Silksongs

You know what they say: The best laid plans of mice and men sometimes get abruptly derailed by a surprise launch announcement. Thanks to yesterday’s reveal that Silksong’s release date is only two weeks away, CloverPit developer Panik Arcade has decided to push back the launch of the slot machine roguelite to dodge the all-consuming attention singularity that we can safely expect the Hollow Knight sequel to be.

Panik Arcade announced the change of plans in a Steam news post titled “We have to delay CloverPit a bit (Silksong lol)!” Rather than its original release date of September 3, CloverPit will now launch on September 26.

(Image credit: Future Friends Games)

“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,” Panik Arcade said. “So if we stick to our original date we would risk the launch of CloverPit a fair bit.”

My sympathies go out to any devteam that’s had to reevaluate their launch plans after unknowingly choosing a release date within the Silksong gravity well, but CloverPit’s case is particularly tragic: Its original release date was announced just nine days ago. It had a delightful trailer to go along with it and everything. Luckily, Panik Arcade seems to be taking it in stride.

“We poured our hearts into our little game so of course we want to give it the best possible shot,” Panik Arcade said. “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.”

(Image credit: Future Friends Games)

After playing the CloverPit demo, I’m eager to get my hands on the full version whether it launches in 12 days or 35. It’s got that Balatro-style multiplier-stacking juice, a magnificently grody aesthetic, and an understanding that gambling is the enterprise of hungry, uncaring devils. Plus, it makes fun lights when you win! If it means CloverPit gets a better shot at its time in the spotlight, I’m content with a slightly longer wait.

CloverPit launches on Steam on September 26. Hopefully we’ll all have recovered from the collective Silksong mania by then.

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Hollow Knight: Silksong will arrive seven years after the first game. Why? That’s what fans have been impatiently wondering for a while now. According to the developers at Team Cherry, there was no major drama or development snafus. Seven years is just how long it takes to make the Metroidvania Soulslike sequel to what some fans regard as one of the best games of the last decade.

“I remember at some point I just had to stop sketching,” cofounder Ari Gibson told Bloomberg in a new interview. “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, that’s in.’ You realize, ‘If I don’t stop drawing, this is going to take 15 years to finish.’”

What began as DLC for 2017’s surprise Steam hit Hollow Knight eventually morphed into a full-fledged standalone game. Team Cherry officially revealed Silksong would become a sequel in 2019. The developers told Bloomberg they wanted to keep their team size small so as not to disrupt the creative flow responsible for the first game. But growing scope—bigger boss fights, multiple towns, a denser world—meant it would take even longer to finish, especially if it would exude the same level of tight controls, visual polish, and world-building mystery of the original Hollow Knight.

When Microsoft doubled down in 2022 on the promise that Silksong would arrive within the year, that was apparently the actual goal. “We did genuinely believe that was the case,” cofounder William Pellen confirmed. “There was a period of two to three years when I thought it was going to come out within a year.” The team just kept biting off more than it could chew while also calmly ignoring all of the online chatter about unhinged fans.

“I think we’re always underestimating the amount of time and effort it’ll take us to achieve things,” Gibson told Bloomberg. “It’s also that problem where, because we’re having fun doing it, it’s not like, ‘It’s taking longer, this is awful, we really need to get past this phase.’ It’s, ‘This is a very enjoyable space to be in. Let’s perpetuate this with some new ideas.’”

It seems to have helped that the original Hollow Knight has now sold 15 million copies, Team Cherry revealed. Silksong is already Steam’s most-wishlisted game. If it lives up to even a fraction of the hype, the team won’t be forced to release their next game any time soon, either.

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‘Silksong lol’: CloverPit devs delay the slot machine Balatro-like by 23 days to escape the blast radius of Silksong’s launch

Silksong’s Devs Didn’t Think It Would Take This Long Either