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Today is the day – more than six years after its announcement and over eight since the launch of its predecessor, Hollow Knight: Silksong is set to release in a matter of hours. Fans have been looking back on the history of the indie Metroidvania series, including a relic of a Reddit post where players were very skeptical about the first game. Oh, how times change.
Highlighted by Twitter user @ShitpostRock, back in November 2015 came an r/Gaming thread that would age simultaneously spectacularly and incredibly poorly, starting with a post sharing a new Hollow Knight trailer. "Last year, my best friend quit his full-time job to chase his dream and make a fully fledged video game," one friend of Team Cherry's wrote, sharing the game's "Ferocious Foes" trailer. "Today, he just released a trailer, and it looks beyond amazing."
Last year my best friend quit his full time job to chase his dream and make a fully fledged video game. Today he just released a trailer and it looks beyond amazing. from r/gaming
And "beyond amazing" the game was, but not everyone was so convinced. "I'm sure it's a fine game, but the market is currently saturated with side-scrolling platformers so I feel his game may not do as good as he hopes," one dubious commenter wrote at the time. "Don't get me wrong, this looks great. But what makes this different than any other platformer? It doesn't seem to stand out as much," asks another.
Some were even less optimistic. "Hope he has a backup plan," one said, while another posted: "Oh great, another side-scroller indie game. As if we don't already have hundreds of them."
Fast forward almost a decade, and we're now looking at Hollow Knight's sequel like it's the GTA 6 of indies, and deservedly so. Needless to say, those doubtful comments have aged like milk. Some fans were bang on the money, however.
"I work in the industry and therefore generally avoid r/Gaming. I wanted to drop by and say that while the gameplay looks like it's been done before, your friend's art direction shines to make the game look wonderful. Indie folks are going to love this," one commented. "This looks hype. I'll be looking forward to playing this, I love a good metroidvania and the art style is very appealing," another agreed.
I hope those last two commenters are looking forward to Silksong today.
Be sure to keep up with our Hollow Knight: Silksong release live coverage to keep those hype levels up.
