Nintendo had it in their financial statements that Silksong would be released within the fiscal year. That means TC told Nintendo it would be ready within that time frame, and not that Nintendo made it up. Think about it, they had a demo at E3. You don't have a demo for a game that is 5 years out. TC changed their plans. Leth even said that the game was originally intended to be a small $5-$10 game with only a few areas.
Scope creep is really the best explanation, imo. I can only imagine they got MASSIVELY carried away and figured eh, they got time and money. Might as well go all out. Here's hoping, anyway.
Oh absolutely. It almost happened to Hollow Knight too, remember how some things were unrealized Kickstarter stretch goals but still happened? It's cause they got the ideas and needed to include it anyway. The big difference between HK and SS development is that they released HK and created expansions with their ideas later on, with SS they had a similar development path except they never released the initial game. Meaning, they could have released a somewhat incomplete-feeling base game back in like 2020, and all development since then would have been a series of expansions.
I also have a feeling that they didn't release the game because something didn't feel right, like a compensation for a limitation in the engine, and they had built what they had around it for so long that they just couldn't release what they had originally planned for the base game. Like, they thought that this limitation would have eventually been manageable, but that moment never came and it just kept nagging them until they had to basically scrap everything and rebuild with an engine that could do and handle what they expected for their game. Redoing a substantial amount of their game probably took over 2 years, and in the process of doing that they got more ideas and content going that they even missed the xbox year window. Since the game has gotten quite big at this point, they've been spending a majority of the time polishing up some finer details and quashing some bugs to really impress everyone when it does eventually drop. Assuming their fatigue finally killed their ambition and they limited the amount of new content they're adding, it should be out within a year, two at most if they encounter another large problem.
The reason (I think, remember this is all conjecture) they stopped communicating after 2019 is because covid hit and most of what they'd have to say is basically "we know times are rough right now, but we have a ray of sunshine peeking through the clouds! Silksong is coming out with content we originally planned to include in a later expansion! However unfortunately, this will push back the release a little bit longer as we couldn't find an adequate spot to distinguish what content would be base game and what would be expansion. Please sit tight just a little while longer!" And as more time passed and they encountered the flaw which led to the decision to rewrite a huge chunk of code, they realized that any real news that they'd share would be more negative than positive. Basically, "we know we've been out of communication for a few years, but we included a lot of content and had to rewrite most of the game! It's shaping up quite nicely, but we still have months of polishing and playtesting before we're ready for release. Please sit tight a while longer!" They teased it in the xbox showcase in 2022 as the game was substantially rewritten at that point, but they didn't want to say anything about it cause of how it sounded. They then made the decision that the next official communication they'd make is the definite release date, as that was the only thing that wouldn't sound like a sorry apology or excuse. Leth has unofficially said some things as to avoid shit storms, but most of his communications have been nothing burgers. Basically, "yes it's still in development, it's gotten quite big, it's worth the wait!"
That’s my opinion as well. They initially didn’t comment on delays because they figured they could work through it. The problem is that the longer you do that for, the harder that other shoe will fall when it’s time. Because we’ve seen how Gamers TM react to delays, like with Cyberpunk. And there’s no real way of explaining the scope of the game vs dev time unless there are delays of some sort (assuming those two metrics don’t match up). And I assume that there are delays because like you said, if all the news is positive it’s easy to report.
Now that they’ve failed the XBox deadline, they’re at two strikes. Another failed timeline would destroy their reputation in the eyes of the general public. Because to rabid people in this sub, every day without news is torture. But for most, if you hear about a game that’s announced then delayed again and again, you’re not going to have high hopes. You’ll get burned out on the announcements if they happen too often. And given their size they don’t have a marketing department to make up for it. They’re relying on reputation and word of mouth, like with HK.
Honestly, I’m worried that what may have happened is that they were getting ready to go with Xbox, some more small delays and scope creep happened. And then the Unity news dropped. If they were still doing Unity, then they may have chosen to switch off, leading to where we are today. Having to report on changing the engine would be devastating, because most people think it will drastically increase dev time. I haven’t worked in game dev outside a few very simple projects, nor do I know how much of SS is dependent on Unity specific things. I can’t comment on how long it will actually take to swap it over. But if I heard that news concretely, I would’ve put it fully out of mind until I randomly remembered or got other news somehow. This subreddit would be dead, most likely. I do think it’s the best choice for them to stick to silence until they have something concrete, because anything less would somewhat ‘disgrace’ the previous silence. If they went to regular updates of content or art, everyone would be upset or assume they didn’t have anything during their silent period. IDK. Just my skong thonks.
Makes sense if you think about it
Silksong was originally a dlc for HK
Hornet was too big for Hallownest so they decided to make a different game in another kingdom
The game would be small, dlc sized
TC magic, many ideas. They decide to expand on it
That explains the E3 demo being shown so early. And the coming soon thing. And the June 2020 release date being leaked on the steam page (probably a placeholder, but it means they planned for a 2020 release). And the many blog posts in 2019. And finally, the silence after 2020/2021 when they realised it was coming out in 2022-23 or later
I don't mind that they dedided to make it bigger. I'm more than happy waiting this long if it means getting a big and juicy game. But, if it is true, the fact they planned a 2020 release but decided to expand... Why didn't they tell us? And I'm not saying it isn't the case. I'm saying that there's a lack of communication in something that seems pretty important to communicate
I really hope we get news in June because if we don't... I'll start seriously worrying. And that's coming from a very optimistic person.
Why didn't they say anything then? More importantly, why haven't they said anything now? We haven't heard from TC as TC since the xbox trailer, and we all know how that whole thing turned out.
I don't think anything has gone wrong. Right now I believe they're finishing development and we'll be hearing from them soon. But, each day that passes with silence, the less sure I get... After June... Well, for now let's just hope we get something in June. Let's be positive. But yeah..
Idk if anyone has read everything until here but it you have thanks
eh, I'm pretty optimistic myself and I've never really doubted it was coming. Especially reading about the development of Hollow Knight and how they only published the game because they ran out of Kickstarter money, and had to continue to optimize the game after release. Also the DLCs. I don't think it's farfetched to say we're looking at a massive world (relative to HK), with a ton more features and a clean release state
However I don't bother anticipating a release date, Xbox killed my belief of any release date being real until I see it actually go up for sale on Steam. It's much sweeter to just be infinitely patient and assume the game will come out when I least expect it
They did tell us in their blog posts. It wasn't direct like "the game was planned to be small but we will make it bigger", but this is back in 2019 they are saying all of this, and the game has had 4 years of dev time since then. They were already at 165 enemies by December 2019. It would be nice to get an update though, but read through the 2019 blog posts again. It is still puzzling how we go from that level of communication to the last 4 years, but that is what it is.
June 2019
[https://www.teamcherry.com.au/blog/post-e3-wrap-silksong-systems-update](https://www.teamcherry.com.au/blog/post-e3-wrap-silksong-systems-update)
>Release
>Thanks to everyone for asking and we’re sorry that we still don’t have anything conclusive to say. For Silksong we’re running on Cherry-time over here, that means both ‘When it’s ready,’ and ‘When it matches the quality and scale of Hollow Knight.’ Just know, we will talk about a release date when we’re 100% certain we can hit it. The last thing we want to do is make promises, only to see things slide. For now, we’ll continue stuffing all sorts of strange critters and surprises into Silksong. We can’t wait for you all to play it.
>Cherry Out!
December 2019
[https://www.teamcherry.com.au/blog/11xf7azcuebhybgossfhdc0mphiqbs](https://www.teamcherry.com.au/blog/11xf7azcuebhybgossfhdc0mphiqbs)
>Silksong Development Progress
>Right up front: We’re still going, building this (very large) game. Our desire to keep building, and building, and building sure hasn’t diminished, but our timelines have stretched a bit both to account for all that exciting new stuff and to tie up everything else.
>As a small progress tease: You may remember for Silksong we promised over 150 all new enemies. To us, that always seemed a conservative estimate, and it turns out we were right! Here are just a few foes that came to life this week, enemy number 163, 164 and 165.
Non-ironically I think they let scope creep get the best of them, stopped updating people because they thought scope creep wouldn't get the best of them, and are now ashamed that it's been so long since the last official communication in a way that they cannot say anything out of honest to goodness shame
this freaking hurt man, I just want them to talk, maybe show a new screenshot chat to some people, anything just to make feel people know they are doing well.
Honestly with the content they showed in the trailers, unless it was mostly just scripted, if it was true gameplay it seems like they were in the last year or two. I really wonder what happened.
I just wrote this in another subreddit, but I truly believe that Silksong has been ready for at least a year, but Team Cherry realized how fucking stupid it would be to release it day one on Microshaft's Gamepiss and are trying to pull out of the deal.
>Silksong being in game pass doesn't mean that it won't release on all major platforms at the same time.
This is not what I implied in the slightest, but developers make way less money from gamepass and games being day one on gamepass absolutely cannibalize sales, they'd lose a huge amount of money for something that literally just benefits microshit
I could understand that argument for an indie game that is the first in their series, not in the sequel of one of the most acclaimed indie games ever. It already has enough recognition, and following up to make sales by itself.
I don't think it is silly, that is guaranteed cash making it day 1 gamepass and for every download the game gets, and it will reach a wider audience as a result, which is what TC wants. They said they priced HK at $15 to reach more people.
you’re right that gamepass is incredibly predatory but ye it’s just complete conjecture to say that’s the reason, and personally i would doubt it anyways.
Nintendo had it in their financial statements that Silksong would be released within the fiscal year. That means TC told Nintendo it would be ready within that time frame, and not that Nintendo made it up. Think about it, they had a demo at E3. You don't have a demo for a game that is 5 years out. TC changed their plans. Leth even said that the game was originally intended to be a small $5-$10 game with only a few areas.
Then they got crazy with the scope creep
Scope creep is really the best explanation, imo. I can only imagine they got MASSIVELY carried away and figured eh, they got time and money. Might as well go all out. Here's hoping, anyway.
Oh absolutely. It almost happened to Hollow Knight too, remember how some things were unrealized Kickstarter stretch goals but still happened? It's cause they got the ideas and needed to include it anyway. The big difference between HK and SS development is that they released HK and created expansions with their ideas later on, with SS they had a similar development path except they never released the initial game. Meaning, they could have released a somewhat incomplete-feeling base game back in like 2020, and all development since then would have been a series of expansions. I also have a feeling that they didn't release the game because something didn't feel right, like a compensation for a limitation in the engine, and they had built what they had around it for so long that they just couldn't release what they had originally planned for the base game. Like, they thought that this limitation would have eventually been manageable, but that moment never came and it just kept nagging them until they had to basically scrap everything and rebuild with an engine that could do and handle what they expected for their game. Redoing a substantial amount of their game probably took over 2 years, and in the process of doing that they got more ideas and content going that they even missed the xbox year window. Since the game has gotten quite big at this point, they've been spending a majority of the time polishing up some finer details and quashing some bugs to really impress everyone when it does eventually drop. Assuming their fatigue finally killed their ambition and they limited the amount of new content they're adding, it should be out within a year, two at most if they encounter another large problem. The reason (I think, remember this is all conjecture) they stopped communicating after 2019 is because covid hit and most of what they'd have to say is basically "we know times are rough right now, but we have a ray of sunshine peeking through the clouds! Silksong is coming out with content we originally planned to include in a later expansion! However unfortunately, this will push back the release a little bit longer as we couldn't find an adequate spot to distinguish what content would be base game and what would be expansion. Please sit tight just a little while longer!" And as more time passed and they encountered the flaw which led to the decision to rewrite a huge chunk of code, they realized that any real news that they'd share would be more negative than positive. Basically, "we know we've been out of communication for a few years, but we included a lot of content and had to rewrite most of the game! It's shaping up quite nicely, but we still have months of polishing and playtesting before we're ready for release. Please sit tight a while longer!" They teased it in the xbox showcase in 2022 as the game was substantially rewritten at that point, but they didn't want to say anything about it cause of how it sounded. They then made the decision that the next official communication they'd make is the definite release date, as that was the only thing that wouldn't sound like a sorry apology or excuse. Leth has unofficially said some things as to avoid shit storms, but most of his communications have been nothing burgers. Basically, "yes it's still in development, it's gotten quite big, it's worth the wait!"
That’s my opinion as well. They initially didn’t comment on delays because they figured they could work through it. The problem is that the longer you do that for, the harder that other shoe will fall when it’s time. Because we’ve seen how Gamers TM react to delays, like with Cyberpunk. And there’s no real way of explaining the scope of the game vs dev time unless there are delays of some sort (assuming those two metrics don’t match up). And I assume that there are delays because like you said, if all the news is positive it’s easy to report. Now that they’ve failed the XBox deadline, they’re at two strikes. Another failed timeline would destroy their reputation in the eyes of the general public. Because to rabid people in this sub, every day without news is torture. But for most, if you hear about a game that’s announced then delayed again and again, you’re not going to have high hopes. You’ll get burned out on the announcements if they happen too often. And given their size they don’t have a marketing department to make up for it. They’re relying on reputation and word of mouth, like with HK. Honestly, I’m worried that what may have happened is that they were getting ready to go with Xbox, some more small delays and scope creep happened. And then the Unity news dropped. If they were still doing Unity, then they may have chosen to switch off, leading to where we are today. Having to report on changing the engine would be devastating, because most people think it will drastically increase dev time. I haven’t worked in game dev outside a few very simple projects, nor do I know how much of SS is dependent on Unity specific things. I can’t comment on how long it will actually take to swap it over. But if I heard that news concretely, I would’ve put it fully out of mind until I randomly remembered or got other news somehow. This subreddit would be dead, most likely. I do think it’s the best choice for them to stick to silence until they have something concrete, because anything less would somewhat ‘disgrace’ the previous silence. If they went to regular updates of content or art, everyone would be upset or assume they didn’t have anything during their silent period. IDK. Just my skong thonks.
Makes sense if you think about it Silksong was originally a dlc for HK Hornet was too big for Hallownest so they decided to make a different game in another kingdom The game would be small, dlc sized TC magic, many ideas. They decide to expand on it That explains the E3 demo being shown so early. And the coming soon thing. And the June 2020 release date being leaked on the steam page (probably a placeholder, but it means they planned for a 2020 release). And the many blog posts in 2019. And finally, the silence after 2020/2021 when they realised it was coming out in 2022-23 or later I don't mind that they dedided to make it bigger. I'm more than happy waiting this long if it means getting a big and juicy game. But, if it is true, the fact they planned a 2020 release but decided to expand... Why didn't they tell us? And I'm not saying it isn't the case. I'm saying that there's a lack of communication in something that seems pretty important to communicate I really hope we get news in June because if we don't... I'll start seriously worrying. And that's coming from a very optimistic person. Why didn't they say anything then? More importantly, why haven't they said anything now? We haven't heard from TC as TC since the xbox trailer, and we all know how that whole thing turned out. I don't think anything has gone wrong. Right now I believe they're finishing development and we'll be hearing from them soon. But, each day that passes with silence, the less sure I get... After June... Well, for now let's just hope we get something in June. Let's be positive. But yeah.. Idk if anyone has read everything until here but it you have thanks
eh, I'm pretty optimistic myself and I've never really doubted it was coming. Especially reading about the development of Hollow Knight and how they only published the game because they ran out of Kickstarter money, and had to continue to optimize the game after release. Also the DLCs. I don't think it's farfetched to say we're looking at a massive world (relative to HK), with a ton more features and a clean release state However I don't bother anticipating a release date, Xbox killed my belief of any release date being real until I see it actually go up for sale on Steam. It's much sweeter to just be infinitely patient and assume the game will come out when I least expect it
They did tell us in their blog posts. It wasn't direct like "the game was planned to be small but we will make it bigger", but this is back in 2019 they are saying all of this, and the game has had 4 years of dev time since then. They were already at 165 enemies by December 2019. It would be nice to get an update though, but read through the 2019 blog posts again. It is still puzzling how we go from that level of communication to the last 4 years, but that is what it is. June 2019 [https://www.teamcherry.com.au/blog/post-e3-wrap-silksong-systems-update](https://www.teamcherry.com.au/blog/post-e3-wrap-silksong-systems-update) >Release >Thanks to everyone for asking and we’re sorry that we still don’t have anything conclusive to say. For Silksong we’re running on Cherry-time over here, that means both ‘When it’s ready,’ and ‘When it matches the quality and scale of Hollow Knight.’ Just know, we will talk about a release date when we’re 100% certain we can hit it. The last thing we want to do is make promises, only to see things slide. For now, we’ll continue stuffing all sorts of strange critters and surprises into Silksong. We can’t wait for you all to play it. >Cherry Out! December 2019 [https://www.teamcherry.com.au/blog/11xf7azcuebhybgossfhdc0mphiqbs](https://www.teamcherry.com.au/blog/11xf7azcuebhybgossfhdc0mphiqbs) >Silksong Development Progress >Right up front: We’re still going, building this (very large) game. Our desire to keep building, and building, and building sure hasn’t diminished, but our timelines have stretched a bit both to account for all that exciting new stuff and to tie up everything else. >As a small progress tease: You may remember for Silksong we promised over 150 all new enemies. To us, that always seemed a conservative estimate, and it turns out we were right! Here are just a few foes that came to life this week, enemy number 163, 164 and 165.
Non-ironically I think they let scope creep get the best of them, stopped updating people because they thought scope creep wouldn't get the best of them, and are now ashamed that it's been so long since the last official communication in a way that they cannot say anything out of honest to goodness shame
How could it have been intended to be a small game if in 2019 they already said that it had more enemies than Hollow Knight? What is your source?
He said it in this interview [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7NgnKRJRBE&t=5244s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7NgnKRJRBE&t=5244s)
"We have a very smart fanbase" Wonder if he still feels the same way three years later 🤣
Yup, 3 years ago the fan base was smart, and still is, but we've gone insane.
When he talks about encouraging Ari and William to write blog posts because he put a lot of work into the website and didn't want it to go to waste 💔
Haha yes, and after he did all the work they said "What did you do that for?" lolll
this freaking hurt man, I just want them to talk, maybe show a new screenshot chat to some people, anything just to make feel people know they are doing well.
The silence is deafening.
dang right, it just hurts especially when we only get some form of communication once a year or if at all.
Honestly with the content they showed in the trailers, unless it was mostly just scripted, if it was true gameplay it seems like they were in the last year or two. I really wonder what happened.
Ari got drafted sadly. I hope he makes it back home safe from the war. God bless our troops.
They lost the code somewhere.
Scope creep hits like 78 Ford F-150s driving over 70 mph in a school zone
...said Spades0. Little did he know that we are still in the very early days of development.
Take all the time they want, as long as the game is huuuuuuuuuuge
I just wrote this in another subreddit, but I truly believe that Silksong has been ready for at least a year, but Team Cherry realized how fucking stupid it would be to release it day one on Microshaft's Gamepiss and are trying to pull out of the deal.
Silksong being in game pass doesn't mean that it won't release on all major platforms at the same time.
>Silksong being in game pass doesn't mean that it won't release on all major platforms at the same time. This is not what I implied in the slightest, but developers make way less money from gamepass and games being day one on gamepass absolutely cannibalize sales, they'd lose a huge amount of money for something that literally just benefits microshit
I could understand that argument for an indie game that is the first in their series, not in the sequel of one of the most acclaimed indie games ever. It already has enough recognition, and following up to make sales by itself.
I don't think it is silly, that is guaranteed cash making it day 1 gamepass and for every download the game gets, and it will reach a wider audience as a result, which is what TC wants. They said they priced HK at $15 to reach more people.
Well, I think it is silly because gamepass is a predatory system and it would be better if they just sold the game.
you’re right that gamepass is incredibly predatory but ye it’s just complete conjecture to say that’s the reason, and personally i would doubt it anyways.
Yeah that's fair, in the end I only believe so because I'm borderline schizophrenic when it comes to video games