Comment by bkcooper

Addendum: having now had the chance to start on Silksong, strongly recommend Hollow Knight first. That's not because of story, but because Silksong seems like it's geared to be noticeably more difficult than Hollow Knight was, both in platforming and in combat. (One of the things that I think Hollow Knight did really well was the spread of available difficulties. Beating the game isn't too hard; getting the true ending involves a few more specific difficult tests; and the DLC added boss gauntlets that let you go pretty crazy with how hard you want to make it.)