Where's Silksong?

Where’s Silksong?

Silksong was first announced on February 14th,
2019: 929 days ago.

Since then, there has been a lot of discussion
on when Silksong will be released.

Late 2019.

June 2020.

Sometime in 2021…

Possibly 2028…

The wait has been so long, there’s now an
entire channel dedicated to providing you

with Daily Silksong News updates.

In fact, the very world in which we live now
is very different from the world of February

14th, 2019.

Things really have changed drastically since
early 2020, when Sonic the Hedgehog came out

in theaters.

So where does that leave Silksong?

How much longer will we have to wait?

Are Team Cherry even still alive?

We have some information from an interview
Leth did with the Indie Gamer back in May

of this year.

Leth said two particular things in this interview
that stick out.

First, he mentioned that for Hollow Knight’s
development, he didn’t actually play the

game until it was basically done.

That way he could provide good feedback to
the developers.

Second, he mentioned that he hasn’t actually
played Silksong since the E3 2019 demo.

So we know that the game wasn’t going into
any kind of playtesting or polish back in

May.

Also, earlier this month Leth asked a Team
Cherry parody Twitter account to stop posting,

because their account was confusing and concerning
fans, who in turn, were reaching out to Team

Cherry, and distracting them from finishing
Silksong.

Finally a reddit user named “ultimate_dad_bod”
actually bumped into Ari Gibson last week

at a coffee shop.

According to him, Ari Gibson said that lockdown
restrictions didn’t hinder their development

at all, but that the scope for Silksong ended
up being way bigger than they initially anticipated.

In other words… the game is not done yet.

On top of this, Team Cherry has provided us
with very few details on the development of

Silksong.

Leth mentioned in his recent interview that
he is encouraging Team Cherry to make more

blog posts, especially since they recently
changed web hosts so their website would stop

crashing anytime more than twenty people tried
to access it.

But ultimately it’s up to William and Ari
to put these posts together, as it’s the

best way for William and Ari to directly talk
to their fans.

The last time Team Cherry made an official
blog post was December 2019.

In the summer of 2020, we got riddles released
through Discord, which were basically a blog

post of their own.

And then in December, we got Silksong news
through an article in Edge magazine.

We also got a comment from Team Cherry themselves
in the comments section of the Hollow Knight

Kickstarter about nine months ago.

They said that they’ve been meaning to do
a proper update, but that they haven’t had

a moment to since they’ve been finishing
Silksong.

And that’s perfectly reasonable.

But despite that, it can certainly be frustrating.

Personally, I don’t really care if Team
Cherry shows us new areas or bosses or NPCs.

I would prefer they didn’t, really.

I want to know as little going into Silksong
as possible.

And if they show anything, I’m contractually
obligated to make a forty minute video discussing

it.

But I would be lying if I said I don’t miss
seeing new blog posts every so often.

Even if it’s just to say that they aren’t
dead, or that they have new merch available,

or that Australia hasn’t sunk into the ocean.

But if Team Cherry aren’t going to update
us themselves, we can always just speculate

wildly anyway.

Let’s start off by talking about how different
things are for Team Cherry now, than they

were back during the development of Hollow
Knight.

For one thing, they actually have money.

Things got pretty rough during Hollow Knight’s
development.

William Pellen was buying assorted meat ends
from the local market place to save money,

and someone in their building would bring
Team Cherry leftover sandwiches from their

meetings.

And they used other tactics as well.

Have a girlfriend that will basically pay
for everything, I guess.

This frugal lifestyle kept them from going
into debt while making Hollow Knight.

And their design philosophy for Hollow Knight
was to allow the game’s size to creep out

further and further, but doing so in a way
that they could stop adding stuff at any point

and just polish and release the game.

We aimed to make a very small game, a small
Metroidvania.

And then we had enough energy and budget and
we were enjoying it enough to allow it to

expand.

But at any time, we could have stopped that
development, packaged it up, and have a complete

game.

Team Cherry kept this up as long as they could,
eventually getting $30,000 from Indie Fund

to add even more bits of content to the game.

And even after Hollow Knight came out, Team
Cherry kept adding even more to the game.

I’m guessing if Team Cherry had the money
they do now, Hollow Knight would have released

with everything we saw in the content pack
updates, and maybe even more.

And now with Silksong, Team Cherry no longer
has to worry about running out of money.

They can let Silksong grow as big as they
want.

And… that seems to be what’s happening.

I mean, I get on a call with them periodically…

most of the time, it’s just so everyone
can update what they’ve been doing.

But then they’ll still just start going
off on an idea.

And I’m like “wow, this is”...

I mean, I love hearing it, because that’s
the fun part of the creative process.

But it’s also kinda like “We haven’t
figured that out yet?

Or are we just gonna keep adding stuff?”

You know?

Yeah, absolutely

One nice thing about Team Cherry’s workflow
is how quickly they can add all these ideas.

According to Ari:

No fancy concept art – no time!

No long iterative processes.

Our boss design discussions go for about 10-15mins
max, then we’re off and making!

And just like before, Team Cherry has probably
designed Silksong in a way that the core game

was probably finished a while ago, but now
they are adding all the bits and pieces to

the game they think will help make Pharloom
more excited to explore.

And there might be another reason for them
to just keep shoving more and more content

into Silksong.

And that’s so that Team Cherry can deliver
a game that lives up to the hype.

With Hollow Knight, all they had to do was
make enough money to keep making games.

With Silksong, they now have to worry about
how everyone is going to react to it as the

sequel to their insanely popular debut title.

The hype surrounding Silksong has only grown
in the last two years, increasing expectations

for the game to be even bigger and better.

Now, full disclosure, I’m not a mind reader.

But I think Team Cherry’s game development
process has probably changed because of all

of this.

For one, it has probably encouraged them to
shut themselves off from the insanity that

is the internet, so they can focus solely
on game development.

This might be contributing to why they haven’t
been posting blog updates.

Second, all the hype and expectations revolving
around Silksong might be pushing them to just

keep cramming more and more stuff into the
game.

And it might be like a snowball effect in
that regard, causing Silksong to inflate larger

than anything ever before seen, even on DeviantArt.

This larger audience will also require Team
Cherry to make sure Silksong is more polished

on release than Hollow Knight was, resulting
in longer development time.

According to William in an interview with
A Profound Waste of Time, the quiet release

of Hollow Knight was actually a good thing
for them.

Because of Team Cherry’s small size, their
playtesting wasn’t as extensive as it needed

to be, but the smaller launch audience helped
them patch up the bugs before too many people

started playing the game.

That’s probably not gonna fly with Silksong,
since the hype surrounding it will most likely

cause the game to have tens of thousands of
players within the first fourteen minutes.

And while that’s definitely a great thing,
let’s keep in mind that hyping a game up

too much isn’t good for anyone involved.

It’s really easy to get carried away in
this crazy internet world of ours.

And while I don’t expect people to stop
spamming about Silksong in the Nintendo Indie

Directs, I hope we can all remain chill as
the wait for Silksong continues.

And I hope Team Cherry is handling the pressure
on their end as well.

And besides, while Team Cherry has been working
on their game, people in the Hollow Knight

community have been doing all sorts of crazy
projects.

The modding community for Hollow Knight keeps
churning out new and exciting mods such as

randomizers, multiplayer mods, and kaizo mods.

There are also larger scope fan games such
as Pale Court, The Sanctuary, and Maskbearer

as well.

These mods plan to actually add brand new
bosses and areas to Hollow Knight.

There’s also a group of insanely talented
linguists working to create Hallowspeak, which

is basically a fan language built on top of
the gibberish used in Hollow Knight.

So you can finally order Starbucks while honoring
the legacy of Team Cherry’s masterpiece.

Not only that, but there’s also a project
that’s attempting to add full English voice

acting into Hollow Knight called Hallownest
Vocalized.

And then there’s the Embraced One, who's
working on a huge project to create a complete

interactive map of Hallownest in all its glory.

And then there’s tons of amazing remixes
of Hollow Knight’s score from channels like

MAT, who makes synthwave covers of Hollow
Knight’s music.

And don’t forget about the fan art and fan
animations constantly being created as well,

like this amazing Hornet animation by 3D Print
Guy.

It’s honestly insane how much Hollow Knight
fan content there is to enjoy right now.

There’s even literally a person who has
been poorly drawing Hollow Knight everyday

for the last 600 days.

I do believe we’ve peaked as a fandom.

As for a release date for Silksong.

I’m sorry but I really don’t know.

People keep accusing me of knowing the true
release date.

As if Team Cherry would ever tell me.

Like, why would they?

What would they have to gain from telling
me the release date is January 19th 2009.