If we look at the topics that were the most talked about on Twitter during the Xbox conference, one game in particular stands out: Hollow Knight: Silksong. This title is systematically found in a trending hashtag during Nintendo Direct, events from which it has been systematically absent for the past two years. Silksong is an enigma for some but for many gamers it is one of the most anticipated games that we finally have an idea of the release timeline… Let’s see why Hollow Knight Silksong is a UFO in the industry fascinates crowds…
summary
- The wait is almost over!
- A human-scale project
- What we knew about the game in 2019
- The differences to the first game
- From Switch exclusive to Xbox exclusive
The following text is a transcript of the above video
The wait is almost over!
Officially, Hollow Knight: Silk Song does not have a set launch date, but we have a clear indication of the launch period. The game made a comeback at the Xbox conference and to be precise, Sarah Bond, one of the executives at Xbox, has clearly stated that the games that are at this conference will all be released within 12 months. Silksong is therefore one of them, which means that if all goes well, it will be released before June 2023..
This ends a very long wait for the fans, to whom the development team had already presented a version of the game in 2019, exactly three years ago, which nevertheless seemed very progressive. To tell the truth, the presence of the Arlesian during the conference period seemed more like a running gag and the matter was even less believable to imagine the game presented on Xbox. The game is finally going to be released in a short time and that gives us a lot of reassurance because many believed it would be canceled along the way or big issues during development. Why ? Of course, since the studio developing the game is a small team, the risk increases…
A human-scale project
The size of the Team Cherry studio that makes up the Hollow Knights is both a surprising point, showing the genius of the developer few, and a fear of seeing the studio implode in the face of success or pressure. The developers of the game, if we look at their website, are only threenot to mention the freelancers who are added to the project from time to time. Team Cherry is based in South Australia and Hollow Knight is simply their first game. Hand drawn and released in 2017 before a console release the following year. Hollow Knight has come a long way. Development was a real adventure to get to such a nugget. The project grew out of a GameJam, a video game creation competition that first brought to life the main character, the knight. Their first concept is Hungry Knight, which is a dud… The game is rated as bad at the end of the competition. But the team likes his character and uses him in a second limited-time design competition, this time an underworld-themed one. The team realizes they have a real facility for creating tons of cute insects, and the concept of the future game is then refined. They then hold their universe: the insects that live underground and populate a cursed kingdom. At the end of the game jam, they feel they have something and crowdfund the future game on Kickstarter. Hollow Knight was born.
They start working with freelancers on various aspects and in record time come out with a real nugget that everyone agrees on. The feat is absolute for such a small team, and the game is considered one of the best Metroidvania ever made. The title has it all: a unique, immersive atmosphere and a powerful game design made up of action, platforms and simple but effective mechanics. In Adventure is one of the antagonists that we regularly face hornetshe’s feisty, terribly dangerous, and constantly trying to get in your way. It is she who the player embodies in Silksong. His strength and mobility make him a formidable opponent, and it’s exciting to imagine that we’ll finally be able to control him in the rest of the game. Incidentally, this sequel, Hollow Knight SilkSong, a holdover from the first game’s Kickstarter campaign, was originally planned as a simple DLC.. But given the small studio’s incredible achievement, plans are changing and the studio is hard at work to provide a lengthy gameplay demo in 2019, just a year after the game’s console release. It’ll be unveiled at Nintendo in the middle of E3, and here’s what we learned there…
What we knew about the game in 2019
Hollow Knight Silksong, when played live at E3 2019, is already an incredibly mature and accomplished game. As well as a very advanced 2 minute trailer, we had the right for about twenty minutes to a gameplay demo without bugs and with a more than convincing finish. We see the beginning of the game on the controls of Hornet, where the basics of this sequence are explained. Here we have to do the opposite of Hollow Knight, namely climb to the surface, while the story of the first game invited us to go deeper and deeper underground. We will meet 150 new enemies, tons of bosses, secrets, varied biomes, in short, the promise of a real sequel already on the way.
We therefore start the gameplay in a very green, mossy region where Hornet begins his quest. Taken to the depths of the earth and trapped, she breaks free and tries to navigate her quest. We quickly notice two main themes through the game’s title and gameplay: Silk and Music, or the game’s title: Silksong. In addition, all enemies are actually represented by musical instruments. There are bells, cymbals as a shield and we find there the artistic direction both sweet and childish that made the success of the first game, even if we always remember that this world is extremely violent and particularly melancholy. Death is omnipresent, grief, shadows, corruption, illness, obsession: these are themes that are definitely present in the game, behind its fable air for children. The gameplay demo ends after two boss fights, showing that Hornet looks much more manageable than the knight in the first game. So, specifically, what are the differences to the first episode?
The differences to the first game
What follows is enough to further develop the concept of the first game.The differences are numerous and are quickly noticed. The gameplay is much more lively and we will naturally string dashes, jumps, multi-directional attacks and special attacks together. However, a little less visible: The energy system has changed. Hornet uses toolswhere the knight used amulets to alter his gameplay. We should be able to equip 3 of them, even though the gameplay trailers only ever show 2 active, so the third could be a passive that alters your mobility, for example. Another big observable difference is the healing system. In Hollow Knight, you had to press for a small second to heal yourself, which set the pace. There, Hornet can heal super fast and even mid-air, which should make the game more responsive.
On the explore page, Silksong offers you to go upstairs. Unlike the first game, here we have to reach the surface and find our way through the maze thanks to a brand new map system. Without having any further information, all we know is that the system has evolved compared to the first game. On the coating side, the Team Cherry teams still work with the same artist for the music and the soundscape, and unlike Knight of 1 . Hornet will have a voice. She’ll briefly chat with the other NPCs, and she’s been heard voicing her voice every time during battles, adding to the immersion. When we were treated to this famous presentation in 2019, the moderator, who is doing the demo on behalf of Team Cherry, reminds us of a “soon-coming” release, meaning an imminent arrival, and given the game’s long waits to finally do so change partner platform for his return, one may wonder what happened …
From Switch exclusive to Xbox exclusive
As said, Silksong has gone from a Flash project that was hyper-mature in a very short development time to a real Arlesian that everyone waits until they lose hope. So what happened? Because technically, the trailer presented in June 2022 does not change much from what we had already seen at Nintendo in 2019. Also, we don’t have a firm release date yet, so Xbox says it should be out within 12 months. And besides, the fact that it’s Xbox that manages the announcement of the game’s return and that it’s a game available in GamePass on day one motivates many questions. And yes, The game was previously only planned for PC and Switch, so the announcement that it was announced there only for PC and Xbox leads us to assume that the game will at least come to PC, Xbox and Switch.
Is a release on PS4 and PS5 possible? This remains to be clarified, especially since given the unusually long development time, it is very likely that Microsoft openly funded the end of development through its day-one arrival agreement in Game Pass. The American brand could more easily demarcate its territory against Sony by securing the platform exclusivity but still honoring the Switch release so as not to offend Nintendo gamers who have been promised the game for three years. For everything else, nothing is less certain and as such we will wait until more information is fixed.
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