{"id":41551,"date":"2025-09-03T20:05:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T20:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/41551\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T20:05:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T20:05:14","slug":"how-hollow-knight-silksong-fans-turned-waiting-for-its-release-into-a-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/41551\/","title":{"rendered":"How ‘Hollow Knight: Silksong’ Fans Turned Waiting for Its Release Into a Game"},"content":{"rendered":"

Initially, Silksong was planned as downloadable content for the original game, before its creators expanded it into a full-fledged sequel. In August, when developers surprise announced that the game would launch in just two weeks, at least half a dozen other indie developers immediately delayed their own games<\/a> to clear the way. \u201cDropping the GTA of indie games with 2 weeks notice makes everyone freak out,\u201d wrote Demonschool developer Necrosoft on Bluesky<\/a> on its delay.<\/p>\n

Despite a seven-year development cycle<\/a>, excitement for the game never died down. Reddit user The_Real_Kingsmould tells WIRED the community has \u201clargely kept itself afloat with its insanity and the occasional crumb of news.\u201d The posts, the jokes\u2014it\u2019s all \u201cthat feeling of being a part of something,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen [there\u2019s no news], everyone’s sad, and then everyone goes insane and starts spouting misinformation without batting an eye,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen there’s news it’s the happiest day of your life. There’s hype posts EVERYWHERE. All your hope in Team Cherry is restored.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the years, the community has passed the time by role-playing with the game\u2019s lore. There was the sacrifice era, where a handful of prominent users were chosen as \u201cdreamers,\u201d a nod to characters in Hollow Knight who traded the waking world for eternal sleep, and a Hollow Knight. These community members were then \u201csealed away\u201d\u2014banned from the subreddit, as it were\u2014and are only allowed to return after the game launches.<\/p>\n

Other memorable moments in the subreddit include a play on shapeshifter Nosk, one of the original game\u2019s hidden bosses. Fans began pretending they\u2019d encountered fake copies of Silksong around the world, granted to them by \u201cSnosk,\u201d a version of the bug with a copy of Silksong for a head. \u201cPretty fast there were a lot of PSA’s going around: do not approach or attempt to pick up any copy of Silksong outdoors, or one that isn’t yours,\u201d The_Real_Kingsmould tells WIRED of the in-joke. \u201cBut there were also users trying to deny the existence of Snosks (having been “overtaken”), claiming the copies are safe and all you have to do is go outside.\u201d<\/p>\n

This particular campaign came to a head after moderators called for anti-snosk fan art to \u201cbanish the Snosks for good,\u201d he says. People began pumping out art of the subreddit specifically, not the game, he says, until it was enough: \u201cAfter a short while the Snosks were gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The subreddit has built its own lore over the years. Even today, users in the subreddit have flair that gives them faction labels like doubter, denier, or \u201cbeleiver,\u201d which is purposefully misspelled because \u201c”there is no lie in be[lie]ving.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stark says Silksong is fertile ground for role-playing fans because the game\u2019s lore is so deep. \u201cHollow Knight on the surface kind of reads like a [Dark Souls] game, because the lore is a bit inscrutable until you get really deep into it,\u201d she says. \u201cIt sometimes talks in riddles. It takes a long time to get to all of the pieces, and sometimes the pieces really rely on the player\u2019s interpretation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fan communities are no different. \u201cSubreddit users together have created their own interpretations from these pieces of lore that are strange and playing in layers,\u201d Stark says.<\/p>\n

With Silksong\u2019s global release imminent<\/a> across Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, PS4\/PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X\/S, and PC the communities will soon shift their attention from waiting to playing.<\/p>\n

If the game is as dense as Hollow Knight, there will be months, if not years, of discoveries and theories for fans to tear through on Reddit. Others will enter new chapters of their own lives.<\/p>\n

Araraura\u2019s time tracking Silksong news with YouTube updates is coming to an end. He\u2019ll shut down the YouTube channel: \u201cnothing to look forward to anymore, so no new videos,\u201d he says. He feels wistful at times about that, after getting so used to uploading videos to the channel, but ready. \u201cI think I’ve finally made peace with that,\u201d he says. \u201cNow I’m just really really excited for Silksong.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Initially, Silksong was planned as downloadable content for the original game, before its creators expanded it into a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[18,31516,31515,19,17,10452,82,3880],"class_list":{"0":"post-41551","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-fandom","10":"tag-gaming-culture","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-online-gaming","14":"tag-technology","15":"tag-video-games"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}