When I was your age, videogames were released at a rate of about seven per year, so there was plenty of room for everyone and we were all thankful for what we got. It’s a bit more crowded these days—nearly 19,000 new games were released on Steam alone in 2024—and so, inevitably, some of them are left with a choice: Get their toes stepped on, or move.
It happened before, probably most notably with Cyberpunk 2077 back in 2020, and it’s happening again right now: Team Cherry announced yesterday that after long years of waiting, Hollow Knight: Silksong will finally be out on September 4—just two weeks away!—and that’s got other studios scrambling.
The first one we noticed was Panik Arcade, which said “Silksong lol” and pushed its Balatro-esque slot machine game CloverPit back by nearly a month, from September 3—the day before Silksong—to September 26. PC Gamer’s Lincoln Carpenter expressed sympathy for “any devteam that’s had to reevaluate their launch plans after unknowingly choosing a release date within the Silksong gravity well,” which as it turns out proved to be prophetic.
As noticed by Aftermath, a game called Stomp and the Sword of Miracles is taking a cue from CloverPit and delaying the release of its Kickstarter and support demo, which had been set to go live on September 3, to September 26, also because of Silkong.
“Trying to market an indie game is already really, really hard,” developer Frogteam Games wrote. “It’s the task of trying to get attention in a deep sea of other amazing games. In the case of Silksong, however, I feel like a little krill trying to not get eaten by a blue whale. Tiny devs like me rely on word of mouth and streamers to bring in visibility, and everyone’s gonna be busy with Silksong for quite a while!”
Head’s up – the Stomp demo has had to be suddenly delayed. I’ll keep you all updated when I know what the plan is.
— @frogteam.games (@frogteam.games.bsky.social) 2025-08-22T21:52:09.058Z
Faeland, a Metroidvania that ran its own Kickstarter campaign way back in 2018, has also hit the brakes:: Instead of going into full release on September 9, it’s postponed to an as-yet-unannounced date.
Aeterna Lucis, the sequel to the well-received Aeterna Noctis, also pointed the finger at Silksong for causing a move from an unspecified release date in September to sometime in 2026.
Hit co-op climbing game Peak is already out so it can’t be delayed, but as noticed by GamesRadar, developer Aggro Crab seems resigned to being caught in the vortex anyway.
sent by a friend over d’cord…
— @glitchypsi.xyz (@glitchypsi.xyz.bsky.social) 2025-08-22T21:52:09.076Z
But at least one developer has made the bold decision to stand its ground: Silksong be damned, Demonschool, the anticipated tactical RPG from Necrosoft, is coming on September 3.
Okay, sure, Silksong is going to sell millions of copies. But can you play it in 4:3 on your CRT like Demonschool!?
— @necrosoftgames.com (@necrosoftgames.com.bsky.social) 2025-08-22T21:52:09.085Z
Dodging the feet of stomping behemoths is absolutely a valid and smart move for smaller games, but for some it’s also an opportunity to attract attention they otherwise might not have got. In the case of Aeterna Lucis, for instance, the Silksong release is cited as the primary reason for the pushback, but Aeternum Game Studios also acknowledged that “we still don’t have all the necessary development kits to ensure a simultaneous release on all next-generation platforms,” which seems like a pretty big problem in its own right. The fact that it’s being moved into 2026, rather than just deeper into September or October, is also kind of telling.
Stomp and the Sword of Miracles also picked up at least one new follower thanks to its Silksong-fuelled delay, too. So it’s definitely not all bad.
GameDiscoverCo founder Simon Carless told Aftermath that most developers are being “too cautious” about making room for Silksong.
“Unless you feel like your buyers majorly overlap with Silksong’s, or you believe you are going to go viral with the same streamers who will cover Silksong, we’ve not seen a lot of evidence that game launches depress spending on other games,” Carless said. “We’ve seen private research indicating that player counts for already-launched rival games were only affected if the game was in the same, very specific subgenre as that big launch.”
I would imagine that most developers quietly hope that Carless is correct, because it’s growing increasingly difficult to find room to move. I think back to 2023, when Stray Gods moved its release date to avoid Baldur’s Gate 3, which had moved its own launch up by a month to get out of Starfield’s way. And then I think about how Stray Gods was an award-winning critical hit, and Baldur’s Gate 3 became one of the biggest games ever, and Starfield… well, it was fine. So maybe Carless is onto something here.
Right or wrong, one thing is beyond any doubt: Silksong is going to be a very big launch indeed. I don’t think anyone can blame other studios for not wanting to roll the dice on it.
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