Finally... A Silksong Update!
After over five months
of complete silence, Team Cherry has finally decided to grace us peasants with
an update for Hollow Knight: Silksong. The last update we got was a post E3
update all the way back in June, which I never actually covered on this channel
because I’m lazy. So I’m going to talk about that, as well as go more in depth
about my interactions with Team Cherry while at PAX Australia. But please keep
in mind, a lot of these conversations happened at bars or places with easy
access to alcohol, so my memory might not be its best. I also want to use this
video to address some of these release date rumors that are floating around.
Basically I’m just trying to push this bitch above 10 minutes. If you don’t
like that, sue me.
This update confirms to us
something that should have been quite obvious. Team Cherry is still making the
game. I keep seeing all these people saying that Team Cherry will shadow drop
the game, or that it’s actually finished. Well, it’s not. In fact, Team Cherry
has been putting themselves through crunch months just to keep on schedule. In
October, William told me that they had a crunch month in August, and were
planning to do another one in November.
I also asked Team Cherry
about the scope of Silksong, or if it would be more or less linear than Hollow
Knight. They had no interest in answering those questions, but from the latest
update, we can see that Silksong could very easily end up being bigger than
Hollow Knight. Team Cherry has just added their 165th enemy into the game. This
puts Silksong at about the same number as Hollow Knight. If Team Cherry plans
to keep going, then it will easily surpass Hollow Knight in terms of total
enemy count.
The blog post gave us an
image of the three latest enemies, of which two are just silhouettes. Team
Cherry describes these goons as members of a scholarly suite, former tenders of
a dusty vault full of ancient knowledge. These enemies are also going to fight
Hornet together as a deadly trio who cover each others’ weaknesses. This is exciting
because the only other boss fight we have seen with three bosses at once is the
Sisters of Battle fight in Hollow Knight, and it’s probably one of the best
fights in the game. And due to Hornet’s increased speed and mobility, I’m
guessing this new fight is going to be even more intense.
More interestingly,
these characters were once guarding a vault of knowledge. I assume they were
guarding some kind of library, likely located in the Gilded City we’ve heard so
much about. This four legged friend of ours appears to be from that area. I’ve
seen a few people say he looks like the Godseeker, but two characters being the
same color doesn’t mean they’re related. I mean, is the Gorgeous Husk related
to the Godseeker too? Are Grimace and Thanos related to Waluigi?
But the best part of
this update is the release of two brand new songs from Silksong’s soundtrack.
Chrisopher Larkin is, of course, returning to write the music for Silksong, but
this time around he’s got that sweet Team Cherry money. Most of Hollow Knight’s
music was created digitally, but this time around, the music is actually being
performed and recorded, featuring performances by members of the Adelaide
Symphony Orchestra. On top of that, Silksong’s music will predominantly feature
stringed instruments over the piano. The two samples we now have now really are
incredible. The Lace theme is erratic and exciting, while the Bonebottom theme
is somber, similar to many of the songs in Hollow Knight, but still sounding
fresh and original.
There are apparently 30
songs for Silksong at the moment. Now Team Cherry points out that this pushes
Silksong above the 26 song count for Hollow Knight, but Hollow Knight got an
additional 15 songs that were included in the Gods and Nightmares soundtrack.
And technically, there are even more songs since the soundtrack actually omits
different arrangements and other smaller songs. In other words, 30 songs isn’t
really that impressive. Sorry Christopher Larkin, but you’re gonna have to do
better than that.
From this post we also
learn that Team Cherry is sticking with the name “Bonebottom”, and that it will
be the starting town in Silksong. And honestly, I’m coming around to the name.
It actually has some poetic symmetry to it. In Hollow Knight, the opening
village is called Dirtmouth. So while the Knight entered Hallownest down its
mouth, Hornet will be entering Pharloom up the butt.
And that’s about all we
got for this newest update. Basically, Team Cherry is still working on the
game, adding in more and more content. Team Cherry also wants to stress that
they aren’t just adding in content willie-nillie and that they know what
they’re doing. I really don’t care, they can add an entire sidequest where
Hornet uses her spider powers to deliver pizza in Manhattan and I’d still play
that shit.
I want to go back and
talk about some of the earlier updates we have that I failed to make videos on,
but first let’s talk a little bit about release date speculation. There are a
few quote-unquote “leaks” that have appeared in the last 9 months. Basically,
Steam requires devs to enter a release date for a game whenever they add it
into the database. Team Cherry put a date of June 12, 2020, likely as a
placeholder date, but that date ending up getting revealed somehow. There’s no way
to know if Team Cherry picked this date on purpose, or just as a random date
with no meaning. If it was their initial target date, it sounds like they are
going to miss it due to their desire to just keep adding shit into the game.
So I’m sticking with my
mid to late 2020 release date. But that’s just my view. According to Team
Cherry, the game is running on Cherry-time, so it will come out whenever it’s
ready. Another aspect we can discuss is development time. According to Team
Cherry, development on Silksong started just a few months after Hollow Knight
launched. This would mean the game has been in development for almost 3 years
now, while Hollow Knight was in development from November 2014 to February
2017. So by that logic, Silksong should be very close to being completed. But
there are a few details I want to lay out.
Team Cherry worked on
Hollow Knight for about 6 months before the Kickstarter. After the Kickstarter,
they had to port the entire game over to Unity, and William had to learn how to
even use the new engine. After Hollow Knight finished, Dave Kazi left Team
Cherry, leaving William and Ari to work on Silksong as well as the numerous
Hollow Knight content packs alone. So the team size was actually smaller for
quite a while after Hollow Knight came out. They also had to work with
Sharkjump Studios to port the game to Switch, PS4 and Xbox One. It wasn’t until
2018 that Team Cherry hired Jack Vine to help with development. And we all know
that Jack Vine is a shitty coder, so he’s probably not adding anything to the
development. So yes, Silksong has been in development for almost 3 years, but a
lot of other stuff has been happening at the same time as well.
That being said,
Silksong benefits from being built on top of Hollow Knight’s code. William
mentioned that designing bosses and enemies is even easier now that they have a
huge database of code from other enemies that they can utilize. Or he said
something like that, I don’t know, I’m not a game dev or a programmer, so I
just kinda stood their and nodded my head. So yeah, there are a lot of things
we can speculate on in terms of release date. My rule of thumb, tho, is the
longer it takes, the more content we’ll probably get. So I really don’t care.
Let’s talk about the
June update Team Cherry had. In this update, we got a name for this drabby
looking area, Greymoor. This area is filled with misted fields and dilapidated
towers. This area is filled with creatures called Crawbugs, which are described
as devious nesting types. The former tenders of this land have become haunted.
It seems like becoming “haunted” in Silksong is about the same as becoming
“infected” in Hollow Knight. That means you can kill these people without
feeling bad, so that’s nice.
At the top of Greymoor,
there are Dustroaches kept in pens. These creatures have insatiable appetites
and breed very rapidly. I don’t think we have seen any dustroaches either, but
it’s nice to know they’re there, I guess.
Finally, Team Cherry
explains that Greymoor is one of the biggest areas they’ve ever created, and
that Hornet will uncover many mysteries, making several new friends and duel
with a lethal lunging foe. Now, this lunging foe might be referring to Lace,
but I’m guessing there’s going to be a fuckton of lunging foes in this game.
This update also
confirms that Silksong will use the same mapping system as Hollow Knight. But
this time around, Hornet will come across Shakra instead of Cornifer. Shakra is
seeking out her master who vanished under mysterious circumstances. Shakra is a
part of a clan, each of which has their own Craft-Skill. So chances are we’ll
be seeing a lot of bugs like Shakra during Hornet’s adventure.
At the end of this post,
Team Cherry mentions that they have been reaching out to people in the Hollow
Knight community to provide voices. William and Ari provided the vast majority
of voices for Hollow Knight, but it seems they have decided to outsource this
to the community, probably because they are a bunch of lazy devs. Lace’s voice
has been provided by Mitsuki Hashimoto, an active member of the Hollow Knight
fan art community. And I know what you’re thinking. No, I haven’t recorded any
lines for Silksong. But I am taking expensive vocal training classes just in
case Team Cherry decides to call me up.
And now I have a few
more details from the update before the June update, where Team Cherry talked
about some of the various characters in the game. This character’s name has
confirmed to be Trobbio. He is the Master of the Stage, the Brush and the
Voice. He’s a flamboyant butterfly that seeks fame and adoration throughout
Pharloom. And as of right now, he’s my favorite character.
We also got a few more
details about Sherma. He’s apparently in constant need of help. No surprise
there. He’s also described as an optimistic pilgrim on a spiritual journey. The
whole concept of bugs going to Pharloom for some kind of pilgrimage has been
present since Silksong was announced, but as it turns out, this idea has been
around for quite some time. We recently gained access to the original Hollow
Knight lore document that Team Cherry provided to backers after the kickstarter
ended.
Now, this document is
obviously very old and nothing in it should be considered canon. But in the
area description section, it mentions the Forest of Bones, an area cut from
Hollow Knight that appears to have been transferred over to Silksong. In this
document, it mentions that bugs would take pilgrimages to the Forest of Bones
to find the Holy Grounds. We only have one image of the Holy Grounds, but is
there a chance that this area will end up in Silksong as well? I’m guessing it
would be quite different, considering the fact that there are Dreamer masks
plastered all over the walls. But perhaps a place like this is where Sherma and
other bugs are going.
We also have a bit more
information on Garmond and Zaza. It is explained that these two are looking for
a new home, and that while Garmond does the talking, Zaza is the more
intelligent one. I don’t know how I feel about this relationship, but I am
going to avoid asking too many questions here. I mean, imagine riding a horse
that was smarter than you. That wouldn’t be fun, you’d just feel like an
asshole.
And the last bit of info
we have relates to the Ant Queen we saw in the Silksong reveal trailer. Her
name is Hunter Queen Carmelitia, and William told me that she is actually a
backer character. That brings the total amount of confirmed backer bosses to
three out of six. There are still three more bosses and dungeons that were
promised during the Kickstarter that haven’t appeared yet.
And that’s a wrap. I’ll
see you all after the next Team Cherry update whenever that is. I’m thinking…
April.
Silksong gameplay
footage by Hobby Consolas:
List of songs:
Bonebottom
Lace
Dirtmouth
Kingdom’s Edge
Hornet
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