On Aug. 21, developer Team Cherry announced a release date for Hollow Knight: Silksong, one of the most loudly anticipated game sequels in years. It would come out on Sept. 4, just two weeks later. This tight window prompted some indie developers and publishers to push their games back. Now, a similar situation is unfolding with the 1.0 launch of Hades 2, Supergiant’s sequel to its 2020 Game of the Year nominee. Some games even moved out of the way of Silksong’s release window only to end up directly in the middle of Hades 2’s.
Whether or not Team Cherry had an obligation to the rest of the games industry is a topic that’s stirred some debate, but the fact is: No fewer than half a dozen companies publicly pushed back their games because of Silksong. Publisher Ysbryd Games delayed its tactics RPG Demonschool, initially planned for a Sept. 3 release, to November. Ysbryd founder Brian Kwek said at the time, “Crueler still, that we should find out with such short notice that Hollow Knight: Silksong will launch just one day after our planned release for Demonschool.”
Developer Panik Arcade planned on releasing its roguelike horror slot machine game Cloverpit on Sept. 3 as well, but announced its delay in in all caps announcement on Steam, “WE HAVE TO DELAY CLOVERPIT A BIT (SILKSONG lol)!” Unlike Demonschool, Cloverpit’s revised Sept. 26 release date landed right in the blast zone of another must-play indie: Hades 2, which was similarly announced by Supergiant with just two weeks’ notice ahead of its Sept. 25 launch date.
“We’re incredibly excited for Hades 2’s full launch (the hype is absolutely deserved!) but we never considered moving Cloverpit again,” Laura Topakian, publishing manager at Cloverpit publisher Future Friends Games, told Polygon via email. “The community was very supportive when we delayed the first time, and we feel we owe it to them to stick to the new date; it wouldn’t be fair to shift it twice.”
While Topakian admitted “going head-to-head wasn’t really an option” with Silksong, that’s exactly what Cloverpit will be doing with Hades 2. “If we keep delaying to avoid competition, we might never launch,” Topakian said. And she has a good point — the rest of the year is packed with games all competing with one another for time, attention, and sales.
Of course, the hype around Hades 2’s 1.0 launch is different than the furor surrounding Silksong. Fans had been waiting for the Hollow Knight follow-up since it was announced as a full sequel in 2019, while Hades 2 has been playable in early access since May 2024.
Baby Steps, the comedic walking simulator from developers Maxi Boch, Gabe Cuzzillo, and Bennett Foddy, was also delayed to get out of Silksong’s way. Publisher Devolver Digital, always one ready to crack a joke, released a trailer on Aug. 26 of Baby Steps protagonist Nate walking over, and falling from, a statue of Silksong’s Hornet to announce the delay. It’s now set for a Sept. 23 release date, with only a couple of days between it and Hades 2. The Baby Steps developers declined to comment for this piece.
The Arthurian legend-inspired co-op roguelike Sworn is going in the other direction. It’s been in early access since early this year, and was originally set to launch into 1.0 on Sept. 25 — the same day as Hades 2. Publisher Team17 ultimately decided to move it up a couple days to Sept. 23.
“We opted to keep our September launch because we promised our players we’d release in this window,” Team17’s head of PR Claire Sharkey told Polygon in an email. “Sworn has an incredibly dedicated community […] They’ve waited a long time for our 1.0 launch and have been instrumental in shaping something we’re truly proud of.”
Unlike Baby Steps, which is nothing like Hades 2, the roguelike Sworn would ostensibly appeal to the same people who enjoy the Hades games and roguelikes inspired by them. “We recognise that releasing in proximity to Hades 2 is going to be a challenge,” Sharkey said, but the publisher is confident in its roguelike. The team behind Sworn plans to support the game into next year, and it will also eventually release on Nintendo Switch.
One publisher who unknowingly released its game a little soon would be Ubisoft with Evil Empire’s The Rogue Prince of Persia. Its early access release was delayed in May 2024 when Hades 2 shadow dropped. “Seeing as everyone and their mum is playing [Hades 2] (including our entire team… and their mums), we have decided to let people have their fun with it before we release The Rogue Prince of Persia,” Evil Empire said at the time.
The Rogue Prince of Persia itself shadow dropped in 1.0 last month, just a day before Team Cherry announced Silksong’s release date and a month before Hades 2 is set to release. The Rogue Prince of Persia has been reviewed pretty well, and is perfect for fans of Dead Cells (which developer Evil Empire worked on post-launch).
Yet, going by SteamDB player charts, few people are playing it; its all-time concurrent peak player count on Steam is only 849 players, and its 24-hour peak at the time of writing is 70. Other platforms where the game is available, like PlayStation or Xbox, don’t publicly share player count numbers. The Rogue Prince of Persia is included in the Game Pass and PlayStation Plus Extra libraries, and, while those too don’t make player counts available, it’s not currently listed among the most-played games on Game Pass.
Representatives for Evil Empire declined to comment for this story.
While plenty in the games industry expected Grand Theft Auto 6 (now set for a May 2026 launch) to cause AAA publishers to delay their games, we’re now seeing that effect happen prominently in the indie space. Of course, this may be a “once in a blue moon” type of event — not many other indies will create a splash zone like Silksong, and it’s unlikely such a game would be followed up by another hotly anticipated sequel three weeks later, like Hades 2.
For now, at least gamers can stop spamming publishers’ livestream chats with “Silksong when?” and go back to asking the question on everybody’s mind: Half-Life 3 when?
