How to beat the Fourth Chorus in Hollow Knight: Silksong

You'll need to practice your platforming to beat the Fourth Chorus, a giant automoton deep in the lava fields of Hollow Knight: Silksong.

Precision platforming is at the heart of playing Silksong, and the Fourth Chorus is the first boss that tests what you’ve learned thus far. The fight is fairly simple, as the boss only has a few attacks. The real fight is staying out of the lava, and the Fourth Chorus has lots of ways to put you in it. Here’s how to win the fight.

How to beat the Fourth Chorus in Hollow Knight: Silksong

The Fourth Chorus doesn’t have a long move list or a huge health pool, but it loves to make the arena where you fight it disappear. Early on, you’ll have at least two places to plant your feet, but by the fight’s end, you’ll have a postage stamp to stand — and land — on.

You will be doing a lot of jumping, as the Fourth Chorus can only be damaged if you hit its head, which is situated near the apex of Hornet’s jump height. The fight is, therefore, a test of both your platforming and visual recognition skills. If you can’t keep track of where you need to land between attacks, you’ll run out of health masks very quickly.

All Fourth Chorus attacks

The Fourth Chorus has three attacks, all of them easy to deal with. At the risk of being repetitive, the trick is dodging and attacking while also worrying about the ground you do and don’t have to stand on.

All of the boss’s attacks can come from either direction, and the arena pieces it removes do eventually return. You can easily jump to avoid two of them, while the third requires you to avoid falling boulders.

Horizontal slap

The Fourth Chorus positions one of its hands perpendicular to th edge of the arena, then sweeps it across the entire screen. Getting slapped will cost you two masks of health and knock you back. You can jump up or in an arc to avoid the slap, but be careful of where you need to land.

Rock smash

For this attack, the Fourth Chorus pulls one of its hands into the air above the arena, then slams it down, destroying part of the platform you can stand on. It can use this attack twice in a row, whittling down the arena to a single, small platform.

Falling lava rocks

The Fourth Chorus punches the rocky ceiling above the arena and causes superheated rocks to fall for about fifteen seconds. Avoid the rocks by strafing right or left. The boss shouldn’t use this attack when there’s only a small portion of platform left, as I didn’t experience that across my attempts, but that doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t for you.

The Fourth Chorus can be stunned if you deal enough damage to it in a short enough time. Doing so completely resets the arena state, returning all missing pieces to the original position.

If you aren’t comfortable dealing damage and avoiding attacks when the boss reduces the arena size, focus instead on avoiding taking damage at all. If it’s using the slap attack, jump straight up. If all you have left is a tiny area to stand, don’t worry about trying to reach the Fourth Chorus’s head. Just stay alive and eventually you’ll have more freedom to move again.

Keep at it, and the big lug will go down quickly enough. For more on the bosses of Hollow Knight: Silksong and much more, check out our dedicated game page.