Hollow Knight: Silksong is "not in dev hell," says tester who finds fan cynicism "disheartening" but agrees developer Team Cherry "should be better" at communicating
Jun. 20, 2024“Every software dev cycle ever. Sets internal dates, misses them all the time”
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Hollow Knight: Silksong, you may have noticed, is still not out. Developer Team Cherry is still working on the Metroidvania sequel some five years after it was revealed, and according to playtesterand semi-regular Team Cherry correspondent Graig, it is very much “not in dev hell.”
“Every software dev cycle ever. Sets internal dates, misses them all the time. Literally a normal part of software dev,” Graig adds. “You just don’t hear about them because they don’t announce them to the public. Again completely normal for every dev cycle.”
Graig returned to Discord today, June 20, after his commentssurfacedon the official Silksong subreddit and were, to put it mildly, quickly dismissed by many members of the community.
“Be me, say something that’s true and something I thought would help people feel better,” Graig says. “Get abused on r/silksong for it. It’s kinda funny [because] I genuinely sympathize with them and have said so many times. I agree that [Team Cherry] communication should be better. Apparently, I’m a huge POS, though.”
It’s heartening to hear that Silksong is simply taking a long time rather than struggling to coalesce – my assumption regarding its long dev cycle has always been scope creep, especially given the jump from planned DLC to full game – but Graig says it can be “disheartening” to see Hollow Knight fans assume the worst.
“It really makes me want to disengage with something I have loved being a part of for seven years,” he adds.
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Discussion of Hollow Knight: Silksong remains as deadlocked as the game itself: with no official updates from Team Cherry in years, players can only speculate or rely on adjacent statements from folks like Graig, and almost every spike in discourse looks something like this. Good intentions and understandable frustration collide, and in the best case, the norm of total confusion is maintained.
There’s been plenty of debate as to whetherSilksong’s agonizing silence has been an unintentional stroke of genius, but there’s fair appetite for more communication from Team Cherry. Equally hyped indie sequelHades 2provides a useful but imperfect comparison: developer Supergiant routinely set expectations for the game’s scope and timeline, launched in Early Access earlier this year, and has maintained regular communication about patches. Supergiant is a larger and more experienced studio and had the early access experience of the original Hades to build on, but at some point, you’ve got to wonder why we haven’t heard anything from Team Cherry for years. Even a checking-in tweet would be a welcome salve.
Good news, Hollow Knight: Silksong hopefuls - the Microsoft Store says we’ll only have to wait another 7,974 years to play it.
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