Valentine’s Day has come and gone, which means it’s time to solemnly mark a major milestone for one of the most anticipated video games of all time. That’s because five years ago, on February 14, 2019, developer Team Cherry announced a sequel to their 2017 debut title. It was the first time the world heard of Hollow Knight: Silksong, and immediately, players were eager to get their hands on this follow-up to the beautiful and captivating Metroidvania. Now, with five years having passed, fans are still waiting with bated breath for the sequel to Hollow Knight. 

Silksong started life as just another stretch goal on the original Hollow Knight Kickstarter. The $56,000 goal that would eventually spawn Silksong promised a second playable character with “their own unique quests and abilities!” But the project quickly expanded, with Team Cherry explaining in a blog post announcing the full-fledged sequel that, “Almost from the very start, [Silksong protagonist] Hornet’s adventure was intended to take place in a new land, but as we dove in, it quickly became too large and too unique to stay a DLC, as initially planned.”

As revealed in the original announcement for Silksong and subsequent trailers (which have been few and far between), the sequel will follow Hornet, a supporting character in the original game, into a new kingdom called Pharloom with the goal of reaching a shining citadel at the top. In June 2022, the Xbox-Bethesda showcase gave fans hope that Silksong’s release was right around the corner when the game was shown off after Xbox stated that everything at the show would be playable in the next year. According to Team Cherry’s marketing and publishing lead, Matthew Griffin, that was the plan. Griffin tweeted in May of 2023 that the team “had planned to release in the 1st half of 2023, but development is still continuing.”

With the most recent delay, Silksong has now crossed over the five-year mark since its original announcement. But it seems Silksong is closer than ever to being released, and what’s a little more waiting in the grand scheme of things? As Team Cherry put it in their original announcement that the planned DLC was turning into a sequel, “We do know that makes the wait a little longer, but we think the final, fresh world you’ll get to explore is worth it.”