Silksong Studios says the surprise launch is "unfortunate" for indie devs

If you cast your mind back to those exciting weeks before Hollow Knight: Silksong launched earlier this year, you'll remember the absolute panic that gripped every indie game studio on the planet, as they rushed to delay their games to avoid being buried by the Skong army.

Notable games that ended up delaying their releases were Baby Steps and Demonschool, the latter of which delayed its launch by a few months. There were also some developers who stood their ground against the tsunami that was about to hit them, such as Metroidvania called Hell is Us and Adventures of Samsara, which at the time was only bought by 12 people. Hell Is You director Jonathan Jacques-Bellett called the team “a bit harsh” for not warning Cherry in advance of their release date.

Hollow Knight: Silksong Studios Says Surprise Launch “Unfortunate” For Indie Devs

Hornet playing needle in Hollow Knight Silksong.

However, we don't know the full story behind Hollow Knight: Silksong's release, and according to a recent interview with Team Cherry by Bloomberg, it seems that the studio didn't know its release date until the last minute.

“We also felt like we didn't have a lot of control over our own dates because we were basically rushing, rushing, racing to the end, working to the end point,” says Ari Gibson, co-founder of Team Cherry. “And then the minute we think it's ready for release, all of a sudden we're releasing it. So it wasn't a particularly controlled release. We didn't even know the date until a week or two before we put the trailer out.”

related to

Each main area in Silksong, ranked from worst to best

There are 14 biomes on the main path to the basic ending of Hollow Knight: Silksong, but not all of them are equally fun to explore.

When told of Demonschool's long delay in November, instead of meeting its September release date, Gibson says it's “probably unfortunate” that the studio felt compelled to do so.

It seems like Team Cherry didn't have much room to maneuver when it came to the release date, and if we're being really honest, it's not really the studio's job to worry about other games' release dates. Of course, announcing the game's release date a few weeks before launch wasn't great for some, but rumors had been swirling about a September release for months. It didn't really surprise people, and I don't think Team Cherry should feel bad about it.