The wait for Hollow Knight: Silksong has beensomething, hasn’t it? The original Hollow Knight, which launched back in 2017, has often been heralded as one of the best video games ever made. At minimum, it’s one of the finest titles in the Metroidvania genre - and that’s hardly a small number of entries.
Hollow Knight: Silksong, the hotly-anticipated sequel, is slated to launch by the end of 2025. Will it? I don’t know, I can’t see the future. Should it? Absolutely. It’s been aparticularlylong wait when I get to thinking about what’s gone on in the gaming world, and in other parts of the entertainment industry, in the eight years since Hollow Knight’s debut. Here are a few of my personal eye-openers.
The Nintendo Switch Came, Saw, And Conquered
Mere weeks after Hollow Knight made its debut on PC, Nintendo proved the Wii U’s relative financial bomb was by no means indicative of its overall future. The Nintendo Switch arrived to rave reviews, with critics and fans alike praising the heck out of its console-meets-portable savviness, and cross-generational launch title The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild utterly pulverizing previous franchise sales numbers.
The Switch has had a long and prosperous life. For over eight years and counting, it’s sold strong, cornering a market with aplomb. Throughout the world, and especially in Japan, it’s by no means hit its last leg. Sure, things have slowed down dramatically, but people are still grabbing it.
And, of course, the Nintendo Switch 2 has finally arrived. Its own launch sales have been excellent, to say the least. The Switch brand has proven itself to be a powerhouse for the gaming industry.
But still no Hollow Knight: Silksong.
Square Enix Has Released Three Mainline Final Fantasy Games
Look, right off the bat, somebody out there is going to argue that I’m wrong about this, because the only mainline entry since Hollow Knight is 2023’s Final Fantasy 16. Well, that’s just, like, your opinion. Probably. Because Square Enix clearly treats FInal Fantasy 7 Remake, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, and the upcoming third entry in that trilogy, as full-blown mainliners, and many fans do the same.
Assumingthat’s the case with y’all, as well, let’s contemplate this for a moment. Time was, Square gave us new mainline FFs on a remarkably swift basis. You only need the most fleeting familiarity with the series, however, to know that those days are decades behind us. Final Fantasy 15 was 2016, the aforementioned FF16 was 2023. These things are generational now.
The Remake trilogy has certainly alleviated this, with 2020 and 2024 releases, respectively. But we’re still talking about a mammoth series with relatively glacial dormancy periods. If Square Enix can get three of these out between Hollow Knight and Silksong… whew.
But, indeed, still no Hollow Knight: Silksong.
We Can Now See Black Holes Over 13 Billion Light Years Away
In extremely relative terms, a black hole that was only formed 400 million years after the Big Bang is practically an infant. And now, we can see that matter-chewing toddler with a state-of-the-art space camera with a range of more than 13,000,000,000 light years.
The James Webb telescope boldly went far beyond the Earth’s atmosphere in December 2021, and it has since given us the most amazing looks into deep space that we have ever received. Its mission is far from finished. To list its achievements would widen the word count of this article to similarly astronomical extent, but suffice it to say, it’s a big deal.
So is Hollow Knight: Silksong, but I hear-tell it isn’t out yet.
NFTs Were The Next Big Thing, Except They Were Never Actually The Next Big Thing
Few of us ever actually wanted NFTs. Certainly, we did not want them in our video games. But imagine the possibilities. You could buy things in games, and then you could sell them on the blockchain. Square Enix’s Yosuke Matsuda was so convinced that the industry was slated to pivot toward an NFT-dominated landscape that he mentioned the word “blockchain"fourteen timesin his corporate “New Year’s Letter” in 2023.
By the way, Yosuke Matsuda was ousted from the company two months later. Oh, and there weren’t any Hollow Knight: Silksong announcements to be found.
Taylor Swift Has Released Six Full Albums
I like Taylor Swift’s music. But truth be told, 95 percent or more of my music-listening life is devoted to soundtracks. Primarily video game soundtracks, but movie and television scores sneak in there, too.
Just the same, I’d have to be living under all the rocks in the Grand Canyon not to know that Taylor Swift is a worldwide financially-successful sensation unlike any other. Her album drops are international events. And she’s dropped ‘em six times since Hollow Knight came out:
Put another way, fewer of Swift’s studio albums existed when Hollow Knight launched than have been released since. There were five in February 2017. So, yeah. More than half her discography has came and went. (Well, I mean, it’s timeless. But you get it.)
Yet, as they say, still no Hollow Knight: Silksong.
If I’m wrong about any of the particulars here - and fair warning, I may be - my editor-in-chief, by far the biggest Taylor Swift fan I have ever encountered, will let me know.
A Global Pandemic Happened
I trust I do not need to spell this one out.
Anyway, this article is about Hollow Knight: Silksong, and the lack thereof.
Seventeen New Seasons Of Star Trek Have Aired
There have been 17 seasons of Star Trek shows since its streaming-era debut, which followed a 12-year hiatus on the beloved franchise’s TV front:
I’m not even counting all the “Short Treks” stuff, mini-episodes produced several years back, nor the (not-good) Star Trek: Section 31, a direct-to-streaming movie. If you, like me, happen to be a diehard Trek enthusiast… you’ve been served heaping helpings.
