Indie Devs Flee in Terror as Surprise Silksong Release Date Creates Black Hole in Launch Calendar
After what feels like an eternity of waiting, Team Cherry finally broke their silence on Thursday and announced that Hollow Knight: Silksong, the most wishlisted game on Steam, is shadow-dropping on September 4th. While fans collectively lost their minds, a different kind of panic was setting in across the indie development scene. Smaller studios are now scrambling to get the hell out of the way, creating a sudden, bug-shaped hole in the September release calendar.
The Great Indie Exodus
The logic behind the sudden schedule shuffle is brutally simple. As the developers of the roguelike CloverPit put it when they announced a delay from September 3 to September 26, Silksong "will overshadow all games launching close to it". They poured their hearts into their game and don't want to see it vaporized by the hype. You can't really blame them.
The fear is especially palpable for anyone making a metroidvania. Frogteam Games, developers of Stomp and the Sword of Miracles, immediately delayed their demo, which was set to launch just before a Kickstarter campaign. As one developer perfectly summarized the feeling, "I feel like a little krill trying to not get eaten by a blue whale". When you're a tiny studio relying on streamers and word-of-mouth to survive, launching your game when everyone is glued to the biggest release in your genre for a decade is basically a marketing suicide mission.
An Extreme Case of Caution
In the most extreme case of evasive maneuvers, Aeternum Game Studios announced they were pushing their metroidvania sequel, Aeterna Lucis, all the way back to 2026. In a bizarrely respectful statement, they even thanked Team Cherry for keeping the genre alive, essentially saying "we love you, but we're terrified of you".
Bravery, Stupidity, or Just Good Marketing?
Not everyone is running for the hills. Necrosoft, whose RPG Demonschool is bravely launching on September 3, is leaning into the chaos. Co-founder Brandon Sheffield joked to Aftermath, "How dare Team Cherry do this to me, personally". Meanwhile, even established names like Bennett Foddy of Getting Over It fame admitted they are "talking about it" regarding a potential delay for their game Baby Steps.
But is this mass exodus necessary? Simon Carless, an analyst at GameDiscoverCo, seems to think developers might be a little too cautious. "We've not seen a lot of evidence that game launches depress spending on other games," he told Aftermath, explaining that the only real impact is felt when the games are in the exact same, very specific subgenre. Still, he concedes that dodging the release gives developers peace of mind. If your game flops, you won't spend the rest of your life wondering if it was Silksong's fault.
Ultimately, while Silksong isn't a AAA juggernaut like GTA VI, its mythical status has created a similar effect. Years of anticipation have turned its release into an event that even its peers are unwilling to compete with. It's a stark reminder that in the brutal world of indie releases, sometimes the smartest move is to just get out of the way.