The splash damage caused by Hollow Knight: Silksong’s massive launch impact has spread beyond huge Steam concurrents and struggling storefronts to the parts of the internet where video game pirates hang out — and there something interesting is happening: the pirates are urging each other to buy the game instead of downloading the cracked version.
Team Cherry’s hotly anticipated Hollow Knight sequel finally came out on September 4, 2025 priced $20, six years after it was announced, and instantly crashed storefronts including Steam.
As the storefronts recovered, player numbers swelled to the point where Silksong hit an incredible launch day peak of 535,213 concurrent players on Steam, enough to make it the 18th most-played game ever on Valve’s platform. The true player count across all platforms will be much higher.
Silksong also launched DRM-free on GOG, so it was no surprise to see a cracked version available to download in the hours after launch. What was a surprise was the response from some veteran video game pirates, who urged their peers to support Team Cherry and buy the game instead.
“First game I’ve bought day of release in a decade probably,” said pyrokzg on the piracy subreddit in response to a thread upvoted 7,000 times. “Not even the decade for me. It’s the very first,” added Vamsi-Thopu.
So, why is this happening? Clearly, there is a huge amount of goodwill from across the internet directed at Team Cherry, the small indie developer that saw the original Hollow Knight blow up to such an extent that it was able to take its merry time with this ambitious sequel.
But there’s also a feeling that Team Cherry does things the right way. For a start, there’s a DRM-free version available at launch, but the Australian studio was also keen to honor the promises it made with its original Hollow Knight Kickstarter all those years ago. There’s even a free upgrade for the Nintendo Switch 2 version. In short, Team Cherry are the good guys, and the feeling is they deserve their success.
“It’s a 3-4 person team that has done right by their fans at every turn,” said No-Shape6053, also on the piracy subreddit. “Making sure the PC release is DRM free. Making sure all original backers of Hollow Knight get Silksong free on their choice of platform. This is a time where if we can afford to support them, we should.”
“Support the devs if you can, they deserve it,” added iTzNowbie. There’s plenty more where that came from, too. “The only game I will feel bad if I ever pirated it,” said beastfire24. “Hey the game is pretty cheap. This one, we should not pirate,” said Sythrin.
Interestingly, some have expressed surprise at the collective urge not to pirate Silksong, which itself prompted a discussion about why this is happening with Silksong but hasn’t happened with similarly beloved indie games in the past.
“Usually people here claim that the title, price, or the indie status makes no difference to them, but I guess that Silksong is just that respected,” offered MixaLv.
“I’m surprised too,” added ALIIERTx. “Many times people are like, ‘I don’t care if I pirate from indie developer,’ but on this one everyone is pretty defensive against piracy. I’m fascinated.”
Responses to this reinforce the Team Cherry angle. “Team Cherry has built themselves an amazing reputation,” suggested Someone_Existing_1. “Because they’re only a three-person studio, they can keep their games super cheap due to far less employees needing pay. Also they aren’t greedy f***s like most companies, so their DLCs are all free and there’s no microtransactions or online-only bulls**t.”
Be sure to check out IGN’s Silksong coverage, which includes the story of the superfan behind the YouTube Channel Daily Silksong News, who can finally rest after an incredible 1,693 days of videos.
Starting out Silksong? Here’s how to unlock and use the map, how to get Rosary Beads, the Achievements and Trophies list, and our ever expanding Silksong Interactive Map. Also, you may need the Bell Beast boss fight guide. It’s a hard one!
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Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
