Hollow Knight: Silksong finally arrived yesterday after years of anticipation. The long-awaited sequel launched simultaneously across Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, and as a day-one Game Pass title. Within minutes, excited players discovered they couldn’t actually buy or download the game anywhere.
The launch turned into digital chaos as storefronts buckled under unprecedented demand. Steam users found themselves stuck at checkout, unable to complete purchases despite adding the game to their carts. The store pages loaded slowly or timed out completely. PlayStation owners watched download buttons vanish from their screens, leaving only wishlist options behind.
Xbox and Game Pass subscribers faced their own nightmare. The game disappeared from search results, and store pages refused to load. Some players reported the Game Pass listing flickering in and out of existence like a digital ghost. Nintendo Switch owners encountered purchase errors and timeout messages when trying to access the eShop page.
Even alternative storefronts couldn’t handle the pressure. GOG initially seemed stable but soon started struggling with slower performance. Humble Store ran out of Steam keys entirely, leaving buyers with completed purchases but no way to actually play the game. “The keys for this game are temporarily exhausted” became an unwelcome surprise message for early adopters.
The simultaneous collapse of multiple major gaming platforms is virtually unheard of for a single game launch. Most big releases use preorders and preload periods to spread the server load across days or weeks. Team Cherry chose a different path, announcing an exact launch time with no advance purchase options. This decision funneled millions of eager players into a single moment of collective clicking.
Some resourceful players found creative solutions. Xbox owners discovered they could bypass the broken console store by using the mobile app to remotely start downloads. Others kept refreshing store pages until brief windows of functionality appeared. These workarounds spread quickly through gaming communities as players desperately sought any path to playing Silksong.
The bug becomes a feature
The technical meltdown oddly enhanced Silksong‘s legendary status. After years of waiting and countless “Silksong when?” memes, the game’s arrival proved so powerful it temporarily broke the entire digital gaming infrastructure. Players who managed to start downloads became the envy of their friends still battling error messages.
Team Cherry’s small indie studio created something that achieved what even the biggest AAA launches rarely accomplish—completely overwhelming every major distribution platform at once. For a game about a tiny bug knight, Silksong certainly made an enormous impact on launch day.
