The original Hollow Knight reached its all-time peak concurrent player count on Steam following the highly anticipated announcement of Silksong’s release date. Hollow Knight: Silksong is one of the most eagerly awaited titles of 2025, and it seems that the fanbase is preparing for its launch by revisiting Hollow Knight one more time.
Hollow Knight: Silksong will be released on September 4, following seven long years of development. Silksong was originally announced in 2019, two years after the launch of the original Hollow Knight, and fans initially believed that its release was just around the corner. Due to the extremely long wait that followed, the reveal of the game’s official release date was a huge event in the community.
With Silksong’s release approaching, some fans have returned to the original Hollow Knight, along with newcomers, who have decided to try it for the first time to prepare for the sequel. According to SteamDB, over 23,000 gamers are currently playing Hollow Knight on Steam, indicating a sharp rise in popularity following the announcement earlier this week, with a 150% increase in just a few days. When it was released in 2017, Hollow Knight did not pull in many players immediately, as it was an indie game made by a tiny team that did not have a huge marketing budget. Since then, however, Hollow Knight has become known as one of the best Metroidvania titles ever released, selling over 15 million units to date.
In a recent interview, Team Cherry explained why Hollow Knight: Silksong took seven years to develop. The devs explained that the game was never in development hell, only that the team was very small, didn’t need money immediately due to the first game’s success, and were enjoying the process of coming up with new ideas to put into the platformer. However, the team eventually noticed that they would keep going forever by adding more and more content, and decided to stop, finally releasing the title in September 2025.
This indicates possible good news for Hollow Knight: Silksong fans. Team Cherry co-founders Ari Gibson and William Pellen revealed that Hollow Knight: Silksong will likely have DLC, as there are current plans to launch more content for the game, which they were not able to work on before the launch. Silksong itself was originally planned as a DLC for the original Hollow Knight, and it remains to be seen what kind of content will be added to the eagerly awaited Metroidvania.
February 24, 2017
E10+ for Everyone 10+: Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood
Team Cherry
Team Cherry
Unity
