Hollow Knight: Silksong is a Fucking Juggernaut, Already Selling Millions
In a world of $70 disappointments, it turns out the twenty-dollar bug game is the one printing money.
The launch of Hollow Knight: Silksong was pure chaos. Now that the dust has settled and the servers have stopped smoking, the first sales estimates are rolling in, and they are absolutely staggering. According to analysis from GameDiscover, Team Cherry's masterpiece has sold an estimated 3.2 million copies on Steam alone.
By the Numbers
The success goes well beyond the PC space. The same report from GameDiscover estimates that Silksong has sold around 500,000 copies each on both PlayStation and Switch consoles. That brings the total estimated sales to a massive 4.2 million units.
On top of the raw sales, another 1.5 million players have downloaded it through Xbox Game Pass. The game also hit a concurrent player peak of over 587,000 on Steam, cementing its place as one of the biggest launches of the year.
Standing on the Shoulders of a Giant
This explosive launch didn't come from nowhere. The original Hollow Knight has sold a staggering 15 million copies to date, and Silksong was the most wishlisted game on Steam with 4.8 million fans waiting for the release button to finally appear.
It seems most of those wishes came true. The data shows that a whopping 22 percent of all Hollow Knight owners on Steam have already purchased the sequel, an incredible conversion rate.
The Twenty-Dollar Masterpiece
The other massive factor here is the price. In an industry that is desperately trying to normalize $70 price tags, Team Cherry dropped what is arguably the most anticipated game of the decade for just twenty bucks.
They are charging a ridiculously fair price for what I called a painful, perfect, and essential masterpiece in my full review. The game is a true commercial monster, already about a third of the way to matching the original's lifetime sales in less than two weeks which is well deserved considering Team Cherry's talent and a massive middle finger to the bloated, overpriced AAA model.