is a reporter who covers the business, culture, and communities of video games, with a focus on marginalized gamers and the quirky, horny culture of video game communities.
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Hollow Knight: Silksong launched today, and immediately afterward the major video game storefronts were struggling to stay online. Shortly after Silksong’s 10 AM ET release time, Steam, the Nintendo eShop, Xbox, and PlayStation stores all displayed error messages or failed to load entirely.
Hollow Knight: Silksong is one of the most anticipated indie releases in recent memory. Its gravitational pull has been so strong, several other indie games releasing around the same time as Silksong announced delays to get out of its way. Compounding the feverish anticipation is that Team Cherry is selling Silksong for essentially nothing — it’ll only cost $20 in an environment where big-time publishers are floating $80 and $90 new releases.
The hype for Silksong has also been a boon to the original Hollow Knight. In the days before Silksong’s release, Hollow Knight has gotten a significant bump on the Steam charts, boasting its highest concurrent player count ever, seven years after its release in 2017. Silksong has already beaten Hollow Knight’s record, as SteamDB reports there are over 100,000 concurrent players. That number will only grow as players continue to trickle in as Steam and the other gaming storefronts start functioning normally again.