Hollow Knight: Silksong is the follow-up, announced back in 2019, to one of the most beloved and successful indie games of the last decade. In a special announcement video on Thursday, Australian developer Team Cherry revealed that the wait is almost over. 

That wait became something of a meme in gaming circles in the last six years: Silksong when? Silksong will be released on Sept. 4, according to the new trailer. The almost two-minute video reveals some of the new enemies and bosses in the upcoming spinoff and ends with the surprise release date. 

Originally, Silksong was going to be a DLC for Hollow Knight. However, numerous delays resulted in it being pushed back again and again. Glimpses of the game would show up here and there over the years, but it was this year that it received the most attention from Nintendo as part of its Switch 2 lineup, and from Microsoft, which confirmed it would be available on Xbox Game Pass. 

Why did Silksong take so long to come out? 

Hollow Knight fans have been waiting for years for Silksong’s release. It was initially a stretch goal for the Kickstarter that funded the original game, yet developer Team Cherry has been quiet about the game since 2019. It appears the team took its time because they were enjoying the process of making the game. 

“We’ve been having fun,” co-founder Ari Gibson told Bloomberg. “This whole thing is just a vehicle for our creativity anyway. It’s nice to make fun things.”

Silksong features a character from the original game, Hornet. She is the princess-protector of Hallownest, the world in which Hollow Knight takes place. In the game, she was a rival and partner to the Knight, and in Silksong, she is captured and sent to the Kingdom of Pharloom. She’ll have to escape from the kingdom while fighting new bosses, completing quests and learning more secrets about the land. 

Unusually in the cutthroat gaming industry, the developers felt no need to rush. A small team, they didn’t have to worry about running out of money: Hollow Knight sold 15 million copies, according to Bloomberg. 

The first glimpse of an update about Silksong came in 2022 during an Xbox event, with the hope that the game would be coming out in a year. However, the team kept building out the game, adding more bosses and mechanics than in the original Hollow Knight. 

It was this year that Team Cherry recognized it was almost done with the game, hence having both Microsoft and Nintendo share news about Silksong during their respective events. The team says it’s still finalizing and polishing the various versions, but it will be coming out in a matter of weeks. 

Hollow Knight: Silksong will be released on PC, Switch, Switch 2, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S, PS4 and PS5. It will be available on Day 1, the day of launch, for Xbox Game Pass subscribers.Â