Hollow Knight: Silksong, the sequel to the critically acclaimed 2D platforming game Hollow Knight, will no longer release in its originally intended launch window in the first half of 2023.
The game, created by South Australian studio Team Cherry, remains under development. The studio’s publishing and marketing manager Matthew Griffin took to Twitter to share the news.
‘We had planned to release in the 1st half of 2023, but development is still continuing,’ he said. ‘We’re excited by how the game is shaping up, and it’s gotten quite big, so we want to take the time to make the game as good as we can.’
First announced in 2019, Hollow Knight: Silksong has largely been kept under wraps, though a playable demo was present at E3 2019. In June 2022, the game was a major part of the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase, with a new trailer and confirmation that it would launch on the Xbox Game Pass subscription service.
Read: Hollow Knight: Silksong gets new trailer at Xbox and Bethesda showcase
Xbox’s messaging with this showcase was that every game it featured would be playable in the next year. This implied that Hollow Knight: Silksong would release before June 2023, which reflects Griffin’s statement.
The original Hollow Knight began as a Kickstarter project, which raised just over AUD $57,000 thanks to over 2000 backers. It was released in 2017 to great critical acclaim and sold 2.8 million copies worldwide as of 2019.
Silksong was imagined as a downloadable expansion for the original game, before it grew to be a standalone release. It retains the 2D Metroid-style structure of Hollow Knight, but features a new protagonist, Hornet. Crafting is one of the new features in Silksong, which will allow Hornet to gather materials in order to fashion weapons and tools.
Hollow Knight: Silksong is planned for release on PC, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and
