Hollow Knight: Silksong - The Story Behind the Insanely Long Wait For a Game We Demoed in 2019

It’s become the new normal, unfortunately, to wait years for a follow-up to our favorite games. While the realities of modern game development mean studios are working harder than ever to meet ever-higher standards, that hasn’t stopped projects like Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto 6, Valve’s Half-Life 3, and especially Team Cherry’s Silksong from becoming the unwitting faces of the industry’s lengthening timelines. That last one is surprising because when it was first announced, it didn’t seem like the sequel to Hollow Knight was all that far away.

Months turned into years, and until very recently, it felt like we were no closer to Silksong than we were in 2019, back when we played a hands-on demo of the mystical sequel. In the years since, Silksong has achieved meme status, where fans don clown makeup and wigs after each new Nintendo Direct or Xbox Developer Showcase fails to bring them closer to the promised sequel. How did we get here? And just how much closer are we to the fabled Silksong release?

Silksong Was Originally Supposed to Be DLC

Australian-based studio Team Cherry first launched Hollow Knight on Kickstarter back in 2014, hoping to secure enough funding to turn its 2D Soulslike+Metroidvania fusion game jam prototype into a full-fledged game. After meeting its initial funding target, Team Cherry revealed additional stretch goals that promised new quests, bosses, and, eventually, a second playable character named Hornet. Those funding targets were met, and so development began on expanding Hollow Knight.

As promised, Hollow Knight’s 2017 launch was followed by a series of DLC drops. The Hidden Dreams, The Grimm Troupe, and Gods and Glory added new boss fights, quest lines, fast travel mechanics, and more to the base game. But what about the second playable character? Where was Hornet?

Then, on February 14, 2019, Hollow Knight: Silksong was officially announced. In a blog post and developer diary, Team Cherry explained how plans for Hornet had quickly evolved. Initially, the developers debated whether to add her as a second protagonist that players could switch to during the main campaign or to make her the star of a standalone chapter. Eventually, the ideas for Hornet grew so big that Team Cherry decided to spin the DLC off into a full sequel.

The plan was now to tell a brand new Hornet-focused story in an entirely new kingdom. She would have a very different playstyle – much more nimble and acrobatic than The Knight, who is slower and heavier in comparison. She would need all her speed and dexterity when going up against Silksong’s over 150 new enemies and bosses.

Fans of Hollow Knight rejoiced, and Team Cherry capitalized on the excitement for Silksong quickly…

We Even Played It

Even though Team Cherry never announced a release date, none of us expected Silksong’s unveiling would be the start of a six-year-plus wait to get to the sequel. The same year as the announcement, Team Cherry was all-in on promoting Silksong, revealing a cast of NPC characters via an anniversary blog post in March 2019, before showcasing a playable demo at E3 2019.

Not only did we at IGN see the demo ourselves at E3 that year, but our very own Tom Marks played it. In his preview, he wrote, “Hollow Knight is one of my favorite games ever, but I think Silksong has the potential to be even better.”

The demo was roughly 20 minutes long and took place in a new, fiery area filled with several new enemies and two boss fights. I caught up with Marks for this story to ask him if, at the time, the Silksong demo seemed like a game that would be ready in a few years, or if it felt far from finished.

“It didn’t feel six years away,” Marks tells me. “You [could] tell it wasn’t the final version, but based on the vertical slice I played, it felt really polished.”

This demo would later be taken to PAX Australia 2019 and shared with attendees there as well. Generally when a game shows up with a playable build at multiple events, things are closing in on the finish line, and so we were all completely unaware of the reality that awaited.

As the publicity campaign progressed into 2020, Team Cherry marketing and publishing lead Matthew “Leth” Griffin began revealing new NPCs on the official Hollow Knight Discord server as a reward for fans solving a variety of riddles. And in that December, there was a full-on cover story in Edge Magazine issue #354 with new details, screenshots, and an enlightening interview with Team Cherry co-directors Ari Gibson and William Pellen that discussed deeper, more intricate levels and offered a glimpse into Hornet’s mysterious story.

Silksong Goes Into Hiding

The frenzy of Silksong news in the immediate aftermath of the sequel’s announcement would soon give way to a long winter. Team Cherry went radio silent throughout 2021, and fans spent the year waiting for any sign of a release date. A 2020-2021 release window was anticipated, thanks to a few accidental messaging blips that sent the rumor mill turning.

In September 2019, for instance, the official Silksong Steam page was suddenly updated with a June 12, 2020, release date. Later, Team Cherry would confirm it was just an accidental placeholder date. Just a couple of months later, on August 20, the Silksong logo appeared in an official Nintendo UK tweet that read, “Take a look at some upcoming games headed to Nintendo Switch this year and beyond.” It wasn’t immediately clear that Silksong belonged firmly in the “beyond” category – we’d yet to learn that expecting it anytime soon was folly.

"Everything Shown Today Will Be Playable in the Next 12 Months"

It wouldn’t be until almost another two years had passed that we would see Silksong again. On June 12, 2022, Xbox aired its annual summer Games Showcase, which premiered, among other things, a brand new, minute-long trailer for Silksong. But while it revealed new gameplay, areas, and bosses, the trailer didn’t include a release date. It did, however, announce that Silksong will be playable day one on Xbox Game Pass.

This might have been enough for fans if it weren’t for an unfortunate follow-up message from Xbox.

After the showcase, the official Xbox Twitter account posted, “Everything you’re seeing today is playable over the next 12 months.” Given Silksong was one of the games present in the showcase, this was rightfully taken as a release window for the game.

“So you’re telling me SIlksong is out within the next 12 months?” asked one user on Twitter. “That’s exactly what we said,” Xbox answered.

Oh boy.

That's exactly what we said.— Xbox (@Xbox) June 12, 2022

Silksong Gets an Official Delay, Without Ever Getting a Release Date

To be fair, it did seem like Team Cherry’s plan was to release Silksong within 12 months of the Xbox Games Showcase. This much was confirmed by Team Cherry’s Matthew Griffin, who shared on Twitter in May 2023 that Silksong was planned to be released in the “1st half of 2023.”

However, Griffin added that unfortunately, “development is still continuing. We’re excited by how the game is shaping up, and it’s gotten quite big, so we want to take the time to make the game as good as we can. Expect more details from us once we get closer to release.”

So, without ever announcing a release date, Silksong received an official delay from Team Cherry.

Hey gang, just a quick update about Silksong.

We had planned to release in the 1st half of 2023, but development is still continuing. We're excited by how the game is shaping up, and it's gotten quite big, so we want to take the time to make the game as good as we can.

Expect…— Matthew Griffin (@griffinmatta) May 10, 2023

Silksong Becomes a Meme

In the years since Silksong was first announced, a lot has changed in the games industry. The COVID-19 pandemic meant that in-person events were temporarily paused, with some events like E3 now seemingly gone for good. In place of those traditional events, various digital showcases from the likes of Geoff Keighley, Xbox, PlayStation, and even yours truly here at IGN, as well as countless others, were created to fill the void of E3.

This meant there were now dozens of potential new showcases where Team Cherry could share more information about Silksong. Every new indie game showcase, Nintendo Direct, or any number of other shows had the potential to reveal a new Silksong trailer, preferably one with a release date. And with each new showcase that failed to deliver the goods, fans began to treat Silksong’s absence as a running joke.

Anyone who follows the games industry on social media will likely recognize the most popular Silksong meme: Anytime a company posts about an upcoming game showcase, there will be at least one picture of the Knight from Hollow Knight or Hornet from Silksong in a clown wig and make-up, indicating that the poster is ready to feel like a fool when Silksong inevitably fails to appear.

Fan art of the Knight or Hornet in clown regalia is now ubiquitous. It signifies the folly of wanting to learn more about Silksong. The rainbow-colored wig and clown nose have become the unofficial uniform for Silksong fans after years of suffering. “Will there be Silksong at the new Nintendo Partner Direct?” fans dare to ask. “Absolutely not, you clown,” the universe responds.

And just to prove the universe is also in on the joke, the first time Silksong received an official listing on the Xbox store was on April 1, 2024. April Fool’s Day.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Team Cherry confirmed multiple times throughout 2024 that Silksong would not be appearing at any of that year’s biggest shows. It was not present in any of 2024’s E3-replacement Summer Showcases, and Geoff Keighley confirmed that Silksong would not appear as part of Opening Night Live at Gamescom 2024. Team Cherry also skipped back-to-back Nintendo Directs that year, both the August 2024 Indie Direct and the Third-Party Partner Direct.

However, 2025 has been a different story. The year began with a fan posting on the official Hollow Knight subreddit that they ran into Silksong co-director Ari Gibson. According to the fan, Gibson joked about there not being a sequel yet, but that there would be more to share “soon.”

That was no bluff. On March 19, 2025, Xbox published a new ID@Xbox blog highlighting its ongoing commitments to release great indie games, including Silksong. And a few weeks later, during the April 2 Nintendo Direct, Silksong re-emerged in the show’s sizzle reel with a 2025 release window.

Silksong made another appearance during the announcement for the upcoming ROG Ally X handheld, where the game was seen briefly running on the Xbox-branded device. Team Cherry’s Matthew Griffin later confirmed in the official Hollow Knight Discord server that Silksong’s release is not tied to any particular console and the sequel is still slated to be released “before holiday [2025].” And now we know that Silksong will be playable at the Xbox booth at Gamescom. This will be the first playable demo for the game since 2019.

While Silksong was a no-show at the most recent Nintendo Partner Direct — cue the clown memes — it does feel like we’re finally going to get the elusive Silksong, six long, painful years after it was announced that the DLC character, Hornet, will be starring in her own game. Maybe we can start removing the clown makeup from our faces once and for all.

Matt Kim is IGN's Senior Features Editor.