Silksong: How an indie game broke e-stores and smashed online figures

This game has such a cult following that minutes after it was released e-shops crashed. In the following days streaming numbers were off the charts. Its success is already being described as an anomaly. A gaming phenomenon developed outside all the big games companies by a team of just three. Welcome to the world of Hollow Knight: Silksong.

“This is not a normal independent game by any measure”

When you think of standout, successful video games, games from big budget developers like Nintendo, EA and Sony probably spring to mind.

But in Adelaide, Australia, a team with a core staff of just three people has produced one of the biggest gaming hits of the year so far, Hollow Knight: Silksong. It’s the follow-up to Hollow Knight. Released in 2017 this 2D platform game puts you in the midst of a dark bug-filled world, where you battle creepy, fierce enemies to progress.

Hollow Knight sold more than 15 million copies according to the developer, Team Cherry, but fans were left with a very long wait for the sequel.

“There is no precedent for an indie game having this kind of power, getting this kind of attention, it just doesn’t happen”

One of the few people who managed to speak to Team Cherry about this delay is video game podcaster, journalist, and author, Jason Scherier. He told us that ever since the announcement of Silksong’s development in 2019 “there had since been near ‘radio silence’ from the team”.

Jason explained that “video game development can be very difficult… sometimes torturous,” and he wanted to know what was going on with Silksong and Team Cherry. He was surprised to find the ‘near radio silence’ was not a reflection of how things were going:

“I expected them to be like ‘yeah it was miserable like we just we ran into all these problems and here's what happened’ and instead they were like, ‘oh yeah, we were just having such a good time.’”

“Just a team having fun”

No drama, no blown budgets, it was, as Jason puts it “the polar opposite of every other game development story… they were just having a great time.”

Fans, however, were waiting in eager anticipation. Then in August this year, a new trailer for Silksong dropped online, and the release date of September 4th was announced.

Years of hype and hope were soon to be over, and for most people, a purchase price of around $20 was also very welcome. The result - a peak of more than half a million people playing Silksong at the same time, just two days after release (with daily peaks still over 400,000 at the time of writing).

In terms of copies sold, there are estimates of over 3 million, though as Schrier points out there is no box-office alternative for games, so numbers should be taken with a slight pinch of salt.

And as for the game, “you can tell they just had a blast,” he said. “When you play you can feel the joy permeating throughout.”

“Silksong has the potential to be my favourite game”

Two gamers now feeling that joy are 10-year-old Edward, and his dad Chris from Manchester. Like other fans of Hollow Knight, they had been waiting a long time for Silksong to come out.

“I was really excited… they always say ‘it's gonna come out this year, it's gonna come out now’ but it never really happens…but this year it actually did,” said Edward.

Come release day, the pair had to wait over an hour to buy the game, as e-stores crashed due to demand. But once they were in they bought mulitple copies so everyone could play on different platforms, including Edward’s younger brother.

Chris told us the day felt like a real event, something that does not come around often, “perhaps in the way a new Star Wars film might have felt years ago”.

“It’s quite incredible that only three people made such an amazing game”

Edward is a huge fan of the original Hollow Knight, but said Silksong definitely has the potential to become his favourite game. Though, just like his dad, he is reserving judgement until he gets to the end.

“I’ve only played three, maybe four, hours so far… it might take tens of hours before I complete it,” Edward explained.

Initial reviews are good though, Edward told us he’s enjoying the ‘mix up of different worlds’ compared to Hollow Knight and the score, “they have got the perfect music for each place”.

Chris and Edward are playing the game separately, Edward on Playstation, Dad on PC, but when it comes to who will complete it first, they agree it will be the younger of the two.

“Edward is better than me, so I’m like ‘Edward I need your help,’” said Chris. Edward, with some glee, responded “And I’m like ‘NO', because you told me you didn’t want any help, and wanted to find out things for yourself’”.

“It’s really fired up Edward’s imagination”

Competition aside, the pair love spending time playing the game. “I've never really bought into the whole narrative that computer games are necessarily bad. I guess they can teach perseverance,” explained Chris.

Edward told us he’s been creating his own illustrations of the Hollow Knight world and Chris said the artwork, storytelling and sound-scape of the game have all caught Edward’s attention and imagination.

Edward even has a suggestion for what the developers should do next. “In Hollow Knight there is someone called Quirell, and he helps you with some bosses and I think he should have his own game.”

Listen up Team Cherry! But maybe don’t make Chris and Edward wait so long next time.

“It is almost unheard of for a game made by a team of this size to have this sort of industry presence”

Also keeping tabs on the Silksong release was Austin Wood, a senior writer for GamesRadar+, a popular game news and entertainment website in the US and UK.

The ‘industry presence’ Austin talks about led to other games developers moving their own releases to avoid launching at the same time as Silksong and saw people who often pirate video games actually encouraging others not to pirate and buy a copy instead.

The popularity of Silksong is unusual for the type of game it is. Just minutes after release it had over 360,000 viewers on the streaming site Twitch, Austin told us that almost never happens:

“That was above things like League of Legends, Grand Theft Auto 5, the usual multi-player mainstays of Twitch. That is incredibly rare, not just for an indie game but for a single player game.”

Fans are already singing the praises of Silksong, though some (including everyone we’ve spoken to here) said it appears to be much harder than its predecessor. Even so, Austin thinks it could pick up some gongs come awards season:

“I would not be surprised to see Silksong in the global, industry-wide, game of the year nominations… I think it will be heavyweight.”

Published in September 2025