Hello friends. Dan Ryan here, you… there. Thank you so much for checking in and if you like what you see please comment and share. This week I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the hype machine behind game releases and the feelings it can, sometimes positively and sometimes negatively, cause. Specifically I wanted an excuse to talk about Hollow Knight: Silksong and figured this was as good a reason as any really. At the time of this writing Silksong is a mere one sleep away. After years, AND YEARS, of waiting, we will all know just what exactly Team Cherry has been doing with their time. And the question is, can it live up to the hype? Submitted for your approval this is Silksong and the Impossible Hype Machine.

Before we dive too far into Silksong we need to look back at its predecessor, Hollow Knight. Developed after a successful Kickstarter by a tiny 4 man team, with composer Christopher Larkin, Team Cherry released Hollow Knight for Windows in February of 2017. In 2018 versions followed for Switch in June and Playstation and Xbox in September. Sales happened quickly and word of mouth was quite good. And for good reason too, Hollow Knight is simply put, incredible. The gameplay is a wonderful blend of metroidvania exploration with deep combat customization through the charms system. The world is gorgeous and each section feels different and alive. The art direction is both beautiful and grotesque and captures the feeling of the story well. The story is deep, complex, and ultimately extremely rewarding upon reaching the end of the game. The music is haunting, calming, and all-together amazing. It may take a minute to click with some but there is no doubt that Hollow Knight is brilliant. It is the epitome of “one more try.” If you haven’t played it yet you simply must. It plays perfectly on Steam, Switch, Playstation, and Xbox. And look at that, we just so happen to have a controller that works incredibly well for each of those platforms and handles Hollow Knight like a pro.

As sales for Hollow Knight grew, over 15 million as of this writing, Team Cherry got to work on the promised DLC. Multiple packs were delivered adding bosses and areas to the already massive game. But one seemed to be taking a bit, one featuring a second playable character that was promised to Kickstarter backers, one featuring Hornet. While making your way through Hollow Knight you eventually run into Hornet, a silent, bad-ass bug with a needle and thread. She instantly became a fan favorite and the hype around her DLC grew, not just for fans but for Team Cherry as well. As work continued on the Hornet DLC Team Cherry made the decision to turn it into a full fledged sequel as it had simply grown too large to just be DLC. Hollow Knight: Silksong was announced with a reveal trailer on February 14th, 2019.

I remember sitting in my kids room (who were 9 years old at the time and big fans of the original because of the cute and creepy bugs and the music) and watching the trailer, then immediately dreaming with them about what this new game would be like. Their hype level peaked instantly, as did mine. Updates followed from Team Cherry throughout 2019 including a playable demo at E3. In 2020 we got an announcement in June, then a magazine interview in December. In 2021, nothing. In February 2022 we got another interview followed by a new trailer during the Xbox show at that year's E3 where Xbox stated that all games shown would drop within the next 12 months. In May of 2023 Team Cherry confirmed that the game would not be released that year. On February 14th 2024, the 5 year anniversary of the games announcement, Team Cherry told their Discord that they were still working on it. In January of 2025 they said they were still working on it. 

And throughout all of this, the hype machine churned. How could it not? Hollow Knight continued to find new fans. The online community around the game exploded. Fan art, cosplay, theories, everything you could imagine happened around the world of Hollow Knight and fueled the fire of Silksong. By maintaining damn near radio silence the entire time Team Cherry only added more logs to the fire. After the 2022 promise you couldn’t find a presentation from Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, IGN, The Game Awards, whoever, that didn’t include disappointment when Silksong wasn’t shown. All of that changed though when Silksong was shown off in a sizzle reel for Switch 2 with a 2025 date. And then again when Xbox showed off a significant amount of footage for the debut of their themed ROG Ally. And then again when Team Cherry, finally, announced on August 21st that Silksong would release to the world on September 4th, 2025.

So to the overall question then, can Silksong live up to the impossible hype? I’m not entirely sure honestly. The standard of 90+ on Metacritic seems doable but will that be enough? A game of the year nomination, certainly from our very own Golden Caveman Awards, is possible but can it win in a year with Blue Prince and, potentially, Hades 2? Will it sell more than 15 million copies? Will it innovate or iterate? The only easy yes is will it be worth the price tag? At $20 Team Cherry is going to sell a lot of copies digitally. And when the physical release drops, rumored for January of 2026, many will end up double dipping. (hi it’s me, i’m many)

The hype machine has doomed many games prior to Silksong. No Man’s Sky was supposed to change the world and launched as a pale imitation of what was promised and what, eventually, the game became. Cyberpunk 2077 was the impossible follow up to The Witcher 3 that was released so broken it had to be pulled from digital shelves before being patched and re-released. Concord, just… yeah. And the worst part is, we all feed into it. It’s in our nature as fans to be fanatical. We cannot help ourselves. We build monuments to ideas and what we think we are or should be getting. Sometimes our expectations are exceeded and sometimes an otherwise amazing game is met with a “meh” because it didn’t change the world. Where will Silksong end up? Time will tell as only it can. Personally, I am chomping at the bit to get my hands on this game. It has been a long time coming sure, and there have been plenty of amazing experiences along the way, but none of them has been Silksong. Yes, I am part of the problem. Yes, you are too. And at the end of the day, I think anyway, that’s okay. Even if Silksong is just more Hollow Knight, I’m good. I really love that game and definitely want more of it. Silksong doesn't need to be anything other than what it is for it to deliver to me. I only hope it measures out to what others want or need it to be. And that maybe we can all learn a little from this. To be more patient, more willing to give developers space and grace, and to play their vision instead of the one we think we want.  

But I want to know what you think. Join the Stone Age Gamer discord, or you can find me on Bluesky to let me know your thoughts. In the immortal words of Billy Joel, “Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes

I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again.” See you soon.