“Hollow Knight: Silksong” is a video game released on Sept. 4. 2025 by Team Cherry, an Australian game developers studio, which largely consists of Artist Ari Gibson, programmers William Pellen and David Kazi, and composer Christopher Larken. The game is the sequel to the critically acclaimed title “Hollow Knight” released in 2017, following the tale of a small bug named The Knight, with the sequel focusing on a side character named Hornet.
The game has been receiving critical acclaim from various gaming journals like the Imagine Games Network (IGN), and receiving acclaim from fans of the series. With the release peaking at over 500,000 concurrent players, with different online storefronts like the Nintendo eShop and Steam crashing with all the people on the sites at the same time.
While the game has largely received such anticipation from journal reports, a large portion of the excitement for the game is from fans of the original game. This is largely due to the quality of the original game, with “Rolling Stone” ranking it 34th on its “50 Best Video Games of All Time” list. The original’s positive reception led to a devoted fanbase.
However, much of the excitement for the game was due to the extreme wait between the two games. The sequel was announced in 2019, with a demo that premiered at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), an annual video game trade show and convention, which was praised by those that got to play it. This demo was then followed up with a blog post from Team Cherry announcing they will be signing off and continue working on the game.
This blog post then led to a long six years with no word from Team Cherry. There were some hints of the game’s release, like announcements from different publishers, like the incorrect tweet from Xbox saying the game would release in the next 12 months in June 2022. However, there was mostly no relevant information, besides the occasional community message from the marketing director, Matthew Griffith, who announced the team’s continuation of the games development.
The wait continued until the Nintendo Direct on April 2, 2025, a showcase that featured the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 console. Here, it was announced in an upcoming game montage that the game would release in 2025. This event massively revived the hype for the game’s upcoming release among the community, after many had begun to believe the game would never be released
The wait for the game among the community was known as “silksanity,” which was the community’s way of coping with the long wait. The community had made many different inside jokes during the wait for the game with no news. Some of these jokes include referring to the game as “Skong,” a shortening of the game’s title, attempting to sacrifice different community members via fake social media posts, or making false announcements about the game, which became referred to as “Silkposts.”
After the long six-year wait for the game, the game is finally out to the public, released Sept. 4, 2025, with critics and fans raving. Many critics have been praising the fluid gameplay, great art direction, incredible music production, and more. However, many have been upset with the game for its excessive difficulty, with Lafayette senior Yaser Al Aamery, saying, “I’m 3 hours in and I might need to stop for my sanity.” This sentiment is largely shared by critics and fans, who believe the game is beautiful but far too difficult.
Overall, the game has been a long time coming, and is highly recommended among fans and critics. If you’re a fan of side-scrolling, open-world video games or enjoy the first Hollow Knight, it’s a great experience. Despite its great difficulty and occasional frustration, with some of the boss fights, the amazing gameplay, art, and music help push through, making it entirely worth it.
