Tag:

Silksong

Demonschool delayed due to Hollow Knight Silksong release, “the GTA of indie games”

by admin August 26, 2025

Demonschool, the forthcoming RPG Eurogamer described as “Persona meets Buffy”, has been delayed once again due to the surprise release of Hollow Knight Silksong.

The game was originally intended for a release last year, but was delayed until 3rd September this year. Now it’s moved back to 19th November thanks to “brutal” market conditions.

The decision appears to have been made by publisher Ysbryd Games. “With 11 years under our belt as an indie publisher, we at Ysbryd Games are reasonably qualified to say that any point of 2025 on balance, has been or will be as brutal as market conditions can get when it comes to releasing a game,” it wrote in a statement on social media. “Crueler still, that we should find out with such short notice that Hollow Knight Silksong will launch just one day after our planned release for Demonschool.”

Demonschool release date trailerWatch on YouTube

Visibility is of prime importance for the publisher; as such “we would not be doing our game any favours by wading into waters we can clearly see are blood red”. Instead, it wants to allow Silksong to have its moment, and for Demonschool to follow.

The publisher has also confirmed there will be no more delays after this. Until release, more time will be spent polishing and enhancing the game experience, with more endings and minigames originally planned for a post-release patch to be included at launch.

This was not our choice but we understand why the choice was made. We aren’t mad at Ysbryd but at the situation. Dropping the GTA of indie games with 2 weeks notice makes everyone freak out. Ysbryd is being a good partner and paying for the delay. We’re sorry this is happening. https://t.co/uz2FlPMUNi

— Necrosoft Games | wishlist Demonschool now! (@necrosoftgames) August 25, 2025

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“This was not our choice but we understand why the choice was made,” wrote the developer Necrosoft Games in response. “We aren’t mad at Ysbryd but at the situation. Dropping the GTA of indie games with 2 weeks notice makes everyone freak out. Ysbryd is being a good partner and paying for the delay. We’re sorry this is happening.”

I went hands-on with a demo of Demonschool last year and came away impressed by its haunted university setting, graphic style, and turn-based combat.

This is a news-in-brief story. This is part of our vision to bring you all the big news as part of a daily live report.

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August 26, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Demonschool Delayed To Avoid Releasing Near Hollow Knight: Silksong

by admin August 26, 2025

After years of anticipation, Team Cherry announced last week that Hollow Knight: Silksong will finally be released on September 4. This took many fans and, evidently, other studios by surprise, namely Ysbryd Games. In response to Team Cherry’s announcement, the indie publisher has delayed the upcoming tactical RPG Demonschool, which was planned to launch one day before Silksong.

In a press release, Ysbryd announces it has pushed Demonschool’s planned September 3 launch to a new release date of November 19. With Silksong arriving next week on the 4th, Ysbyrd read the tea leaves, realizing that releasing a game so close to the most anticipated indie game in recent memory is a bad idea.

“We have to remind ourselves that gaining visibility for Demonschool is our main goal,” says Ysbryd’s Brian Kwek in a statement. “Thus, the Ysbryd team strongly believes we would not be doing our game any favors by wading into waters we can clearly see are blood red. If the September period is going to be Silksong’s moment, then we need to be elsewhere on the calendar to give Demonschool its own moment to be seen and talked about meaningfully.”

Ysbyrd states that developer Necrosoft Games will spend the extra two months enhancing and polishing Demonschool. One positive of the delay, according to Ysbyrd, is that the added time allows Necrosoft time to add additional endings and minigames that were originally going to be included in a post-launch patch.

Similar to Silksong, Demonschool has been in development for some time as well, suffering several delays before this one. It centers on teenage students battling demons in turn-based tactical combat similar to titles such as Into the Breach. We were impressed with the demo we played at Summer Game Fest, and are optimistic about the full release.

Demonschool launches on November 19 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Switch, and PC for $24.99.

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August 26, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Hollow Knight Just Hit An All-Time Peak On Steam After Silksong Release Date Reveal

by admin August 25, 2025

2017’s Hollow Knight just reached a new all-time peak concurrent-player record on Steam, and the achievement came just after developer Team Cherry announced the release date for its sequel, Silksong.

Hollow Knight reached an all-time peak concurrent record of 23,819 on Steam today, August 22. Measuring a game’s popularity by Steam concurrent numbers is never a perfect or complete encapsulation of a game’s popularity, and Hollow Knight being an exclusively single-player game that doesn’t rely on people playing at the same time muddies the waters as well. But what is evident here is that Hollow Knight’s popularity on Steam is growing in the wake of the big Silksong reveal.

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Now Playing: Hollow Knight: Silksong – Official Release Date Reveal Gameplay Trailer

Hollow Knight’s previously Steam concurrent record of around 20,000 players was achieved in May 2022. All of this data comes from SteamDB.

Steam’s own sales data shows that Hollow Knight jumped into the top 50 overall best-selling games on the platform. The game is also available on console platforms, but sales or engagement data is not available. Hollow Knight is also available on Game Pass (and Silksong will be as well).

At least three games have already been delayed due, in part, to Silksong. The game is set for release on September 4, and it’s been a long time coming.

“Hollow Knight: Silksong appears to be exactly what we all should have expected: a strong, well-designed, visually lovely game that carries forward the aesthetic and design philosophies of the original with thoughtful, if not earth-shattering, updates,” GameSpot’s Steve Watts wrote after going hands-on with Silksong at Gamescom this week.

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August 25, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Will Silksong Be On Game Pass?

by admin August 25, 2025

Team Cherry has finally, at long last, confirmed that Hollow Knight: Silksong is not only a real game, but that it will be available to play on September 4. That is soon. The game will be available to buy outright at launch, but will it also come to any subscription services, like Xbox Game Pass?

Yes, Hollow Knight: Silksong will be on Game Pass.

Microsoft and Team Cherry have confirmed an Xbox Game Pass release for the highly anticipated game. It will be available via Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, so subscribers can play it across console and PC. Alternatively, people can get Silksong via PC Game Pass for PC-only access.

It’s possible Silksong could come to the less-expensive Game Pass tiers, like Game Pass Standard and Game Pass Core, at some point down the road–but this is not confirmed. If it ever does, it likely wouldn’t be soon.

2017’s Hollow Knight is currently available on Xbox Game Pass, or it can be purchased for $15. Hollow Knight is also available via Sony’s PlayStation Plus Extra Game Catalogue.

There is no indication that Silksong could launch into PlayStation Plus. If it ever comes to PlayStation Plus, it probably won’t be anytime soon. Nintendo, meanwhile, generally doesn’t do day-one new releases for Nintendo Switch Online for third-party games.

A long wait

Silksong was originally designed to be an expansion to Hollow Knight before developer Team Cherry built it out further and converted it to a full standalone game. After morphing to a full game in 2019, the developers went largely silent, and there was such little news in the ensuing years that the game prompted some fans to worry if the game was real at all or if it might be stuck in development hell.

As it turns out, the developers maintain that development was always progressing and that the enormous commercial success of Hollow Knight afforded them the opportunity to take their time with Silksong.

Silksong resurfaced this week at Gamescom in Germany, and it’s proving to be very popular, with long lines snaking through the convention center for a chance to play the highly anticipated game.

“Hollow Knight: Silksong appears to be exactly what we all should have expected: a strong, well-designed, visually lovely game that carries forward the aesthetic and design philosophies of the original with thoughtful, if not earth-shattering, updates,” Steve Watts wrote after going hands-on with Silksong at Gamescom this week.

Silksong may not be a big, mainstream AAA game, but it has a lot of hype and pent-up demand behind it, so much so that at least three developers have delayed upcoming projects, citing Silksong.

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August 25, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

First Hollow Knight Kickstarter Update In 6 Years Promises Backers Silksong Codes

by admin August 24, 2025

If you backed Hollow Knight on Kickstarter in late 2014, developer Team Cherry has confirmed that you will receive a download code for Hollow Knight: Silksong. This promise also marks the first Kickstarter update in six years for the upcoming metroidvania game.

The only caveat is that keys for Hollow Knight: Silksong will only be available on PC, Switch, and Switch 2. The game will also launch September 4 on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Game Pass. “We’ll be reaching out in the (very) near future to find out your platforms of choice and the best email addresses to send your copy/s. Keys will be provided as either PC (Steam and DRM free) or Nintendo Switch (Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2),” Team Cherry said in the Kickstarter update.

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Now Playing: Hollow Knight: Silksong Gameplay (Over The Shoulder Filmed) | gamescom 2025

For those curious, the previous Kickstarter update was a post right after E3 2019 talking about a demo for Hollow Knight: Silksong. Funnily enough, the Gamescom demo playable this week seems to be nearly identical to the experience from E3 2019 (an event that no longer exists). GameSpot did get hands-on time with Hollow Knight: Silksong at Gamescom.

Kickstarter backers receiving Hollow Knight: Silksong codes was foreshadowed yesterday when Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier posted on social media that reviews probably wouldn’t be ready before the game’s launch. That’s reportedly because Team Cherry would find it unfair for critics to play the game earlier than original backers.

The anticipation for Hollow Knight: Silksong’s upcoming launch feels pretty tangible. For instance, Hollow Knight just hit an all-time concurrent-players peak on Steam with over 22,000 people. In addition, at least three indie games are pushing back their release dates now to avoid coming out near Hollow Knight: Silksong.

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August 24, 2025 0 comments

Hollow Knight Silksong finally gets release date, out next month

Game Updates

Silksong excitement has seen Hollow Knight’s concurrent Steam peak record smashed over and over again

by admin August 24, 2025

People are getting ready for Hollow Knight: Silksong in the very best way possible – by replaying the original, Hollow Knight, in record numbers.

Ever since Silksong’s 4th September release date was confirmed at Gamescom last week, more and more people have been heading back into Dirtmouth, so much so that Team Cherry’s critically-acclaimed game has repeatedly broken its own concurrent peak player count on Steam over the weekend.

Hollow Knight: Silksong release date.Watch on YouTube

Right now (and “right now” is subject to change with alarming speed), Hollow Knight’s all-time concurrent peak of 39,356 players was set less than an hour ago. And while there are plenty of games that have eclipsed that over the last few weeks, don’t forget that Hollow Knight is an indie single-player game that’s eight years old now.

Of course, concurrent Steam peaks are precisely that – an indication of popularity on Steam – but it’s usually indicative of player counts on other platforms, too. But before the Silksong announcement, Hollow Knight’s concurrent Steam peak, set back in 2022, stood at a much more modest 20K.

Hollow Knight: Silksong will release on Thursday, 4th September 2025 for PC, Switch, Switch 2, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. Yet contrary to what you may believe, Silksong hasn’t been in development hell for that time, however – in fact, Team Cherry’s developers say they were just having too much fun making it.

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August 24, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Why Did Silksong Take So Long? It’s Not What You Might Think

by admin August 24, 2025

Team Cherry’s Hollow Knight sequel, Hollow Knight: Silksong, is finally releasing on September 4 after years of development and fears from the community that the game may never see the light of day. But Silksong is real, we’ve played it, and the upcoming launch is looming so large that multiple game studios have delayed their upcoming projects to get out of the way. But why did Silksong take so long to make?

Team Cherry founders Ari Gibson and William Pellen said Silksong was not stuck in development hell or anything like that. The enormous success of the 2017 game–it’s sold more than 15 million copies–allowed the Australia-based developers to develop the follow-up at their own pace.

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Now Playing: Hollow Knight: Silksong – Official Release Date Reveal Gameplay Trailer

“It was never stuck or anything,” Gibson told Bloomberg. “It was always progressing. It’s just the case that we’re a small team, and games take a lot of time. There wasn’t any big controversial moment behind it.”

Silksong was originally envisioned as an expansion to Hollow Knight, but it became a big enough project to shift to a full, standalone release. That’s one of the reasons why it didn’t come out sooner.

As for why Team Cherry went quiet and didn’t discuss development updates with fans over the years, Gibson said the team opted not to because, “All we could really say is, ‘We’re still working on it.'”

Pellen added: “Instead of popping up and bugging people for the sake of it, it felt like our actual responsibility was just to work on the game.”

At one point, Silksong was officially scheduled to launch before June 2023, and Pellen said the team did “genuinely believe” the game would make it out then. But that didn’t happen, of course.

The wait could have been even longer. Gibson said Team Cherry has a development structure that allows its members to “see results fasts,” with ideas turning into real elements of the game “almost immediately.” That was a fun way to work, Gibson said, but it also presented challenges.

“I remember at some point I just had to stop sketching,” Gibson said. “Because I went, ‘Everything I’m drawing here has to end up in the game. That’s a cool idea, that’s in. That’s a cool idea, tha’ts in.’ You realize, ‘If I don’t stop drawing, this is going to take 15 years to finish.'”

Silksong will release on September 4 for console and PC, and you’ll be able to play it at launch via Game Pass.

“Hollow Knight: Silksong appears to be exactly what we all should have expected: a strong, well-designed, visually lovely game that carries forward the aesthetic and design philosophies of the original with thoughtful, if not earth-shattering, updates,” Steve Watts wrote after going hands-on with Silksong at Gamescom this week.

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August 24, 2025 0 comments

Esports

Hollow Knight Silksong has devs so scared that they’re delaying their games

by admin August 24, 2025

Following Hollow Knight Silksong’s release date announcement, several developers who were planning to release their indie games before the big holiday game rush have delayed to 2026.

The prospect of being a big enough industry titan that your release forces others to delay their games is a level of respect few games earn. GTA 6 is the only other recent example that has caused mass delays, with it being a wrecking ball for 2025’s release calendar before it got delayed to 2026.

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But, considering that the original Hollow Knight has now sold over 15 million copies and hype for Silksong is at a fever pitch, indie devs especially are feeling the pressure with a September 4 release date imminent.

Several developers have come out and said they’re delaying their games to clear the runway for Silksong, wanting to give players a chance to get through it before putting their title on the market.

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Silksong is forcing other devs to delay their games

When it comes to indie games that don’t have a massive marketing budget behind them, putting enough hype behind the initial release is an absolute make-or-break moment. Word of mouth is arguably the best way for indie games to get noticed, but, if no one knows the game exists, there isn’t anyone to tell others how good the game is.

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So, in order to give themselves the best chance of getting noticed and creating a game successful enough for them to continue game development as a career, some devs have decided not to risk competing with Silksong and opted to delay.

Aeterna Lucis‘ devs were arguably the most transparent, saying that the game is completely finished but that they’re choosing to delay into 2026 anyways.

“Our initial plan was to launch it this September, but after the announcement of Silksong, we are fully aware that our game wouldn’t have the visibility it deserves. Competing with a phenomenon of that scale would not only be unfair to our team’s effort, but also to you, the community, who expect to experience this adventure under the best possible conditions,” a statement from the developer reads.

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Aeterna Lucis

But, instead of being mad about the change, they’re grateful to Hollow Knight developers Team Cherry and credited them with being an inspiration for Aeterna Lucis and their other games.

“There’s no need to wish [Team Cherry] luck—we know Silksong will be a success and a masterpiece. Instead of rivalry, what we feel is gratitude: thanks to them, the metroidvania genre is more alive than ever and, in fact, they were one of the main inspirations that led us to create Aeterna Noctis and the entire saga now in development.”

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Faeland, an RPG that’s been in early access for almost 2 years, also delayed their 1.0 release and directly cited Silksong as the reason:

Faeland

“Our v1.0 launch was set for September 9, but with today’s announcement of Hollow Knight Silksong releasing on September 4, we’ve made the tough call to postpone our release.”

CloverPit, a rogue-lite slot machine game, was also delayed, again with a direct mention to Silksong.

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“Some of you might already have guessed the reason for the delay: Hollow Knight: Silksong.

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“The release date for Silksong was announced yesterday, and it’s only one day after CloverPit our original launch date. Silksong is the most anticipated and wishlisted game on all of Steam and we think people will love this game and play it right at launch (including us) but that also means it will overshadow all games launching close to it. So if we stick to our original date we would risk the launch of CloverPit a fair bit,” the devs explained.

CloverPit

“We poured our hearts into our little game so of course we want to give it the best possible shot. We hope you can understand – we’ll use the extra time of course to polish the game even further and we hope for your support at launch either way.”

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These are just a few examples, and consist only of statements where the devs directly admitted that Silksong was the reason their game was delayed. Who knows how many other ways that its release has affected the games industry that aren’t as transparent.

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Either way, it seems like a lot of devs and other folks working in the games industry will be taking a few days away from work to play Silksong. Probably including myself.

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August 24, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

21st August video games round-up: Silksong finally gets a release date and we agree that games consoles are both expensive and not expensive

by admin August 24, 2025

Huge Path of Exile 2 changes coming

Image credit: Grinding Gear Games

I’m not sure if this is bad news or not, but Path of Exile 2 definitely won’t make a full, 1.0 release this year. There was, if you remember, a chance it might. But those plans have been upended by a need to reblanace and sort out some existing areas of the game. In other words, the playerbase isn’t currently thrilled with the game, so developer Grinding Gear Games is addressing that.

The other major hold-up is story content. The Early Access release came with three of six story acts, and the fourth is only just being added to the game, in a huge Third Edict update due 29th August, which will coincide with a free weekend to play the game, by the way. The game can’t launch until the fifth act has been added and tested, so my guess – given the game’s quarterly release schedule – is that we might not see a 1.0 release until June 2026. There, that’s my guesstimate in writing.

I’m OK with that, though. There’s no rush. And watching a video rundown of everything coming in the Third Edict update – and everything changing in it – reminds me how exciting Path of Exile 2 can be. Check out my fuller report compiled after a press briefing, below.

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August 24, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Hollow Knight: Silksong Launches On September 4

by admin August 23, 2025

After years of waiting, today’s Hollow Knight: Silksong presentation gave fans what they’ve been clamoring for: a release date. The long-awaited sequel will launch on September 4.

The brief showcase presented an impressive gameplay montage showing off protagonist Hornet’s solo adventure. Check it out below.

Hollow Knight: Silksong was first announced in 2019, originally envisioned as paid DLC for Hollow Knight before developer Team Cherry expanded its scope to a full-fledged sequel. Silksong stars Hornet, a hunter and supporting character in the first game, as she explores a new kingdom boasting over 150 new enemies to slay. The game has spent years quietly coming together, with only the rare trailer or update during this time, lending to its near-mythical status. After suffering several delays, Xbox announced this summer the game would arrive by this holiday season; turns out they were correct.

Silksong is currently playable for attendees at Gamescom, and senior editor Wesley LeBlanc has played it. You can read his impressions of the game’s first level here.

Hollow Knight: Silksong will be available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC. The game will also be available on Xbox Game Pass at launch.

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August 23, 2025 0 comments