Hollow Knight Silksong took 7 years to create because it’s just too fun, devs say: ‘A vehicle for our creativity’

After a long, long time of waiting, Hollow Knight: Silksong finally has a release date. Its developers were fairly silent during development and took their sweet time, not because of any particular issue or controversy, but because making the game was just too damn fun.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Hollow Knight creators Ari Gibson and William Pellen said the game is “a vehicle for [their] creativity,” and that no particular issue or controversy caused its long development cycle. “We were having fun… It’s nice to make fun things,” Gibson told Bloomberg. Though it saw vast silent periods where the developers didn’t reveal any new details about it, Silksong “was never stuck” and kept on progressing without any issues behind the scenes.

The devs knew from very early on, following the success of the first Hollow Knight game, that it’d be a giant title, with a deep quest system, multiple locations, and numerous characters. However, the development process could have ended up never-ending, given how the developers approached making the game. With everything happening so fast and ideas becoming content basically overnight, Team Cherry easily lost itself in the chaos of fun.

“It’s for the sake of just completing the game that we’re stopping. We could have kept going,” Pellen explained.

Gibson even said he had to stop drawing at some point because every sketch and idea of his ended up in the game. He eventually realized that, if he didn’t stop sketching, the game’d “take 15 years to finish.”

But, thankfully, Team Cherry came around and recognized everything that should (and should not) make the cut, finally bringing the seven-year production heaven to an end.

Hollow Knight: Silksong is coming out on Sept. 4, eight years after the first game captivated millions with its metroidvania Soulslike concept, beautiful art style, unique characters, and flashy combat.