The Hollow Knight: Silksong Effect

Hollow Knight: Silksong releases this week. With 5 million people wishlisting it on Steam, other games have moved their release dates away from the juggernaut. Also, why are gaming consoles going up in price instead of down? The answer might surprise you. All this and more. Let’s go!

Merrily They Moved Along

We reported last week that Hollow Knight: Silksong finally has a release date, and it is coming this week. The game was first announced in 2019, but little has been publicly stated about it since. Fans started to wonder if it would ever be completed. Now, with its sudden release date of Sept. 4 and an excited fan base ready to play the game they have waited so long for, publishers are scrambling to prepare.

Since the game was announced over a week ago, eight games have changed or announced their release date so it does not coincide with Silksong. Baby Steps (see the video above), Demonschool and CloverPit are a few of the independent games to push back their release. On their Steam page, CloverPit explained their decision:

Silksong is the most anticipated and wishlisted game on all of Steam and we think people will love this game and play it right at launch (including us) but that also means it will overshadow all games launching close to it. So if we stick to our original date [Sept. 3] we would risk the launch of CloverPit a fair bit.

Most of the games that have moved their release dates are now coming in late September, so fans will not have to wait too long. Until then, there’s always Silksong. 

The Price of Console Gaming

It is not a great time to be a bargain shopper looking for a new console. 

Consoles usually drop in price midway through their product life. However, the cost of consoles continue to increase in 2025. Part of this is due to tariffs, but Ars Technica investigated why game consoles are historically overpriced. They look at a number of factors, but one of the bigger ones that caught our eye was technology advancements. From the article:

[T]he rate of advancement in microchip manufacturing has slowed in recent years, making it harder than it was in the past to develop cheaper and/or smaller versions of console hardware.

The whole article is worth a read, and contains some interesting research and graphics. Check it out. In a related story, the President of Capcom says the high price of the PlayStation 5 contributed to low sales of Monster Hunter Wilds.

Side Quests (more stories worth reading)

🦟 We Spent the Night with Time Flies. Check out our thoughts on the game where you play as a fly.

🎮 Sony is reportedly planning a portable PlayStation 6, similar to the Nintendo Switch. 

🐍 After the success of Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, Konami says they hope to revive the Metal Gear game franchise. 

🤝🏻 Atari purchased five titles from Ubisoft including Grow Home and Child of Eden. The plan is to re-release the games while exploring “ways to expand and evolve these franchises.”

🙍🏽 A new report says Nintendo is reportedly withholding Switch 2 kits from developers, telling them to focus on making games for the original Switch instead. 

💿 75% of Cyberpunk 2077’s Nintendo Switch 2 sales were physical cartridges. 

😓 Elden Ring Nightreign announced a “high-difficulty expedition mode” that is coming to the game later this month. 

🎤 Gorillaz will headline “Fortnite Festival” Season 10. 

📈 Roblox recently had over 45 million concurrent players, more than the entirety of Steam combined. 

🔤 Check out every new Mega Pokémon announced for Pokémon Legends: Z-A. 

🦹 Ken Levine, creator of the Judas, discusses how a player’s actions will determine who is the villain in the upcoming game. 

✊🏾 450 game developers at Blizzard Entertainment who work on the Diablo series voted to unionize.

📊 According to a new report, digital purchases made up 90% of European gaming revenue in 2024.

👏🏻 Surprising no one, the studio behind Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 says sequels are coming. “Clair Obscur is the franchise name. Expedition 33 is one of the stories that we want to tell in this franchise,” says the game’s director. 

🇬🇧 Steam users in the United Kingdom will need a credit card to access “mature content” games.

⚖️ Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot was summoned to appear before a French court in relation to a harassment trial earlier this year.

📈 Over 357,000 attended Gamescom 2025, and over 72 million people watched the Gamescom Opening Night Live livestream. 

🎵 The composer for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided released a collection of unused music for the game that is free to download. 

New Releases this week:

Check out our article on 12 New Games to Play in September.

9/3: Hirogami (PlayStation and PC)
9/4: Hell is Us (PlayStation, Xbox and PC)
9/4: Hollow Knight: Silksong (PlayStation, Xbox, Switch and PC)
9/5: Cronos: The New Dawn (PlayStation, Xbox, Switch and PC)
9/5: Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion (PlayStation, Xbox, Switch and PC)

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