Dev: Hollow Knight Silksong may have unintentionally snubbed other indie games with its shadow drop announcement

Excitement had been mounting for Team Cherry’s Hollow Knight: Silksong for years, and it officially launched on September 4, 2025. Dubbed the “GTA VI of indie games”, Silksong’s 21 August announcement may have had unintentional consequences as it gave many indie developers only a two-week notice to delay their launches to avoid being overshadowed by the game.

This caused eight indie titles to delay their launches, including Baby Steps, Cloverpit, and Demonschool. Studios cited the overwhelming hype around Hollow Knight’s sequel as “a little krill not trying to get eaten by a blue whale.” 

However, Rogue Factor did not back down with the release of Hell is Us, an action-adventure game published by Nacon, which was released the same day as Hollow Knight: Silksong.

In a recent episode of the Friends Per Second podcast, Hell is Us creative director Jonathan Jacques-Belletete spoke candidly about the game’s launch, sharing that Team Cherry broke no rules. Still, the short notice felt a bit insensitive given the game’s following.

Jonathan stated:

“I mean, they’re allowed to do what they did. There are no laws or rules against that. And I don’t want to get into, ‘Oh, they caused this to us or somebody else.’ I don’t care about that, and I don’t want to get into that type of debate.

But I do, it’s hard for me not to say, like, when you know you’re that big, I think a shadow drop is a bit like wow. You know what I mean? As the GTA VI of indie, right? And I know now this term gets thrown around left and right, but people in the industry, that’s how we were calling such a game. To shadow drop something like this is a little callous.”

Jonathan confirmed that the studio had internal discussions at Rogue Factor about potentially delaying its game amid Hollow Knight’s release announcement, but logistical hurdles like refunding pre-orders and efforts to rebuild sales momentum stacked against them. He stated: 

“The real pain in the a** is that you have to refund your pre-orders when you do that, right? That’s real, ‘How you gonna do this?’ Now you need to rebuild them. We didn’t say, ‘Oh my god, we have to do it, but we can’t because of that.’ We were like, ‘No, I think we can get through the storm.’”

What many have to consider is that Rogue Factor is a relatively large-scale indie studio compared to many that have postponed their games. This move ultimately left Jonathan “happy.” However, he still believes that Hollow Knight: Silksong’s release did affect Hell is Us’ launch performance.

He stated, “I don’t have any specific numbers, at least not at this time. But for sure it did.” Still, it seems Hell is Us is holding out on its own, as the game’s received an 89.41% Positive User score out of 2,152 reviews, with an all-time peak of 4,431 players and a consistent daily average of 2,000 concurrent players on Steam.