1 week ago
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is a reporter who covers the business, culture, and communities of video games, with a focus on marginalized gamers and the quirky, horny culture of video game communities.
Hollow Knight: Silksong has released today and the major video game storefronts are struggling to stay online. Shortly after Silksong’s 10 AM ET release time, Steam, the Nintendo eShop, Xbox, and PlayStation were either displaying error messages or failed to load entirely.
Hollow Knight: Silksong is one of the most anticipated indie releases in recent memory. It’s gravitational pull has been so strong, several other indie games releasing around the same time as Silksong have delayed their games to get out of its way. Compounding the feverish anticipation is the fact that Team Cherry is selling Silksong for essentially nothing — it’ll only cost $20 in an environment where big-time publishers are floating $80 and $90 new releases.
The hype for Silksong has also been a boon to the original Hollow Knight. In the days before Silksong’s release, Hollow Knight has gotten a significant bump on the Steam charts, boasting its highest concurrent player count ever seven years after its release in 2017. Silksong has already beaten Hollow Knight’s record as SteamDB reports there are currently over 98,000 concurrent players right now. That number will only grow as players continue to trickle in while Steam and the other gaming storefronts start functioning normally again.
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