Hollow Knight: Silksong potential release date

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Last Updated: March 14th, 2022

Originally intended as a DLC expansion for the original Hollow Knight, after the fantastic success the first game had, and building a substantial cult following, Team Cherry instead decided to increase the scope of Silksong, instead turning it into a “full-scale” sequel. Back when they first announced this decision, this was their explanation:

“Almost from the very start, Hornet’s adventure was intended to take place in a new land, but as we dove in, it quickly became too large and too unique to stay a DLC, as initially planned. We do know that makes the wait a little longer, but we think the final, fresh world you’ll get to explore is worth it.”

They also pledged to their 2158 Kickstarter backers that despite Silksong having expanded in scope to be a full-scale sequel, rather than simply an extra DLC for the base game, they’d still be honoring their pledge to offer it to their backers at no extra charge.

As for the precise release date of Silksong, Team Cherry has remained fairly tight-lipped, opting to say nothing rather than give a release date that they’re unable to meet.

“Thanks to everyone for asking and we’re sorry that we still don’t have anything conclusive to say. For Silksong we’re running on Cherry-time over here, that means both ‘When it’s ready,’ and ‘When it matches the quality and scale of Hollow Knight.’ Just know, we will talk about a release date when we’re 100% certain we can hit it. The last thing we want to do is make promises, only to see things slide. For now, we’ll continue stuffing all sorts of strange critters and surprises into Silksong. We can’t wait for you all to play it.”

The original game started off life as a Game Jam prototype, developed in August 2013, before releasing as a commercial game in February 2017. They then worked on various different updates for the game, plus the console versions, before moving on to Silksong. To the best of our knowledge, Team Cherry is still for the most just a three-person operation, at least in terms of full-time staff. Without knowing the exact scale of Silksong, it’s hard to gauge how long it might take to develop, but we will certainly be keeping an eye out for more information when it becomes available.

Hollow Knight: Silksong Trailers

We’ve had the initial announcement trailer, where we first got a look at Silksong in action, and first heard the news that it had been expanded into a full game rather than just DLC.

We also got an extended gameplay demo from E3 during one of Nintendo’s Treehouse Live streams. This shows us 20 minutes of early footage of the game being played.

Hollow Knight: Silksong Gameplay

This big change with Silksong versus the original game is a new protagonist. In Silksong you’ll play as Hornet, who appeared in the original game but was not a playable character. She has a subtly different move set compared to The Knight, and she’s more mobile and acrobatic.

The same Metroidvania structure is back, and the same focus on exploration and platforming is returning. There’s also a big emphasis on beautifully drawn environments that do a great job of building tension and atmosphere.

Hollow Knight: Silksong Minimum and Recommended Specs

Hollow Knight is a gorgeous game to look at, but it’s not doing anything that is especially demanding on hardware. It’s a game that should be playable on any reasonably modern PC.
In fact, as perhaps could have been expected from this kind of iterative sequel, it’s minimum and recommended specs are identical to the original game. If you were able to play Hollow Knight, you should have no trouble running the sequel.

Minimum:

OS: Windows 7 SP1
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E5200
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: GeForce 9800GTX+ (1GB)
DirectX: Version 10
Storage: 9 GB available space
Display: 1080p, 16:9 recommended

Final Word

It’s not exactly clear when we’ll next hear news on Hollow Knight: Silksong. The game will be launching first on PC and Switch, and given Team Cherry’s strong relationship with Nintendo after the success of the first game on Switch, it’s perhaps possible that the next time we hear anything about Silksong will be during some kind of Nintendo showcase, perhaps another Nintendo Indie World Showcase, their live-streamed video highlighting indie titles coming to their system. We get about two of those a year, although they are not on a predictable schedule.

We’ll keep you up to date with the latest news on Silksong’s release date. The Steam page is already live in case you want to wishlist it.