Several years after its announcement, “Hollow Knight: Silksong” became playable.

On Sept. 4, Ari Gibson, William Pellen and Jack Vine, also known as Team Cherry, finally unleashed their second game to the world of voracious gamers. 

Initially conceived as additional content for 2017’s “Hollow Knight,” Team Cherry’s blending of Metroidvania and Souls-like game theory was announced two years later as a full-fledged sequel to the megahit indie debut. 

Fan fervor grew after the announcement, but the small Australian team left behind few details about the game’s development. Year after year, gamers held their breath for an official update at industry conventions, conferences and awards shows, only to be let down over and over again.

After years of failed promises, fan-made memes and clown makeup applications, realistic rumblings of “Silksong” began in early 2025. Fast forward to mid-August, the release date for “Silksong” was confirmed as Sept. 4, mere weeks away.

Since the official release date announcement, it has been reported that the game’s Nintendo eShop and Steam page repeatedly crashed due to the massive amount of interest, with charts showing nearly 600,000 players on the PC platform at a single time. Only 0.6% of those players have completed the game, according to SteamDB.info. 

San Francisco State University student Charlie Leake spoke about his journey leading to the release and his first 45 hours playing “Hollow Knight: Silksong.” Leake, a fourth-year environmental studies student, is a project lead for SFSU’s Game Development Club.

Interview

Shaw: Talk to me about your journey, your experience with “Hollow Knight,” the original and how you have been building up to the release of “Silksong.”

Leake: I found “Hollow Knight” in 2020 when the pandemic first hit. I had a lot of free time on my hands, and I remember distinctly there was this relief game bundle on some platform. I think it was on itch.io, and I bought the bundle. I saw the game in there, and I’m like, “You know what, that seems pretty interesting, I’ll give it a try.” And shortly after I tried, I quickly fell in love with “Hollow Knight” as a franchise.

Shaw: How long did it take you to beat the first game?

Leake: I have — I want to say 240 hours in the game. I think the first time, full completion, maybe 40 or 50 hours. It took me a long time.

Shaw: After you beat it, were you aware that they were making “Silksong”?

Leake: I was. So after I beat the game, I was wondering myself, “Wow, this is a really good game. I wonder if they’re making anything else. Team Cherry, I wonder if they’re making any other games.” And that’s when I found on their YouTube channel, their release trailer from 2019. I’m like, “Oh, this seems cool. It seems like it’ll come out in a year or two, and this will be great.” I was happily looking forward to it.

Shaw: Were you disappointed every year following, you learning about “Silksong” and it wouldn’t come out until who knows when?

Leake: It was a little disheartening to know that we were so close, and then that milestone would be pushed back ever so slightly out of our reach. But it was also rewarding knowing that they had good reasons to delay the game. They’re purposely not rushing the game, which I felt was a good thing. And obviously, it delivered very well on their promise of them being in the studio and putting their hearts and souls into the game and not rushing it.

Shaw: How did you prepare yourself for the release of the game?

Leake: We had Team Cherry announce that they were going to do an announcement two days prior to when the video released, and so I asked my friends, who are also into “Hollow Knight” and “Hollow Knight: Silksong,” “Hey, do you guys want to watch this premiere?” 

I watched YouTube videos kind of analyzing that trailer, breaking it up, seeing what we know and what to expect for the future as a way to kind of get my own hype building after it being dormant for so long.

Shaw: So how much, as of now [Tuesday], do you have on your timer for your Silksong gameplay?

Leake: I’ve spent 45 hours in the game since Thursday. I had nothing to do this whole weekend on purpose. I knew this was going to be a big game. I have chugged away at it for the past two days, and while yes, maybe I should have taken more breaks, I have no regrets.

It’s such an amazing experience so far. There’s still more content past the 45 hours, and it’s incredible to see what they’re going to do in the future since they have already promised DLCs coming up in the future.

Shaw: Do you have an idea of how much you have left?

Leake: I want to say I’m close, maybe within 10 hours, but in true “Hollow Knight” fashion, there are multiple endings. I did beat one ending in 20 hours, but currently [I’m] at 45 hours, and there’s more to the game that is promised, which is amazing.

I don’t want it to end, and good things have to come to an end at some point. I’m just hoping I can squeeze out a little bit more juice from it.

Shaw: Are you sharing secrets or talking about the game as you’re playing?

Leake: I am farther than most of my friends, and we agreed not to spoil ourselves because it’s a unique experience. We all want to go at it at our own pace. People have different lives, different work schedules. 

There’s been times in the past few days where I would call up my friends and I’d watch them play. Because I’m so far ahead, I’m able to see it and not spoil myself. You get a unique sense of exploration and discovery when you play the game, and watching other people have that sense of discovery is a cool feeling to have.

Shaw: Can you talk about some of the changes from the first game to this one?

Leake: The game is harder, and you would think that the skills from “Hollow Knight” and “Silksong” would transfer accordingly, but they don’t. There are some sets of familiarity. There’s the same systems that they have in place, but it is a nuanced challenge, which I really do fondly enjoy.

I saw this joke that the tutorial for “Hollow Knight” was the starting area, but the tutorial for “Silksong” is the entirety of “Hollow Knight.”

They wanted to give players a new challenge, which I really do appreciate. “Hollow Knight” was one of the first games that I felt actually challenged by, and that’s what I really enjoyed.

Shaw: What is the most time you’ve spent on a boss fight so far?

Leake: That’s an easy answer for you. There’s this one boss called the Savage Beastfly. It is stupidly difficult in terms of where it’s placed in the game. It’s so early on that you don’t have that many abilities, and its attack patterns are very random and feel clunky.

The fact that they’re so sporadic and random meant that I spent two and a half hours on that one boss straight. I contemplated just taking a break, and I’m like, ‘You know what, I’m going to lose the muscle memory.’ I just need to push through it and just see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I finally did it.

Only one week after the game’s release, the massive number of players have proven that factors such as the difficulty and time commitment do not overshadow the hype that had been building since 2019. 

Currently, “Hollow Knight: Silksong” has a Metacritic aggregate review score of 92 out of 100, tying it with “Blue Prince” as the second-highest rated new game of the year so far. The game is priced at $20 and is available on PC as well as every console that has come out in the past decade, making the barrier to starting the game extremely low.