Of all the announcements at last night’s gamescom Opening Night Live, it was an announcement of an announcement that stole the show: Hollow Knight Silksong is real, and a full reveal is set for later this week.
Host Geoff Keighley began the lengthy show with this news and a mere thirty seconds of gameplay that showed the game’s protagonist Hornet jumping and battling bug enemies. Since then, fans have been going feral.
That snippet of gameplay is the first time the game has been seen since its initial reveal trailer six years ago. But in that time every livestream, every Direct, every awards show has been dominated by cries from Hollow Knight fans desperate for information. Soon, the wait will be over. But the real question is whether Silksong can live up to the hype.
That’s why, at gamescom itself, the Silksong demo is already building huge queues at both the Xbox and Nintendo booths – and it’s only media day. At last year’s event, Monster Hunter Rise was the game of the show, with fans queuing for hours just to play a small section. I suspect Silksong will be this year’s equivalent.
Eurogamer’s Dom Peppiatt has braved the queues to check out Silksong and is already impressed by its higher challenge and how Hornet’s movement feels different to that of the original game’s Knight.
“Hollow Knight had a peculiar difficulty curve; it always felt quite simple and straight-laced as an action platformer for the majority of the base game, escalating rapidly in challenge as you got towards the end, and then going completely off the rails in the DLC and post-game,” wrote Dom. “It feels, at first swipe, that Silksong is carrying on the same trajectory. And that’s kind of fascinating.”
Nintendo Life has also confirmed the game supports 120Hz on Switch 2 with its TV Mode.
Now social media is awash with images and videos of the booths, as well as clown memes. This post, from a Silksong subreddit mod, sums up the community’s feeling.
Elsewhere, fans have been sharing images of the demo booth, proving Silksong’s veracity and presence at gamescom.
And then there are the already extensive queues, which will only get worse as the week goes on.
So what can we expect from Thursday’s reveal? Over on reddit, sleuths reckon the YouTube video will be just 1:53 in length, suggesting this will be a fairly brief trailer rather than an extended look. Will we at least get a release date?
Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier will simultaneously have a story on Silksong’s development.
As for the release date itself, we know now that Hollow Knight Silksong will be released later this year. It’s coming to PC (where it’s the most wishlisted game on Steam), Nintendo Switch consoles, PlayStation, and Xbox (including a Game Pass release day one).
Before then, you’ll even be able to play the game in September at Australia’s national museum of screen culture (ACMI) as part of its Game Worlds exhibition – presumably the same demo gamescom attendees are currently enjoying.
How did we get here? Silksong’s initial reveal trailer was released back in 2019 and has since been watched 4.5m times. The game was playable at EGX that year, with Eurogamer going hands-on with the standalone sequel. “Team Cherry has stated in the past the game won’t be released until it’s ready, and for a game as wonderful as this is shaping up to be, I wouldn’t have it any other way,” wrote Imogen Beckhelling at the time, which feels a little ironic now. I remember attending that EGX before I worked at Eurogamer and playing the game myself.
But since then, there’s been barely any new information. And that silence from developer Team Cherry has only fuelled the fires of hype to a seemingly uncontrollable level. That’s the problem with hype, and Team Cherry has seemed content to ride that wave while simply beavering away at development.
Will it actually be any good, though? For some, more of the same Hollow Knight will be good enough, but judging by Dom’s preview Silksong should have enough of its own identity. And considering GTA 6 has moved to next year, Silksong has free reign of the hype machine for the remainder of 2025.