Explaining the Internet’s obsession withSilksong, which (finally) comes out Sept. 4

Hollow Knight: Silksong will be released on September 4. It will come out simultaneously on Windows, macOS, Linux, Xbox, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, the Nintendo Switch, and the Nintendo Switch 2.

On paper, "game gets release date" isn't particularly groundbreaking news, and the six-year wait between the game's announcement and release is long but nowhere near record-breaking. People have waited longer for Metroid Prime 4 (announced 2017, releasing this fall), Duke Nukem Forever (announced 1997, released 2011), the fourth BioShock game (in development for a decade at a studio that just got ravaged by layoffs), and Half-Life 3 (never actually announced, but hope springs eternal), just to name a few.

But fans of 2017's Hollow Knight managed to make the wait for Silksong into a meme. It's hard to explain why if you haven't already been following along, but it's probably got something to do with the expected scale of the game, the original Hollow Knight's popularity, and the almost total silence of the small staff at Team Cherry, the game's developer.

Why does this game make people act this way?

Silksong began development as downloadable content for Hollow Knight, a gloomy Metroidvania about a silent, unnamed protagonist battling their way through the fallen insect kingdom of Hallownest. Funded via Kickstarter, Hollow Knight became a huge hit thanks to its distinctive 2D art style, atmospheric soundtrack, sharp and satisfying gameplay, memorable boss fights, and worldbuilding that gave players just enough information to encourage endless speculation about Hallownest's rise and fall.

The expansion, first mentioned all the way back in 2014, would focus on Hornet, who fought her battles with a needle and thread. She had been an NPC in the main game but would become a fully playable character in the DLC.

By February of 2019, Team Cherry announced that the Hornet DLC had become "too large and too unique to stay a DLC" and would instead be "a full-scale sequel to Hollow Knight."