Caught in Silksong’s web, 04/09/2025
How the industry is reacting to Team Cherry’s surprise Silksong shadow drop
We look at Silksong’s surprising impact on media and indies ahead of this week’s release
One Microsoft studio suffers lay-offs, while another unionises in this week’s news
Cronos: The New Dawn gives me an unexpected professional fright in the non-Silksong game of the week
Hello VGIM-lings,
It’s other George here, on back-to-back VGIM duties. I’ve been swept up in the Silksong hype, but not for the reasons most people have been.
While I’m as much of a Hollow Knight sicko as the average indie-pilled, Metroidvania soy boy, I’m far more interested in the cultural context surrounding its creation, surprise release, and its ripples through the industry even before its launch.
Silksong was initially the narrowly met A$56,000 stretch goal for the 2014 Hollow Knight Kickstarter campaign, which means fans have been waiting over a decade for the full return on their A$10 investment.
And while Team Cherry may never be forgiven for walking back its promise of Hollow Knight on Wii U, backers will surely be delighted with the overall return on their investment.
But after a decade of coping, and following the rampant success of the original Hollow Knight, Silksong has become such a huge part of gamers' cultural headspace that its release is having a massive effect on the industry this week.
So let’s take a deep dive into what Silksong means for the biz ahead of its release tomorrow.
The big read: Caught in Silksong’s web
Previously on Silksong: Way back in the deepest darkest depths of November 2014, the Kickstarter for the Soulslike/Metroidvania Hollow Knight launched with the modest goal of raising A$35,000 to support Team Cherry’s work. It surpassed this goal, eventually raising A$57,138 and reaching a stretch goal which promised a “2nd playable character with their own unique quests and abilities”.
The Hollow Knight Rises: Three years later, Hollow Knight launched in early 2017 and was immediately well-received. The critically acclaimed game went on to sell 15 million copies, according to Bloomberg. As the cash rolled in, Team Cherry was in the fortunate place to launch four free DLC packs, with the final pack, Godmaster, releasing in August 2018.
Hands on Silksong: But rather than include the aforementioned playable character stretch goal in a DLC pack, the developers changed their plans to create a separate standalone adventure featuring the existing character Hornet as the protagonist. In February 2019, Team Cherry announced that this expansion pack - now named Hollow Knight: Silksong - had grown far beyond the original intention and would now become a full release. The company showed off a ‘vertical-slice’ playable demo of the game at E3 2019 (RIP), leading to people - including Team Cherry - thinking that the game was nearly ready for release.
Meme machine: It wasn’t. After 2020, updates on Silksong became little more than whispers into the ether of social media. There was a logo here, an updated release date there. But nothing tangible emerged for several years, to the point that fans created memes known as ‘Silkposts’, including images of The Knight or Hornet wearing a clown costume, which were shared before every major industry showcase in the hopes of appeasing the release date gods.
Bugging out: Finally, after over half a decade of waiting for more meaningful news, 2025 brought signs of Silksong life to suggest it was finally on the way. Both Xbox and Nintendo mentioned Silksong in their showcases, stating that it would be out this year, after previously teasing that it was on the way. Finally, Silksong was for real for real.
Two weeks’ notice: But even the biggest fans of Hollow Knight were to be surprised by its announcement. Just days after skipping Geoff Keighley’s gamescom Opening Night Live apéritif at gamescom, Team Cherry whipped off the covers of a new YouTube trailer for the game on Thursday 21st August. It was short, but ended with the release date of September 4, 2025. A little under 11 years after the Kickstarter for Hollow Knight had launched, players had just a matter of weeks until they could finally play the game.
Too small to fail
Time management: This was all very exciting news. But it did leave a question. What on earth had Team Cherry been doing in Hollow Knight HQ over the past six years? In an interview with Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, designer Ari Gibson explained simply that it had taken a few people a long time to make a big game. “It’s just that we’re a small team, and games take a lot of time,” he said. “I think we’re always underestimating the amount of time and effort it’ll take us to achieve things.”
Have a nice day: Delays to a game’s release, particularly ones of this length, usually suggest that a disaster is in the offing. But according to Gibson, the delays were the result of the team enjoying themselves. “There wasn’t any big controversial moment behind it [the development of the game],” Ari claimed. “We’ve been having fun. It’s nice to make fun things.”
Undersized & moisturised: To just about anyone who has been working in games over the past few years, this sounds antithetical to the ever-increasing budgets, decreasing development timelines, and fear of layoffs that have stalked the rest of the industry. But thanks to Hollow Knight’s mega success and the small size of the development team, Team Cherry was able to side-step industry norms. “I used to manage teams in past lives. I don’t really want to do that ever again,” Gibson said. The team was in fact so small that they appeared to be confused when Schrier asked whether they had used Jira, a project management tool, to get the game over the line.
Terminally offline: So why didn’t we hear from anyone for six long years if the game’s development was so serene and steady? According to William Pellen, one of Team Cherry’s other leading men, the developers believed the finishing line was just around the corner and wanted to cross it before they started talking about the game. “There was a period of two to three years when I thought it was going to come out within a year,” William said. “Instead of popping up and bugging people for the sake of it, it felt like our actual responsibility was just to work on the game.”
TLDR: In short, Team Cherry had generated the rare fortune of being a small team, with lots of money from a previous hit game and enough control over their destiny to create the game they wanted in the form of Silksong. And as the vision for the game expanded and its development time was underestimated, the team was able to happily delay the game in the knowledge that they had enough money to sustain them, marching ever forward to the finish line.
Red flags or red-tinted glasses?
Damsels in delay: Will Silksong match up to its sky-high expectations? Based on the fortunes of other long-delayed games, there is reason to be cautious. Releases like Duke Nukem Forever, Skull and Bones and Dead Island 2 project a middling-at-best game emerging from such a long delay. And just ask anyone how they think Beyond Good and Evil 2 is going to shape up when it eventually releases after we’re all in the cold, hard ground.
Plug and Play: However, there are reasons to be optimistic., Media previews from the game’s 30-minute-long Gamescom demo were positive, although these playthroughs are always carefully curated with the understanding that the final game could be quite different. And while the middling games listed above were definitely not helped by being trapped in development purgatory, Team Cherry’s big game is at least being made by a small team with plenty of experience building a very similar world-class original game. This is why fan expectation is that Silksong will be just as – if not more – incredible than Hollow Knight, though this is far from the norm for games with six-year delays.
Review rumble: But for now, these previews and this speculation are all anyone will know about the game until release day. According to the above-mentioned Jason Schreier, Team Cherry isn’t sending out review codes as “it'd be unfair for critics to be playing before Kickstarter backers”. Jason also speculated on BlueSky later that the tiny team does not have the resources to distribute hundreds of pre-release codes because the game is self-published.
Unready to launch: This has piqued the ears of consumer games journalists. Historically, no review code is usually a death knell for games. Overwhelmingly, the decision not to release code before launch day is an indicator that the game is either not ready to be released, like MindsEye, or an unmitigated disaster, like The Day Before. As a bit of inside baseball, the codes for games that I’ve received with a post-launch day embargo are always, without exception, tragic experiences.
White flag: On this occasion, though, it is likely that the red flags we’re seeing around Silksong are the result of wearing glasses tinted by the expectations of the games business. The safe bet is that Silksong will be a great game and a huge critical and commercial success, setting Team Cherry up for the future.
Struggling for air
Room to breathe: So, everyone must be happy that the industry is set for another big hit in 2025? Well, not quite. Silksong’s shadow drop and likely success has caused panic across the industry. With Team Cherry leaving just two weeks between release date announcement and launch, many independent developers – including some big names – have preemptively delayed their games to avoid Silksong taking all the commercial oxygen out of the room.
Stumble steps: Bert Purchese at Eurogamer spotted 18 games that cite Silksong’s surprise release date as the reason for delay, with some choosing to wait until next year to launch. It has even been enough to cause some of the industry’s giants to dive out of the way. Publicly traded indie publisher Devolver Digital announced that the release date for Bennett Foddy’s Baby Steps was being shoved back by three weeks, by showing the game’s clumsy protagonist falling off a statue of a Hollow Knight character.
Monster of the week: While Devolver has decided to react to the news by laughing about it, Team Cherry’s decision to surprise the world with its release date has messed up plans for other developers across the world. Speaking to Aftermath’s Nathan Grayson, Brandon Sheffield, Director of the also delayed Demonschool, explained in simple terms why everyone is scarpering from Hollow Knight’s successor. “If you want to [make money], your best shot is at being the indie game of the week,” Brandon said. “And if that doesn’t happen, you’ll lose out on the curious people.” Given how much time is invested into each game, and the previous Hollow Knight’s combination of alluring depth and juicy little secrets, players are much less likely to double-dip once Silksong is in their digital shopping baskets.
Trickle down economics: It isn’t just indies affected by Team Cherry’s surprise release date, too. The business’s refusal to hand out release codes for the game before release is bad news for consumer games media sites. Not only does it devalue the importance of game criticism as a medium – something that is bad news for any form of creative media – it also means that sites don’t have the time or the means to write guides in time for launch. This leaves players without advice, guide writers without sleep, and games media sites without a source of content that’s perfect for generating ad revenue, damaging the ability of these sites to cover the news agenda more widely.
Bargain Bin: Lastly, Team Cherry’s announcement that Silksong would cost $20 was a blow for those who hoped the game could do something counterintuitively important for the market: raise the price of indie games. Twenty bucks is, of course, more than enough for the studio to make stacks of cash, given the size of Team Cherry and the millions of copies Silksong will inevitably sell.
Missed the open goal: But in a world where EA Sports churns out an Ultimate Edition of FC every year for $99 and the indie superteam behind UFO 50 sold 50 slices of gaming genius for the equivalent of 50 cents a pop, Silksong’s $20 price point is a missed opportunity to raise the ceiling on the cost of indie games - something that could have raised ambitions too.
Yelling to sell: Dave Proctor, director at Mighty Yell, said, “I was hoping Silksong would push price expectations, but nope. Part of me is disappointed. Big games can shape the industry.” While Unbeatable director RJ Lane wrote, “Silksong should cost $40 and I'm not joking. I won't go so far as to say it's bad, it isn't, but it will have effects, and not all of those effects are good.”
High tide: Team Cherry’s choice to be wisely offline during the development of its game is heartwarming in lots of ways. But the tiny Australian team has created a megahit of a game. And while it isn’t their responsibility to ride the waves that Silksong was always going to create, it’s also important that other important things like media scrutiny, the value of play, and the fortunes of the market aren’t washed away with the tide, too.
News in brief
Dynamic Staffing: Xbox studio Crystal Dynamics held its second round of layoffs this year. Seventeen employees lost their jobs in March, and even more are thought to have left the company this week. It was one of the companies impacted by the June Xbox layoffs, after the studio’s Perfect Dark reboot was cancelled by the powers that be. And while there was a last-ditch effort by Take-Two to keep the game alive, that failed - leaving the usual platitudes about tough decisions to do the heavy-lifting.
Diabolic union: 450 people working on Diablo at Blizzard have voted to unionise, with Microsoft recognising the union. Diablo producer Kelly Yeo said, "With every subsequent round of mass layoffs, I've witnessed the dread in my coworkers grow stronger because it feels like no amount of hard work is enough to protect us.” It’s a good step towards staff protection, but we’ll have to wait and see the aftershocks.
Work to Rule: Speaking of unions, IGN’s union is taking action following another round of layoffs that eliminated the roles of 12% of the union members. Workers claim that staff are consistently being let go with the expectation that the remaining workers will pick up the slack by forgoing lunch, working overtime, and completing tasks beyond their contractual requirements. The union has made a statement saying that they will do exactly what they are paid to do and no more. What a novel concept for the industry.
Open Valve: Steam becomes the latest platform to require age verification in the UK following the introduction of the Online Safety Act. PC gaming’s largest online storefront will require players in the UK to add a credit card as a payment method, as in the UK, credit card companies are required to ensure that its customers are over the age of 18. Other companies like Microsoft have made age verification optional, with a move to make it mandatory for online features early next year.
Cinematic games: Everyone’s favourite auteur, Hideo Kojima, spoke at the New Global Sport Conference in none other than Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In a Fireside Chat between Kojima and film director Nicolas Winding Refn, the Metal Gear Solid creator revealed that he only plays “maybe one game a year”, favouring movies, books, meeting people and museums. His love of cinema is evident if you’ve seen literally anything he’s made – his tweets included – but people were still surprised.
Moving on
Maheen Sahoo joins The Pokémon Company International as a Channel Development Manager, bringing Pokémon into schools… Stephen Peacock becomes AI Director at 2K Games… Simon Iwaniszak becomes Vice President at Sumo Digital while maintaining his role as Studio Director at Red Kite Games… Trisha Lee takes up the helm of Investment Analyst at Krafton… And Richard Snowden is now CEO at Coatsink…
Jobs ahoy
Left 4 Dead’s Turtle Rock Studio is looking to hire a bunch of people, including a Senior Narrative Designer for an unannounced AAA game… Naughty Dog wants a Senior Game Designer (Combat) to help with the development of Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet… Yellow Brick Games of Eternal Strands fame needs a System Administrator… Mobile gaming tycoon Zynga is hiring for several roles and regions, including a Senior Game Designer… And South of Midnight superstars Compulsion Games is filling a few roles, including Senior Technical Designer…
Events and conferences
Live Service Gaming Summit, London - 9th-10th September
NZGDC, Wellington - 25th-27th September
Tokyo Games Show, Tokyo - 25th-28th September
Nexus Games Summit, Dublin - 1st-2nd October
Games Connect Asia Pacific, Melbourne - 6th-8th October
Game of the week - Cronos: The New Dawn
I spent around 10 gruelling hours battling through the first chapter of Cronos: The New Dawn. Coming into it, I knew it was a survival horror game. Resources would be limited, and enemies would be difficult to take down.
Yet, I wasn’t prepared for one shocking twist in the review process that’d chill the hearts of any player.
Yes, the next time I booted the game, I discovered that my save had been deleted. I then received an email from Bloober Team that an old build of Cronos: The New Dawn had accidentally been released on PlayStation and that I should start all over again. Terrifying!
Fortunately, and I don’t know if it was just because I was comparing the game to the original build I played, but everything felt blissful after Bloober’s update came through.
I prefer my horror with a looming sense of dread rather than Cronos’ large amount of oogaly boogalies exploding in a spray of bullets. But I’ll forgive it here because I’m a sucker for horror games where your choices matter and there are multiple endings.
Some areas could have been improved by wielding a pair of snippers. Overall, I found that its balance between gathering resources, inventory management, exploration and combat was successful enough to form a deeply satisfying core loop. The mysterious world-building is also top-notch, particularly the part where you pet stray cats.
At $60, Cronos straddles the line between AA and AAA. And despite Silksong’s all-consuming maw, there is definitely space for it among the shooty bang bang Resident Evil fans.
Before you go…
What do leading video game developers like to do in their offices during development downtime? If you answered “run an underground fight club”, you are, remarkably, right.
In the latest episode of Chris Dring’s The Games Business, Jens Andersson of MachineGames did what Brad Pitt told everyone not to do by admitting that the company’s jujitsu-loving animation director deals out regular (consensual) beatings to staff members as part of the studio’s extra-curricular activities.
But if you’re not into being battered, never fear: MachineGames also enjoys LEGO Thursdays, too.
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