Before discussing Silksong, let’s examine how Hollow Knight gained popularity. Hollow Knight is a 2D indie game focused on combat and exploration. You play as a small, insect-like warrior exploring the ruined underground kingdom of Hallownest. The story unfolds as you piece together what happened to Hallownest while further exploring. The main enemies you face throughout your adventure are bugs and invertebrates infected with a disease that makes them hostile towards the character. You also face off against powerful bosses that require patience and rhythm.
Hollow Knight, even with just a team of three people making it, is one of the most popular single-player games of all time, gaining most of its popularity. The game’s cheap price at only $20 and unique art style made people initially want to buy the game. After people started playing it, they loved the open world exploration and the intriguing combat. The game quickly gained popularity and became one of the most popular indie games of all time.
Soon after Hollow Knight was released, Team Cherry, the game’s developers, announced three DLCs, or downloadable content packs, and a sequel, Silksong. The game was announced six years ago and was expected to come out within a year of its announcement, but fans were kept waiting for years as the release date kept moving back. During the Nintendo Switch 2 direct on April 2, 2025, a small clip of Silksong was shown in the livestream, announcing its release. Fans thought they were going to be led to believe it was going to be released just for the developers to extend the game, but about a month later, a trailer came out for just the game, confirming the release date on September 4th.
When Silksong finally released, years of hype and anticipation peaked in one of the most chaotic launches in Steam’s history. Millions of fans rushed to buy and download the game at once, overwhelming the platform’s servers and causing temporary crashes across the Steam store. Within minutes, users reported errors, failed checkouts, and broken store pages as Silksong’s player count skyrocketed past half a million concurrent users, an unexpected number for a 2D indie title. The sudden surge of activity even affected other games’ store pages, as Steam struggled to handle the flood of global demand. This game is still very popular right now, a month after release, and even though it is much more difficult than Hollow Knight, it is living up to the expectations of its long-awaited release.
