It’s been a long wait for Hollow Knight: Silksong, so when Team Cherry‘s sequel finally went live, the excitement reached a fever pitch — so much so that it not only caused major storefronts like Steam, Xbox, and the PlayStation Store to crash, but also recorded one of the biggest launches of all time on Steam. All of that over an indie title (move over, triple-AAA releases)!
According to SteamDB, the highly anticipated Metroidvania hit an all-time concurrent peak of 535,213 players, with the numbers expected to rise on the platform over the weekend. The figure doesn’t paint the full picture, either, as it excludes the PlayStation, Switch, and Xbox platforms. For comparison, the first game registered a peak of 72,916 on Steam, almost eight times fewer players.
At the time of writing, it stands at No. 18 on the all-time Steam chart, trailing behind Path of Exile 2 (578,569), Apex Legends (624,473), and Marvel Rivals (644,269). In the top five are PUBG: Battlegrounds (3,257,248), Black Myth: Wukong (2,415,714), Palworld (2,101,867), Counter-Strike 2 (1,862,531), and Monster Hunter Wilds (1,384,608).
First announced in 2019, Hollow Knight: Silksong follows Hornet, the former princess of the fallen kingdom of Hallownest, who is captured and transported to the mysterious new land of Pharloom. It builds on the combat and traversal mechanics introduced in its predecessor, and was originally planned as a DLC before growing into a full-fledged sequel.
The original title sold over 15 million copies, setting an impressive precedent for the indie game scene, which has enjoyed increased interest and growth in recent years. Unlike the usual case of development hell, the reason for Silksong‘s long wait was that the small team was able to do things at its own pace, at one point even adding too many ideas.
“I remember at some point I just had to stop sketching,” co-founder Ari Gibson said. “Because I went, ‘Everything I’m drawing here has to end up in the game. That’s a cool idea, that’s in. That’s a cool idea, that’s in.’ You realise, ‘If I don’t stop drawing, this is going to take 15 years to finish.'”
Talk about burning passion!
Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
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