One ‘Hollow Knight: Silksong’ Rumor Was Right
Hollow Knight: Silksong will launch in 2025, officially announced six years after its original announcement. But did you know, amid the many, many rumors over the years, someone actually called it right? Through a combination of an official Xbox post, a semi-reliable leaker, and an updated Steam page, we all got clowned on and should have seen this coming.
On the official Xbox website, the director of ID at Xbox, Guy Richards, discussed GDC and indie games in a March 18th blog post. Noting that $5 billion had been paid out to developers since the scheme began in 2013, and Xbox Play Anywhere allows more platforms than ever, Richards closed, looking to upcoming titles.
“No matter where people choose to play, we’re working with developers to make the most of the features unique to that device or screen. Looking ahead, our lineup is incredible with upcoming games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Descenders Next, and FBC: Firebreak to play across the whole Xbox universe… and of course Hollow Knight: Silksong too!” Richards hyped.
To be fair, one could easily dismiss this as Richards simply mentioning the name of a popular upcoming indie game, encouraging sales when the title finally launches. Then again, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 launches April 24th, and FBC: Firebreak launches this summer.
That would at least suggest Richards was talking about titles that will launch before Autumn 2025, or 2025 itself at most. On the other hand, Descenders Next has yet to announce a release date, and by the above logic, it may also see a 2025 release.
Another knock against credibility is how Xbox had also shown Hollow Knight: Silksong in a 2022 presentation, insisting everything in that presentation would release in the next twelve months. When asked by an X user if this applied to Silksong, Xbox replied “That’s exactly what we said.” The game did not launch in 2022 or 2023.
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One person who certainly took the Xbox post seriously was leaker “Extas1s.” While GamesRadar crowns him as “trusted,” Xbox Era downplays him as “hit-or-miss.” Nonetheless, the Spanish-speaking leaker took to YouTube (machine translated via YouTube captions) to add his claims
Recapping the Xbox post, Extas1s then emphasizes (around 7:28) “Hollow Knight: Silksong is alive and I have come to talk to you a little bit about it, but I also tell you one thing. This information I hope that 40,000 news items do not come out now, that take this video and that such, but Hollow Knight: Silksong is a video game that in principle was planned for June. But hey, the time planned for June is subject to change.”
“I mean, it could simply be a placeholder that I knew, or that they expect Hollow Knight: Silksong in the first half of, well, in the end of Microsoft’s fiscal year- which is precisely June 30th.” This is indeed the case – July 1st to June 30th.
“We’ll see if it is in the month of June, Silksong really comes out, but it seems that everything is very hot with this video game, and that who knows if in the next Nintendo Direct or later we get a date and we can finally enjoy this video game,” Extas1s speculates.
The Nintendo Direct was only rumored at the time, but ten days later, Nintendo announced a Nintendo Direct would be shown on the 27th. The presentation did not reveal new information about Hollow Knight: Silksong.
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Even so, eagle-eyed fans noticed a change on Hollow Knight: Silksong‘s Steam page, or rather, the back-end viewable from third-party website SteamDB. While minor elements have changed over the months, March 24th saw it add support for Steam and NVidia Cloud Gaming (GeForce NOW), and Steam Family Sharing.
Most importantly, the copyright date for Hollow Knight is changing from 2019, when Silksong was first announced, to 2025. But fans have had their hopes dashed again and again, leading to them gleefully admitting they’re clowns for always expecting news at every Direct and similar presentations from Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft.
It got to the point when a cryptic tweet by Team Cherry co-director William Pellen led to wild theories about an ARG to uncover the game’s release date, all spiraling from his profile picture being a cake.
As such, we couldn’t possibly consider the June-but-probably-later claim as gospel, nor the change to legal stuff. After all, none of the prior rumors have manifested. Recent news aside, this is why I don’t play the stock market.
Yes, in a rapid-fire montage of third-party titles, the April 2nd Nintendo Switch 2 Direct revealed that Hollow Knight: Silksong would launch this year, 1538 days since the last time any news about the game was officially announced. Streamers were both overwhelmed and confused that the news would be announced in such an off-hand manner.
Arguably one of the most heart-rending was the reaction by vtuber Fraiki, who had previously released the song “Rather If,” mournfully singing over one of the original game’s ambient tracks, about how she will still be there when a release date is announced, “or rather, if.” She even wore a Hornet-style mask during the Nintendo Direct.
Suffice it to say, she went ballistic.
Amid multiple viewer donations triggering various animations, Fraiki gave a short speech for such a monumental occasion. “Put down your clown noses! Put down your clown wigs! Today, we are not clowns! Today, we are victorious! Silksong Gang, we’re eating good.”
“And there’s one thing I can say to the disbelievers, one thing! You know what that is…? Screeew yooou!! Screw you! The Silksong is real!! And it’s coming, 2025! I have a release date, I’m unbeatable now! I’m undefeatable!” Fraiki gloated.
“I think I’ll cry, I think when the game actually comes I will cry. Even now I feel like I’m dreaming.”
Finally, the news led to more than a few editors, artists, and animators celebrating by putting down their clown noses and wigs.
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