The wrong kind of “bug bomb?”
The tale of Hollow Knight Silksong is one that will be told for many years to come, in various ways and for just as many reasons. After all, this was a game that many expected out years ago, and then, on the day just after Gamescom Opening Night Live, Team Cherry dropped a two-minute video showing that it would arrive on September 4th, which, at the time, was just a little over two weeks away. Naturally, a scramble happened amongst gamers, as they did their best to try and be ready for its arrival, and journalists had to scramble, too, as they weren’t getting review copies, but wanted to get their reviews up on the game as soon as possible.
Then, there were the indie devs who were scrambling, as the announcement made many of them delay their indie game launches because they KNEW that Team Cherry’s title would suck up all the “bandwidth” due to all the hype behind it.
On the surface, it was an “unexpected thing that people had to suddenly account for. However, creative director Jonathan Jacques-Belletête, who helped make the game Hell is Us, noted in an interview that it was far more than that. He told Skill Up that he felt this was basically like a ‘bomb’ going off and forcing everyone to recover from it:
“I mean, they’re allowed to do what they did. There’s no laws or rules against that. I don’t want to […] say, ‘Oh, they caused this to us, or somebody else.’ Like, I don’t really care about that. I don’t want to get into that type of debate. To shadow drop something like this is a little callous.”
He went so far as to name Hollow Knight Silksong the “GTA 6 of indie,” which is something we actually noted ourselves when the announcement was made, as this had a similar “level of hype” to what Rockstar Games’ impending title has in terms of impact.
The irony, though, is that the creative director’s team, Rogue Factor, actually kept their release date for their indie title, and for a simple reason:
“The thing nowadays, honestly, getting a window where you’re pretty much alone is almost impossible. I remember like, you know, 15 years ago… and kind of like, mid-end of summer was always like a dead period. But it’s just no such thing anymore. It’s just constant madness.”
While they kept their date, others didn’t, and so while Team Cherry is reveling in the success they had, others won’t be singing their praises as much.
