With a release date now on the horizon, the true test is here
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“Where Silksong???” “No silksong, 0/10” “silksong silksong silksong silksong.”
Trawl the comments section of any gaming showcase from the past five years: The long-awaited release of Hollow Knight: Silksong has practically become a meme of itself. But at this point — as the game escapes the confines of memedom and will soon be an actual thing you can play — can Hollow Knight: Silksong possibly live up to the hype?
One way or another, we’ll find out soon. Developer Team Cherry announced Thursday that Hollow Knight: Silksong is finally out Sept. 4, following a marketing cycle that’s spanned… Oh no, three presidential administrations.
Hollow Knight: Silksong, which started out as an expansion to the original Hollow Knight (released in 2017) but quickly ballooned in scope, was first announced in 2019 without a release date. It appeared again during the 2022 not-E3 Xbox Games Showcase, which was followed by Xbox saying all games shown during the event would be out within a year, implying that Silksong would release no later than June 2023. In May 2023, it was delayed.
It is now 2025.
This is not to begrudge Team Cherry for taking its time. Video games are famously complex and hard to wrangle, and developers should take all the time they can to finish — plus don’t forget there was a pandemic in the middle there. It’s rather to contextualize just how many years the broader gaming public has been memeing this thing. At this point, it’s hard to imagine how Silksong escapes the shadow of its own internet footprint.
What does “living up to the hype” mean for Silksong, anyway? Does it mean hitting that coveted 90+ on Metacritic? Does it mean smashing sales records for the series? (The original Hollow Knight has sold an estimated 15 million copies.) Does it mean a Game of the Year nomination? Given that the Game Awards voting body tends to only nominate a single token indie, and that Silksong itself is launching in a year that also includes the tremendously inventive Blue Prince and what’s looking more and more like an impending release for Hades 2, the sequel to a game that’s spawned a gaming subculture of foamers (complimentary) and created an entire cottage industry of copycat games, that’s a tall order.
So far, previews from those who’ve played Silksong on the show floor at this year’s Gamescom have described a game that, to me, seems a whole lot like more of the same. IGN praised how familiar the platforming and combat felt (but did say it “shows no signs of disappointing”). TheGamer noted that the main character, The Hornet, controls much like the Knight, the main character of the original. There are some new elements, like a slew of frighteningly weird new bosses, but by and large, most hands-on previews paint a picture of refinement rather than innovation. Fans of the original will probably be fine with this. Is that enough to capture new players, though? (Previews have been based on 20-minute hands-on sessions, which doesn’t exactly grant a ton of insight into how the game really plays.)
Anyone who’s plugged into the gaming world knows what the weight of hype can do to a game’s perception, too. Even beyond the horror stories like Duke Nukem Forever and the horror stories-cum-redemption arcs like No Man’s Sky, the “meh”s of the gaming world can still have an impact on how a game is regarded. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was widely hailed as an achievement but by no means has the same cultural cachet as Breath of the Wild. Assassin’s Creed fans waited for the entirety of the series for a game set in feudal Japan. This year, that collective wish finally came true with Assassin’s Creed Shadows. It was pretty good! It didn’t change the world. Outcomes like these leave one wondering if all the hype was worth it after all.
Maybe that’s the likeliest outcome for Silksong: a really solid follow-up to a beloved game that thrills its longtime fans but doesn’t exactly light a fire in new players the way the original did.
In any event, the hype cycle has certainly reached its fever pitch, moving beyond YouTube chats into something you can tangibly see. Polygon reporters were on the ground at Gamescom this week, where Hollow Knight: Silksong was playable on the ROG Ally X at the Xbox booth. On two separate days, our reporters attended appointments at the booth, partially to see what Xbox is cooking for the fall but, let’s be real, mostly to get a chance to play Silksong. Due to previously scheduled commitments, they weren’t able to wait around long enough to play it. The lines for the demo were more than an hour long.
