Image: Team Cherry
Six years. Much has been said in the last six years about Team Cherry’s near radio silence on Hollow Knight: Silksong. Promises from Microsoft about the game coming out “in the next 12 months” in 2022. No playable demo since E3 2019. No Kickstarter updates. And a furore of hungry fans whipping themselves into a frenzy and building an entire community on memes and anguish.
Then, on 19th August, we found out that was about to change: “The countdown is on! Join us in 48 hours for a special announcement about Hollow Knight: Silksong!” Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier revealed he’d spoken to the devs last month and promised to share “the story behind why Silksong took seven years to make…”. Even Geoff Keighley got in on the action and, during Gamescom 2025 Opening Night Live, shared a brief snippet of (blurry) gameplay. The hype was reaching fever pitch.
And, as promised, at 3:30pm BST on Thursday 21st August, the news dropped. Silksong is finally coming out on 4th September 2025. Team Cherry’s co-founders Ari Gibson and William Pellen’s story was out there. Was there drama? Fireworks?
Nope. It was all beautifully anticlimactic in the best possible way; a sub-two minute trailer that showed us this was “more Hollow Knight”. No over-explaining mechanics or details. Some glimpses of boss fights, towns, characters, and movement. And, of course, that release date.
In fact, you can go even further — the Silksong release trailer is structured almost identically to the Hollow Knight equivalent, right down to the language. “Face over 140 ferocious foes” and “Descend into a vast, ruined world” in Hollow Knight is now “Battle over 200 ferocious foes” and “Ascend to the peak of a haunted kingdom” in Silksong. It’s not subtle, but I’ll say it again: Silksong is more Hollow Knight.
Images: Team Cherry
Watching that Silksong trailer was like seeing an old friend after a long period of time; an event that you build up in your head, only for it to be a completely normal moment. Last month, I visited the UK for the first time in two years, and I arranged to meet up with a friend; I worried, I overthought things, I thought about what to wear. Then when we did meet, we hugged, asked each other how we were, and chatted like we’d never been apart. Completely ordinary, just like this trailer drop.
I couldn’t think of a better way for Silksong to reintroduce itself to the world, on Team Cherry’s own terms. For years, after every Nintendo Direct, every Indie World, every Summer Game Fest, people decried that it was over, clown paint and hair at the ready, frustration boiling over. There had to be something going on, right?
Yet, there wasn’t — at least, that’s what Gibson and Pellen told Schreier. Team Cherry isn’t here to provide the audience with juicy gossip or to fuel the fandom with even more fire. “Why did it take so long?” Schreier says in the piece. The response? They were having fun, blissfully ignorant (mostly) of the whirlwind of ‘Silkposting’ online: “This whole thing is just a vehicle for our creativity anyway. It’s nice to make fun things.”
Fun thing can also be scary thing…? — Image: Team Cherry
Whether that’s true or not is another story, but it’s refreshing to hear that the team (Gibson, Pellen, Jack Vine, and composer Christopher Larkin) took the time to do whatever they wanted, and they had the money to do it. Look, I am the first person to admit that I’m excited to play Silksong, and I acknowledge that video games media and coverage (including us!) has, in part, contributed to the bubbling pot of Silksong fever. But I’ve also never really got the voracious need to have this game in people’s hands.
Team Cherry was never going to release Silksong if it wasn’t ready — the devs said this back in 2019. We read so many stories about crunch, pressure from higher-ups, and games failing to hit unrealistic deadlines and targets. Creators should be allowed to flourish and make whatever the heck they want, no matter how long it takes, and we shouldn’t grief them for it.
Could the team have said something? Maybe, but as Gibson argues, “We felt like continued updates were just going to sour people on the whole thing because all we could really say is, ‘We’re still working on it.’” Hollow Knight was a different beast, a studio’s very first game, and so there was almost an obligation to keep people in the loop. Silksong became so much more than it was ever meant to be.
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A lot has changed in the six years since Silksong’s last playable demo, but Silksong and Team Cherry remain defiant; their timeline is their own. That playable demo at Gamescom 2025? Apparently it was almost identical to the E3 2019 (RIP) one. Silksong is likely an iteration of Hollow Knight — and we’ve seen some of the best sequels ever made with iterative installments like Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Tears of the Kingdom, and even smaller games like Freedom Planet 2, another indie that went through a long-development cycle.
The Metroidvania (or action-platformer, or search-action, whatever you want to call it) was already blooming prior to Hollow Knight’s release, but now it’s truly exploded. Blasphemous, Nine Sols, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Timespinner, Crypt Custodian, Ender Lilies & Magnolia — these are just a few of my favourites I’ve played that launched between Hollow Knight and Silksong. And while Hollow Knight might sit at the top of that pantheon for me, even surpassing Symphony of the Night and Super Metroid, Silksong should be treated as just another game release. Detach it from the hype machine and just enjoy it for what it is.
Hornet, prepare yourself…! — Image: Team Cherry
Instead of focusing on whether Silksong will live up to the hype (I don’t even know if that’s possible), or already proclaiming that it’s “GOTY 2025” (it’s not even out yet — and hey, maybe I’ll end up saying that in December), we should celebrate that Team Cherry made a game on their own terms, in their own time. That should be the norm in this industry, and it’s a darn shame it isn’t.
What did you think of Silksong’s Release Trailer? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Alana has been with Nintendo Life since 2022, and while RPGs are her first love, Nintendo is a close second. She enjoys nothing more than overthinking battle strategies, characters, and stories. She also wishes she was a Sega air pirate.
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