Hollow Knightfans have been waiting for substantial news onSilksongfor over five years. The sequel was announced all the way back in February 2019, and since then, it’s rare for a gaming showcase to pass without countless fans spamming the chat about the long-awaited Metroidvania.
The Long, Long Wait For Hollow Knight: Silksong
Last week’sNintendo Directwas no different. The stellar presentation had something for just about everyone — a new Zeldawhere you actually play as Zelda, the first all-newMario & Luigigame in nearly a decade, the long-awaited reemergence ofMetroid Prime 4— but it didn’t have something for Hollow Knight fans. It’s a little sad, and a little funny, but mostly it’s just the necessary consequence of a gaming culture that is always searching for something to hype.
As long as I can remember, there’s been a game occupying a similar space: hotly anticipated, but elusive. For years, it wasHalf-Life 2: Episode3, and then just Half-Life 3, and then just any single-playerValvegame. Eventually, Valve returned withenough of a responsethat fans were mostly satisfied, though a VR game that isn’t called Half-Life 3 isn’t exactly what they were expecting.Elden Ringoccupied this spot, too, with fans expecting it to show up at every gaming presentation, then being disappointed when it didn’t. Now that Bethesda is working onThe Elder Scrolls 6in earnest, I expect it to take on a similar status (though thereception of Starfieldand Fallout 76 may temper the hype). It’s been 13 years since the last game after all.
Other games don’t capture the zeitgeist in the same way, but float in the ether as long-standing rumors. Bully 2. A Metroid Prime trilogy remaster. A Bloodborne PC port. Gaming culture is like a shark. It has to keep moving forward, seeking out rumor chum in the internet waters, or it dies. So, it isn’t surprising that there isagame that players spam comments about during every showcase. It is a little surprising that the game is Hollow Knight: Silksong.
Why Hollow Knight: Silksong, Anyway?
Players tend to get really hyped about games that promise to inaugurate a new era in the medium. When I was a kid, it wasTwilight Princess, which signaled a new, bigger, better, more realistic Zelda. More recently, theGTA 6 trailerracked up nearly 200 million views on YouTube because every timeRockstardrops a new game, we expect it to push the boundaries of what an open-world game can be. Its games are bigger, more detailed, more packed with stuff to do, and more graphically impressive than anyone else’s in the open-world space.Cyberpunk 2077achieved similar status for the same reasons; it looked bigger and better than any game we’d ever played.
But, Hollow Knight: Silksong is a sequel to a 2D Metroidvania that weighed in at a whopping 9 GB. I don’t doubt that it will be a good game. It could be a masterpiece. But it is a strange pick for “most hyped upcoming game," one that’s at odds with the past 20-plus years of gaming history. It’s a little like ifSpelunky 2was giving players Beatlemania-style palpitations. These games are good, but “good” isn’t the only factor.
Gaming culture needs this kind of game. Developers and publishers count on hype to sell games (and secure preorders) and events likeSummer Game Festexist to stoke that rabid interest. Gaming YouTubers and podcasters need content. Even old-school magazines need previews to fill their pages. The industry, and the press that covers it, has to look forward. To paraphrase Voltaire, if Hollow Knight: Silksong didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent it.
