After years of anticipation, Hollow Knight: Silksong finally launched on September 4, 2025, and the gaming world erupted instantly. Within minutes of release, the highly anticipated Metroidvania not only shattered records but also temporarily broke Steam itself.
Team Cherry, the three-person studio from Adelaide, Australia, achieved the impossible. Their sequel to 2017’s indie hit Hollow Knight drew over 587,000 concurrent players on Steam, according to SteamDB.
That placed it in the top five most-played games of all time on the platform. The game wasn’t even available for pre-order, meaning thousands scrambled to buy and install it immediately at launch, overwhelming Steam’s servers.
What happened at launch?
The chaos began right when the game went live, and SteamDB reported Silksong reached 89,646 players only 20 minutes later. As hours passed, that number skyrocketed, cementing its place as one of gaming’s most successful launches ever.
Interestingly, the original Hollow Knight also enjoyed renewed attention. The day before Silksong dropped, the 2017 title hit a new record of 72.9K concurrent players.
Because the release overwhelmed so many systems, even SteamDB temporarily crashed under the weight of fans refreshing charts.
The best Hollow Knight: Silksong memes and reactions
Naturally, social media exploded with memes, jokes, and disbelief.
One viral comparison summed it up perfectly, writing, “Silksong reminds me of when elden ring first came out in the sense that I’ll be complaining about some early game boss that I’m having trouble with and someone who is much farther in the game than me comes into the replies like:” with a screencap of the Atakichi No Eleven Redraws meme, which shows a man with a huge chin putting his hand on another man’s shoulder, grinning at him knowingly.
Others fixated on the sheer difficulty with their memes. X user @SlLENTPRINCESS simply asked, “why is silksong so hard omfg.”
Meanwhile, folks on TikTok joined in the hype. TikToker @nomadviii shared a video praising both the quality of the game and its low price.
“Silksong is so popular right now that even the piracy subreddit is encouraging people to buy it. You know the state of gaming has gone completely out of control when even people who pirate every single game is now encouraging everybody to buy the twenty-dollar game,” she said.
“And all these huge corporations are mad cause they’re like, ‘Oh, you guys are gonna change the industry and make people expect games that are $20.’ It’s almost like games aren’t worth $80, even if you are getting 80 hours out of a game,” @nomadviii added. “There is literally no game that you should be charging $80 for. I’m looking at you, Nintendo.”
@nomadviii Show me ur best silksong memes please #silksong #hollowknight #fyp ♬ original sound – Nomad
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