After a long time for fans waiting on it, Hollow Knight: Silksong is now officially out and it arrives with Native Linux support and it's Steam Deck Verified. They sure kept us waiting huh?
Check out the latest trailer below:

Direct Link
From what I understand, no review codes were sent out at all, as Team Cherry felt it would be unfair to everyone else who previously backed them. That, and they're still quite a small team. So, everyone jumping in will be playing it for the first time. Something to keep in mind if you suddenly see any reviews pop up real quick over the next day or so - there's no way they would have had ample time to check it properly. Same for me. I've no doubt some reviewers will now be doing an immense crunch on it though, same for people writing any guides.
Impressively though, the first boss to beat with Silksong was actually the internet. Pretty much to the second that Silksong released, the Steam store itself went down hard. I don't think I've ever seen an indie game like this manage to get so much traffic that Steam kept giving errors like this:
As I write this, nearly 40 minutes after release, the Steam store is still all over the place. I'm currently playing shopping cart roulette trying to buy it. It even managed to take down consoles stores due to the traffic too. Incredible huh? What an achievement.
Looking at SteamDB (which was also struggling to cope) the player count absolutely skyrocketed up to 100,374, although that was expected of course. Not that you need to know about a single-player game concurrent player count, but I still find it interesting to see on the subject of my own excitement for the developer.
Game Highlights:
- Discover the fallen insect kingdom of Pharloom! Explore mossy grottos, gilded cities and misted moors as you ascend to the shining citadel at the top of the world.
- Engage in lethal acrobatic action! Wield a huge suite of deadly moves as you dance between foes in swift, beautiful combat.
- Craft powerful tools! Master an ever-expanding arsenal of weapons, traps, and mechanisms to vanquish your enemies and explore new heights.
- Solve shocking quests! Hunt down rare beasts and solve ancient mysteries to grant the wishes of the downtrodden and restore the kingdom’s hope.
- Face over 200 ferocious foes! Beasts and hunters, monsters and knights. Defeat them all with bravery and skill!
- Vanquish over 40 legendary bosses! Battle fabled heroes and fallen kings in epic combat to decide the kingdom's fate.
- Challenge Steel Soul mode! Once you conquer the kingdom, test your skills in a new mode that presents a more formidable challenge.
- Experience a stunning orchestral score! Hollow Knight’s award-winning composer, Christopher Larkin, brings melancholy melodies, symphonic strings and heart-thumping, soul strumming boss themes to the adventure.
Will you be jumping in? Be sure to leave a comment and let us know, and what you think of it when you've had chance to play some of it. Always keen to hear from readers.
Damn you all! Let me have my turn! We need a queue!
It is, for all intents and purposes, a more acrobatic Hollow Knight with a higher budget behind it. It feels faster and better put together, likely due to the developers now having more experience under their belt, but it's still Hollow Knight through and through.
...AND I LOVE IT! :D
Looking forward to this, even though I'll certainly end up resorting to cheating to make it through, as I ended up doing with the original.
The game was completely locked up. Had to alt-tab and try stopping it from Steam and this didn't work, so it was a job for HTOP to kill the program. I wonder how a normal non tech'y Steamdeck user would have handled this, i guess switching to desktop mode and discovering HTOP is not a normal thing to do on a handheld console.
It's funny but also sad if it is the case that i get a game crash because a game on Steam was released and the game i needed to exit couldn't complete a cloudsync so just kinda sat there like a potato

Last edited by Lofty on 4 Sep 2025 at 8:45 pm UTC
I wonder how a normal non tech'y Steamdeck user would have handled thisThey'd have turned off the machine.
There is some stuff I find kinder: rosaries aren't necessary lost on death if threaded on a string (strung on a thread?), and there's a 400 shell limit (not that that second currency seems to matter much) that much reduces the impact of a failed corpse run.
The movement feels good and flows well, I like the way you grab platforms, and the downward dash. Hornet has a personality, thanks to that movement and a good voice actress (not a big amount of voice acting, but what is there during combat is good). I wish they had done a bit more still, as the cartographer's song is on a short loop.
…and there's a 400 shell limit (not that that second currency seems to matter much)
It will a little later, though even then, it’s still plenty generous. The only way you’ll run short of them is if you’re doing a single difficult part over and over and over again, and you don’t stop to refresh them by killing random enemies between attempts.
the Steam store itself went down hard
Don't people have jobs any more??? It's a freaking Thursday. :D
They'd have turned off the machine.
https://d2nzqyyfd6k6c7.cloudfront.net/have_you_tried_turning_it_off_and_on_again.gif [External Link]
for some reason i can't embed a picture :/