Double jump in Silksong: how to unlock the Faydown Cloak

Double jump Silksong: what the upgrade actually does

Hornet’s double jump in Hollow Knight: Silksong is delivered through a single named ability, the Faydown Cloak, and it changes how the entire Mount Fey region opens up. Unlike the original Hollow Knight, where the Monarch Wings sat relatively early on the ability curve, the Silksong equivalent is positioned late, gates several endings, and is tied to a cold environment that punishes players who rush in unprepared. If a route in the late game feels inaccessible, the missing piece is almost always this cloak rather than a new traversal tool.

From a player’s perspective the ability is simple: a second mid-air jump that lets you chain it with the existing dash, wall jump, and harpoon for much longer vertical ascents. From a designer’s perspective it is more interesting, because the upgrade is essentially a permission slip to explore an entire biome that was already present on the map but intentionally unreachable with the early ability set. That structure is worth keeping in mind when you plan a route, because it tells you which side areas to leave alone until the cloak is in hand.

This guide focuses on the verified path to the ability, the prerequisites that the community and official coverage agree on, and the design reasons that the climb is harder than the original game’s double jump. It also notes where the in-game evidence and third-party coverage diverge, so you can decide how much of the late-game route to plan ahead and how much to discover in real time.

What the double jump is called in Silksong

The community shorthand “double jump” maps to a single in-game ability. Getting the terminology right matters because several traversal upgrades look similar in motion but behave differently, and conflating them will ruin route planning.

• Faydown Cloak: the named ability that grants the second mid-air jump. This is the Silksong double jump.
• Clawling grappling hook: a separate, earlier traversal tool. It pulls Hornet toward surfaces and is a hard prerequisite for reaching Mount Fey, but it is not the double jump itself.
• Harpoon, dash, wall jump, glide: core movement pieces. The climb to the Faydown Cloak relies on combining all of them; the new ability is what you earn at the top of the chain.

If you are searching save files, ability lists, or guide comments, the term to look for is “Faydown Cloak” rather than the generic phrase. Patch notes, wiki entries, and walkthrough videos all use the named ability, and the in-game description uses the same wording.

Where to go: Mount Fey and the Bellway split

Mount Fey is the region you need to reach, and the entry point is gated behind a specific Bellway decision. According to third-party coverage of the release, the path to the mountain sits to the left of The Slab, and the left-hand Bellway route is the one that opens the climb. Players who instinctively take the right-hand fork will simply travel deeper into the Slab and miss the entrance entirely.

The Slab itself is a separate challenge. It is an interior area rather than a pure vertical climb, and it expects you to use the grappling hook and your platforming kit to stay above pursuit mechanics. Plan to clear or route around The Slab with a full heal pool, because the Bellway shortcut does not skip the descent on the way back out if you are defeated.

There is no alternate entrance to Mount Fey in the verified coverage. If a guide or video claims a side route from another region, treat it as a late-game shortcut that depends on the Faydown Cloak itself rather than an alternative path to acquire it.

Prerequisites before you climb

Mount Fey’s cold environment is the real gate, not the bellway fork. Failing to prepare for the damage-over-time effect is the most common reason players abandon the climb and assume they have hit a progression bug.

• Clawling grappling hook: required to reach the mountain at all. Without it, the platforming segments in Mount Fey become physically impossible.
• Mask Shards: the cold effect deals damage on a timer, so the more mask capacity you have, the longer you can stay exposed before retreating to warmth.
• Healing consumables: bring your full stock. Rest points inside the mountain are scarce, and one bad run can cost a large amount of accumulated progress.
• Dash, harpoon, glide, wall jump: you will need all four to keep moving upward. Treat the climb as a stress test of your current traversal kit.

If you are missing any of these, the recommendation from release-day coverage is to backtrack and finish them first. The cost of returning to Mount Fey a second time, including the Bellway walk, is small compared with the cost of dying halfway up the ascent with no warm shelter nearby.

How the cold environment works

Mount Fey is a cold biome, and cold biomes in Silksong have a simple but punishing rule. After roughly fifteen seconds away from a warm source, Hornet begins to take chip damage that continues until she either returns to warmth or dies. The timer resets the moment you touch a warm point, but it does not pause while you climb.

Two practical consequences follow:

1. Rest points are the only safe planning horizon. A bench is a hard reset, but a warm lantern or a brief sheltered alcove gives you enough time to climb one or two screens before you need to plan the next warm encounter.
2. Mask capacity is your buffer, not your health pool. Building a few extra mask shards before the climb does not make you tanky, it makes you forgiving. Use the extra masks to absorb mistakes on the cold timer rather than to fight extra enemies.

This design choice is consistent with how other cold areas in Metroidvanias tend to gate progression. The goal is to push players toward deliberate, resource-aware movement rather than pure execution.

The ascent: how the climb actually feels

The path up Mount Fey is a long vertical sequence that chains every traversal tool in your kit. Expect to switch between the grappling hook for long vertical pulls, the harpoon for angled pings between platforms, wall jumps to recover height, and the glide to soften long falls if you slip. The double jump is not available during this climb, because it is the reward at the summit rather than a tool you use to reach the summit.

Because the route is so vertical, the climb punishes hesitation. Standing still to plan a route costs you mask health through the cold timer, and the safest play is to keep moving upward, even if your first attempt at a particular platforming section is sloppy. Most players who fail the climb fail it because they paused to look ahead rather than because the platforming itself was beyond them.

Community video walkthroughs cover the exact route in detail, and they are worth watching at least once before the attempt. Watching a route twice costs nothing, while retrying the climb with a half-understood path can cost an hour of progress and your full stock of healing consumables.

Is the double jump required to finish the game?

The short answer is no, but the longer answer is more useful for route planning. For additional context, Several Silksong endings are reachable without the Faydown Cloak, because the game’s required endings use earlier traversal tools. If you are a player who is happy to finish the main story and stop, the cloak is a luxury rather than a requirement.

If you want anything beyond the most basic ending, however, the Faydown Cloak becomes effectively mandatory. Optional areas, late-game bosses, and the higher-tier endings are all gated behind routes that depend on the second jump. The same is true of the completionist checklist, because several collectibles sit above platforming chains that only the cloak can solve.

The distinction matters for how you pace a first playthrough. If you only care about one ending, you can route around the climb. If you care about the full experience, treat the Faydown Cloak as a non-negotiable milestone and prepare for it like any other boss attempt.

Double jump vs the original Hollow Knight

Players coming from the first game often expect the Silksong upgrade to behave like Monarch Wings, and that expectation causes most of the confusion. The two abilities share an input but differ in almost every other dimension, and the table below highlights where.

The shift from a mid-game world-opener to a late-game world-closer is one of the more interesting design changes in Silksong, and it explains why the climb feels more like a final exam than a routine upgrade. New players should expect the climb to be longer and colder than the equivalent sequence in the first game, and budget their consumables and mask shards accordingly.

Practical route planning for the climb

Route planning for the Faydown Cloak is mostly a matter of sequencing rather than execution. Once you have the prerequisites, the climb itself is a single long attempt, and the right approach is to remove as many variables as possible before you start.

• Start from the closest bench, not from a save file. Loading a save inside The Slab and walking to the Bellway is usually faster than warping in from a far-away station.
• Pre-stock healing consumables rather than buying new gear. Mask shards are the more expensive upgrade, and the climb rewards buffer health more than combat strength.
• Take the left Bellway fork. The right-hand path leads deeper into The Slab and bypasses Mount Fey entirely.
• Watch a community video route once before the attempt. Most failed climbs are caused by route uncertainty, not platforming skill.
• Plan your warm points in advance. Identify one or two safe spots between the entry and the summit so you know where to pause for the cold timer to reset.

The single most common mistake is treating Mount Fey like a normal side area and walking in without consumables. Cold biomes punish that habit by design, and Mount Fey’s design is sharper than most because the late-game routing assumes you have already learned that lesson in earlier regions.

What to do after unlocking the cloak

The Faydown Cloak does not just grant a new movement option. It also retroactively opens parts of the map you may have already explored, especially vertical chambers and side branches in late-game regions. A clean backtrack after unlocking the cloak is one of the fastest ways to find missed collectibles and alternate paths.

Three post-climb priorities make sense for most players:

1. Re-explore Mount Fey from the top down. Areas you climbed past become trivial to descend through, and several side rooms are easier to read on the way down.
2. Re-explore The Slab from above. The Slab’s interior is denser than it first appears, and the cloak reveals shortcuts that the grappling hook alone could not reach.
3. Push into the highest-tier ending. Once the cloak is in hand, the late-game bosses and endings that were previously blocked become accessible, and finishing them while the routes are fresh is faster than returning later.

This backtrack pattern is the same one experienced Metroidvania players use after any major traversal upgrade. The first pass through an area is for forward progress, the second pass is for completion, and the second pass is almost always where the most rewarding optional content lives.

Common problems and what to check first

Most reported “the double jump is missing” issues fall into a small set of predictable causes. Before assuming a progression bug, work through the list below in order.

• Wrong Bellway fork: confirm you took the left path out of The Slab rather than the right.
• Missing grappling hook: the Clawling is a hard prerequisite, and the Mount Fey platforming assumes it.
• Cold damage interrupting the climb: low mask capacity and empty consumables turn the climb into a survival run rather than a platforming run.
• Confusing the cloak with the dash: some players assume a mid-air jump input is the dash. The double jump is a separate ability tied to a different equip slot.
• Patch or version differences: ability names and locations can shift between updates. If something looks wrong, check the patch notes before assuming a bug.

If none of the above applies, the most likely explanation is a routing error rather than a glitch. Mount Fey is intentionally linear, but the platforming inside it has multiple branch paths that look identical at a glance. A short video of the intended route resolves most of these cases within a minute.

Why the upgrade sits this late in the progression curve

From a designer’s perspective, the late placement of the Faydown Cloak is a deliberate choice rather than an oversight. The Silksong ability curve follows a familiar Metroidvania pattern: a first traversal set that opens the world, a second set that opens optional content, and a final set that closes out the routes the player has already explored. The Faydown Cloak is the last piece of that third set, and its difficulty is tuned to match the late-game content it gates rather than the early-game content it leaves behind.

Cold damage and scarce rest points are the two mechanisms that signal this design intent. They remove the ability to brute-force the climb with combat skill and force the player to engage with the resource layer of the game. A player who has learned to manage consumables, mask capacity, and rest placement in earlier regions will find Mount Fey demanding but fair. A player who has ignored those systems will hit a wall that no amount of platforming practice can solve.

The end result is that the Silksong double jump functions as both an upgrade and a test. It teaches the player to manage the cold timer on the way up, then rewards that skill by giving them the second jump they need to explore the rest of the late game. Few other upgrades in the genre carry that dual role, and it is one of the more thoughtful design choices in the game.

Quick reference checklist

For players who want a single-screen summary, the checklist below captures the verified path and prerequisites in order.

• Unlock the Clawling grappling hook before attempting the climb.
• Stack as many mask Shards as you can find, then top up healing consumables.
• Reach The Slab and take the left Bellway fork toward Mount Fey.
• Manage the cold timer by returning to warm points every fifteen seconds or so.
• Chain dash, harpoon, glide, and wall jump to keep moving upward.
• Reach the summit, unlock the Faydown Cloak, and backtrack through Mount Fey and The Slab to find the routes the new jump opens up.

Frequently asked questions

What is the double jump called in Silksong?

The Silksong double jump is the Faydown Cloak. It is a named ability that grants Hornet a second mid-air jump and is the late-game equivalent of the Monarch Wings from the original Hollow Knight.

Is the double jump required to beat Silksong?

It is not required to finish the main story or to reach the most basic ending, but it is required for the higher-tier endings and for most completionist content. If you only want one ending, you can route around it; if you want the full experience, treat the cloak as mandatory.

Where do I get the Faydown Cloak in Silksong?

The ability is earned at the summit of Mount Fey. The entrance to Mount Fey sits to the left of The Slab, and the left-hand Bellway fork is the one that leads there.

What abilities do I need before climbing Mount Fey?

You need the Clawling grappling hook, plus the dash, harpoon, glide, and wall jump. The Clawling is a hard prerequisite because the platforming inside Mount Fey cannot be solved without it.

Why does Mount Fey damage me while I climb?

Mount Fey is a cold biome, and cold biomes deal chip damage after roughly fifteen seconds away from a warm point. The damage is a timer rather than a hazard from enemies, and it resets when you touch a warm source again.

How is the Silksong double jump different from Monarch Wings?

Monarch Wings sit in the mid-game of the original Hollow Knight and serve as a world-opener. The Faydown Cloak sits in the late game of Silksong, sits behind a cold-damage region, and is tuned to close out the world rather than open it.

Can I reach the Faydown Cloak without the grappling hook?

No. The Clawling grappling hook is a hard prerequisite, and the platforming inside Mount Fey assumes it. If you have not unlocked it, the climb is physically impossible rather than just difficult.

What should I do right after unlocking the cloak?

Backtrack through Mount Fey from the top down, then re-explore The Slab from above. The cloak retroactively opens side branches and shortcuts in both regions, and the second pass is the fastest way to find missed collectibles.

Do I need the Faydown Cloak for every ending in Silksong?

You need it for the higher-tier endings and for the optional content that feeds into them. The basic ending is reachable with the earlier traversal kit, but anything beyond that assumes the cloak is already in hand.

Is the double jump affected by patches or updates?

Ability names, locations, and prerequisites can shift between updates, especially in a live-service or recently launched game. If something looks wrong, check the latest patch notes before assuming a progression bug, and treat older video guides as a starting point rather than a final reference.