart is one of several Pharloom regions that have been shown publicly, and the most useful way to read it is in contrast to the regions around it. The table below compares the regions that have appeared in the most recent demos and trailers, with notes on their visual and mechanical roles. It is an editorial reconstruction rather than an official list, and the team has said that the region lineup is still being tuned.

The pattern is consistent with how the first Hollow Knight handled its hub ecology. The opening region teaches the player how to read the map, a mid-game region teaches combat, and a hub like Bellhart is where the player consolidates that learning into a usable route. A developer reading that structure can see the team’s belief that a Metroidvania map needs a place where the player slows down, talks, and chooses a direction, rather than a constant chain of new regions.

Traversing Bellhart as a player

Even before the studio confirms every mechanic, the visible structure of Bellhart gives a player several useful signals. The settlement’s bridges are wide enough to fight on, which means the area probably supports combat encounters rather than being a safe zone. The verticality of the chasm means that falling is a meaningful risk, which means the studio has probably accounted for that with at least one soft checkpoint. The clustered buildings create natural corridors, which means the area can host stealth or ambush encounters as well as straight fights.

A short, ordered checklist is useful for any player planning a route through Bellhart on a first or second playthrough.

• Approach from below: the most common entry point in the demo footage is from a low path that climbs into the settlement through a side passage, rather than through a front gate.
• Talk to every NPC twice: the original Hollow Knight rewarded repeat dialogue, and Team Cherry has signaled that this pattern continues in the sequel, so a player who skips a second conversation will miss context.
• Save the chasm crossings for after exploring the interior: the bridges connect the settlement to higher regions, and they are more useful once the player knows what is in the surrounding buildings.
• Listen for ambient cues: the original game’s audio design carried a lot of its worldbuilding, and the Silksong demos continue that approach with subtle music shifts when entering or leaving inhabited areas.
• Do not commit to a single route: the most common beginner mistake in any Metroidvania is to commit to a path before learning which direction unlocks the next region, and Bellhart is built to reward a slower read.

The team has not commented on whether Bellhart contains a fast-travel node, so the checklist above is built around the assumption that the player will move through the settlement on foot. That is the safer assumption, because the studio has historically preferred to gate fast travel behind specific items or story beats.

Bellhart’s design influences

Bellhart reads, intentionally or not, as a small fortified town in the visual tradition of European hill towns, with a strong insect-themed structural layer over the top. The original Hollow Knight drew on a similar blend, taking the architectural silhouettes of bone, stone, and metal and using insect anatomy as decorative language. Silksong is pushing that further, with silk as both a decorative and a structural material, and Bellhart is one of the clearest expressions of that choice.

Several design influences are worth pointing out because they are useful for any developer studying the studio’s visual research.

• Mediterranean hill towns: the layered stone, the terraces, and the visible roof tiles follow a long visual tradition that emphasizes how a settlement fits into its landscape rather than dominating it.
• Industrial-era bridges: the suspension and truss cues in the Bellhart bridges borrow from late 19th-century engineering, which gives the settlement a feeling of “recent construction” without modern materials.
• Insect architecture: the silk draping and the segmented rooflines are consistent with the way real social insects build with fibers, which is a quiet but persistent influence on the game’s broader aesthetic.
• Festival iconography: the banners and streamers in Bellhart’s appearance are reminiscent of civic celebration, which is one of the ways the sequel signals that Pharloom is not a fallen kingdom.

None of these influences is novel on its own. What is interesting is the combination. By stacking a Mediterranean silhouette with industrial bridges and insect textures, the team has produced a hub that feels familiar and strange at the same time, which is exactly the tone the first game established. For a developer, that combination is a useful case study in how a small team can avoid generic fantasy visuals by mixing three or four specific references rather than reaching for one global one.

What Bellhart tells us about Silksong’s overall design

A single hub cannot summarize a full game, but Bellhart is a useful lens because it sits at the center of the design choices the studio has been making for several years. The original Hollow Knight’s design philosophy was built around a small number of well-drawn spaces, each carrying a clear emotional and mechanical role. Silksong appears to be keeping that philosophy while scaling the world, and Bellhart is one of the places where the scale is most visible.

Three points are worth pulling out for a developer.

1. The team is willing to use living, populated hubs. This is a quieter change than it sounds. Many Metroidvanias treat every hub as a ruin, because ruins photograph well and write themselves. Silksong is choosing to make its main hub a place that is currently in use, which raises the bar for dialogue, animation, and ambient behavior.
2. The team is treating silk as a unifying material. By using silk for bridges, banners, and walls, the studio gives the player a single visual thread that ties the entire world together. That decision costs art time, and it is a deliberate investment in worldbuilding rather than a free side effect.
3. The team is preserving the vertical language of the original. The high plateau that Bellhart sits on mirrors how the City of Tears and the Crystal Peak were positioned, which means the sequel is not reinventing the map grammar. It is extending it.

For a player, the practical conclusion is that Bellhart should feel familiar in tone, larger in scale, and busier in population. For a developer, the lesson is that a hub’s value is mostly in what it is willing to carry, and Silksong is asking its central hub to carry more than the original game’s hubs did.

Open questions Team Cherry has not answered

Several reasonable questions about Bellhart remain open, and a careful article should name them rather than guess at answers. The studio has been explicit that pre-release coverage is provisional, and the final layout may differ from what has been shown.

• Fast travel: it is not confirmed whether Bellhart contains a fast travel node, an item that unlocks one, or a transport service that connects to other regions.
• Shop inventory: the original game’s shops were tied to specific NPCs and currencies, and the sequel’s economy has not been fully detailed. Bellhart’s role as a commercial hub is therefore provisional.
• NPC fates: at least one Bellhart NPC has been shown in multiple trailers, but the studio has not described the character’s narrative arc or quest line.
• Bridge mechanics: the chasm bridges are visually dramatic, but it is not clear whether they are purely aesthetic, whether they can be damaged, or whether the player can interact with them in combat.
• Region connections: the public map of Pharloom has been revised several times. The list of regions that connect directly to Bellhart is still being adjusted.

Listing these gaps is not a weakness. A useful resource is one that tells the reader what is known, what is reasonable to expect, and what has not been confirmed. The final version of Bellhart may differ in details, but the studio’s overall approach to a populated, central hub is unlikely to change, because that decision was made years ago and is visible in every public build of the game.

How Bellhart fits the broader Hollow Knight canon

The transition from Hallownest to Pharloom matters for the way Bellhart is read. Hallownest was a fallen kingdom, and most of its hubs were either abandoned or barely functioning. Phloom is not fallen, and Bellhart is one of the most explicit signals that the sequel is interested in a civilization in motion. That shift changes the way a developer thinks about hub design. A hub in a fallen kingdom can be melancholic and still feel complete, because the player’s job is to piece together a past. A hub in a living kingdom has to carry the present, which is a much harder writing and animation problem.

What to watch as the game approaches release

Players and developers who are tracking Silksong’s pre-release coverage should watch for a small set of signals around Bellhart, because the settlement is one of the most likely places where the studio will make late changes.

• Final map layout: the placement of Bellhart’s bridges and the height of the surrounding chasm will tell the reader how central the settlement really is.
• NPC cast: the number and type of named characters who live in or visit Bellhart will indicate how much of the quest system the studio is willing to attach to a single hub.
• Audio mix: a populated hub needs a richer ambient track than a ruin. The quality of Bellhart’s audio in pre-release builds is one of the easier ways to gauge how finished the area is.
• Update notes: the team has been willing to change or remove demo content between public showings, and Bellhart has been revised at least once. The next round of official footage is the best place to look for those revisions.
• Press previews: the first wave of hands-on previews will give the clearest picture of how Bellhart plays, and the team has historically allowed detailed coverage of the areas that are closest to shipping.

For a developer, the most useful single thing to watch is the team’s commentary on hub design, because Bellhart is one of the largest tests of how the studio handles a populated, central space. If the studio describes Bellhart as a “home base” in its final materials, the settlement is more likely to be a soft reset point with shops and benches. If the studio describes it as a “checkpoint” or a “stop along the way,” the settlement is more likely to be a transitional region that happens to host NPCs. Either reading is consistent with the pre-release footage.

Closing the loop on Bellhart

Bellhart in Silksong is best understood as the sequel’s answer to the question of what a populated, central hub should look like in a modern Metroidvania. It is warmer and more lived-in than the original game’s hubs, more structurally dramatic, and more directly tied to the silk motif that defines Pharloom. For a player, it is most likely to function as a quest hub and a route checkpoint, with at least one shop, a soft save point, and several named NPCs. For a developer, it is a useful case study in how a small team can scale up a world without abandoning the visual grammar that made the original game distinctive.

As the game approaches release, the most reliable way to keep this article current is to compare the next round of official footage against the patterns described here. The visible structure of Bellhart has been stable across multiple demos, and the studio’s design philosophy has been consistent across both games. If those two things remain true in the final build, the practical expectations in this article will hold. If they shift, the place to update is the NPC list, the bridge mechanics, and the fast travel question, because those are the three areas where the studio is most likely to revise its plans.

Frequently asked questions

What is Bellhart in Silksong?

Bellhart is a named settlement in the kingdom of Pharloom, the setting of Hollow Knight: Silksong. It is shown in trailers as a fortified, inhabited town built on a high plateau above a chasm, with stone buildings, timber frames, silk banners, and bridges spanning the gap between ledges. It is one of the largest populated hubs in the pre-release coverage and is widely expected to function as a quest hub.

Where is Bellhart located in the Pharloom map?

Bellhart sits high on a rocky spine that overlooks a deep chasm, placing it in a central, elevated position relative to the regions around it. The location is consistent with how Team Cherry has used vertical placement in the original Hollow Knight, where City of Tears, Crystal Peak, and the Forgotten Crossroads each occupied distinct altitudes. Bellhart’s altitude suggests it acts as a waypoint between lower regions and the upper Citadel.

Is Bellhart the same as City of Tears?

Bellhart is not the same as City of Tears. Both are populated hubs in the broader Hollow Knight franchise, but City of Tears was a partially decayed city in the kingdom of Hallownest, while Bellhart is a fortified settlement in Pharloom that appears to be fully inhabited. The two share the role of central hub, but their visual identity and population density are different.

Does Bellhart have a fast travel point in Silksong?

Team Cherry has not confirmed a fast travel node in Bellhart. The settlement’s central position and visible infrastructure make it a likely candidate, but the studio has historically gated fast travel behind specific items or story beats. The final layout of fast travel in Silksong will only be confirmed once the game is released or the studio publishes a detailed feature list.

What NPCs live in Bellhart?

Public coverage has shown at least one named NPC associated with Bellhart, and the settlement’s role as a hub suggests that several others will be present in the final release. Team Cherry has not published a definitive NPC list, so the current information is limited to what has been shown in trailers and demo footage.

Will Bellhart change before Silksong releases?

Bellhart has already been revised at least once between early demos and more recent public builds, and Team Cherry has said that pre-release coverage is provisional. The settlement’s overall role is unlikely to change, but specific details such as NPC names, quest hooks, and bridge layouts may shift before the final release.

How do you get to Bellhart in Silksong?

Based on the demo footage, the most common path into Bellhart comes from a low route that climbs into the settlement through a side passage rather than a front gate. The team has not published a confirmed route, and the actual path may depend on which regions the player has unlocked. The bridges around the settlement also connect to higher regions, so a late-game approach from above is plausible.

Is Bellhart relevant to the main story in Silksong?

Bellhart’s central position, visible infrastructure, and connection to Pharloom’s silk motif suggest that the settlement will play a meaningful role in the main quest, even if the team has not confirmed the specifics. The original Hollow Knight’s main hubs were all narratively loaded, and the sequel appears to follow that pattern with Bellhart as one of the main candidates.

How is Bellhart drawn in Silksong’s art style?

Bellhart is drawn in the same hand-drawn 2D style as the rest of Silksong, with painterly backgrounds, layered parallax, and animated silk details on banners and bridges. The art style is consistent with the original Hollow Knight, and the team’s approach to lighting and silhouette is the same. Bellhart’s warmer palette and brighter lamps give it a more inhabited feel than the original game’s hubs.

What design lessons does Bellhart offer for other Metroidvanias?

Bellhart’s most useful design lesson is that a populated, central hub can carry a Metroidvania if the studio is willing to invest in dialogue, ambient behavior, and material consistency. Many Metroidvanias default to ruins for their hubs because ruins are easier to draw and to populate with ghosts. Silksong’s choice to make Bellhart a living, lit, and busy place is a useful counter-example for any developer thinking about how to scale up a hub without losing atmosphere.