Silksong devs say there was no dev hell, only dev heaven: they've been quiet to avoid "bugging people," once thought it would be out in "a year or two," and "could have kept going" but also want to see this thing finished

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"We've been having fun"

Hollow Knight: Silksong Hornet revel art
(Image credit: Team Cherry)

The Hollow Knight: Silksong release date is real at last – and pretty darn close at September 4 – but even developer Team Cherry sounds a little surprised that it took so long.

Speaking with Bloomberg, studio co-founders Ari Gibson and William Pellen stress that the sequel's protracted development, which spring-boarded off initial plans for a simpler DLC for Hollow Knight and turned into a seven-year saga, has been nothing but enjoyable.

Hollow Knight: Silksong

(Image credit: Team Cherry)

In addition to the sheer length of the production process, Silksong has come to be defined by immovable silence from the developers. At most, stray and infrequent Discord messages would briefly placate and then, inevitably, redouble fan curiosity. This, too, stoked unhinged community debates: are the devs marketing geniuses playing us all like fiddles, or simply quiet and somewhat overwhelmed designers who care more about making a game than marketing one?

Gibson tells Bloomberg that they kept quiet because they didn't want to "sour people on the whole thing" when "all we could really say is, 'We're still working on it.'"

Indeed, Pellen says "it felt like our actual responsibility was just to work on the game."

Team Cherry's vision, even after it had gone beyond the scope of Hollow Knight DLC, also snowballed. At one point, Pellen reckoned "we'd go quiet for a year or two" and then, bam, video game ready.

In particular, around 2022, when Xbox famously teased that Hollow Knight: Silksong was part of a slate of games scheduled to release over the next 12 months, Pellen says "we did genuinely believe that was the case."

"There was a period of two to three years when I thought it was going to come out within a year," he adds.

But as quests and bosses and towns and areas piled up, Gibson says "suddenly you end up six, seven years later."

Somewhat terrifyingly, the two devs say they do have plans to build on Silksong after launch, for months or likely even years according to Bloomberg's story.

Hollow Knight ended up receiving three massive, sterling DLCs that introduced new challenges, areas, abilities, and the best and hardest boss fights in the game. Gibson teases "ambitious" ideas for Silksong add-ons or DLCs and hopes "we can achieve some of it." Now we just have to see if that will snowball into Hollow Knight 3.

Hollow Knight Silksong hands-on: 2,379 days after its reveal I finally played the elusive metroidvania, and it is absolutely worth the wait.

Austin Wood
Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.

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