Hollow Knight: Silksong Launch Overwhelms Major Gaming Platforms, Frustrating Fans
The long-awaited release of Hollow Knight: Silksong sparked chaos on Thursday as some of the world’s biggest digital game stores crashed under heavy demand, leaving thousands of players unable to purchase the highly anticipated title.
The sequel to the critically acclaimed 2017 indie hit Hollow Knight went live at 15:00 BST, but excitement quickly turned to frustration as gamers reported widespread technical issues. Steam, the world’s largest PC gaming platform, was hit particularly hard, with outage reports peaking at 3,750 on Downdetector before stabilizing around 17:30.
Similar problems were reported on the Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox online stores, where fans attempting to buy the game encountered error codes and failed transactions.
“Ridiculous,” one gamer wrote on a discussion board, criticizing the lack of a pre-order option that might have prevented the server overload. Another joked on X (formerly Twitter), sharing a screenshot of a completed purchase, that they had “beaten the hardest boss.”
Even Humble Bundle, a popular digital storefront, temporarily displayed a message saying Silksong was unavailable due to demand – an issue that has since been resolved.
Composer Christopher Larkin, who worked on both Hollow Knight games, humorously commented on X that the release might have “crashed the internet.”
Record-Breaking Launch Despite Glitches
Despite the technical meltdowns, the game’s popularity was undeniable. Within 30 minutes of its release, Steam recorded over 100,000 players in-game, suggesting many fans were able to secure their copies through alternative stores or during brief windows of stability.
The demand was so intense that even some game publishers reported being caught up in the purchasing chaos, highlighting the scale of Silksong’s launch-day rush.
The original Hollow Knight, developed by the small Australian studio Team Cherry, has sold over 15 million copies worldwide since its 2017 debut. Its success has been attributed to its unique art style, challenging gameplay, and timeless design.
A Tiny Team, A Massive Hit
Team Cherry, based in Adelaide, consists of just three core developers. The studio’s latest title shifts focus to Hornet, a sword-wielding princess who served as a supporting character in the first game.
Speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Team Cherry co-founder William Pellen said the studio deliberately designed Hollow Knight with a timeless feel.
“The fact that people keep discovering the original game suggests that it hasn’t fallen out of date,” Pellen said. “We made something to our tastes, inspired by older games, so its qualities were always slightly different from modern titles. In that sense, it’s sort of outside of time — and hopefully, Silksong can achieve that too.”
With launch-day chaos now settling, gamers around the world are finally venturing into the much-anticipated world of Silksong – though for many, just buying the game felt like an epic battle of its own.
