Hollow Knight: Silksong is finally set to launch next month but other game developers are delaying their titles to avoid competing with the “Grand Theft Auto 6 of indie games”.
Hollow Knight: Silksong was announced way back in 2019 and last week, was finally confirmed to launch September 4, 2025.
The release date has put an end to years of excited speculation but a number of rival developers have confirmed they’ll be delaying their games to avoid a clash.
“Our initial plan was to launch it this September, but after the announcement of Silksong, we are fully aware that our game wouldn’t have the visibility it deserves. Competing with a phenomenon of that scale would not only be unfair to our team’s effort, but also to you, the community, who expect to experience this adventure under the best possible conditions,” said the team behind Aeterna Lucis in a statement. “Instead of rivalry, what we feel is gratitude: thanks to Team Cherry, the metroidvania genre is more alive than ever and, in fact, they were one of our main inspirations.”
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— Aeternum Game Studios (@aeternathegame) August 22, 2025
Other indie titles Faeland and CloverPit have also been delayed due to Hollow Knight: Silksong. “Silksong is the most anticipated and wishlisted game on all of Steam and we think people will love this game and play it right at launch (including us) but that also means it will overshadow all games launching close to it,” explained developers Panik Arcade.
“With 11 years under our belt as an indie publisher, we at Ysbryd Games are reasonably qualified to say that any point of 2025, on balance, has been or will be as brutal as market conditions can get when it comes to releasing a game. Crueler still, that we should find out with such short notice that Hollow Knight: Silksong will launch just one day after our planned release for Demonschool,” said founder Brian Kwek. “If the September period is going to be Silksong‘s moment, then we need to be elsewhere on the calendar to give Demonschool its own moment to be seen and talked about meaningfully.”
This was not our choice but we understand why the choice was made. We aren’t mad at Ysbryd but at the situation. Dropping the GTA of indie games with 2 weeks notice makes everyone freak out. Ysbryd is being a good partner and paying for the delay. We’re sorry this is happening. https://t.co/uz2FlPMUNi
— Necrosoft Games | wishlist Demonschool now! (@necrosoftgames) August 25, 2025
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Hollow Knight sold more than 15million copies and news of the imminent sequel has seen a spike in players returning to the fiendishly tricky game (via SteamDB). According to hands-on previews of the game, Hollow Knight: Silksong lives up to all the hype.
In other news, a banging techno remix of the iconic Super Mario Bros. theme was performed at Medusa Festival by viral DJ Padre Guilherme.
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