Hollow Knight Fans have been waiting years for the metroidvania’s sequel Silksong to appear at a new gaming showcase alongside an actual release date. Last week, the game finally was briefly featured during the Nintendo Direct for Switch 2, but a 2025 launch window wasn’t all fans were blessed with. A new screenshot over on Nintendo Japan website offers a new glimpse of a scene we also saw in the original 2019 reveal over six years ago.
The wait for Silksong has become lowkey legendary in the world of gaming, but fans have become accustomed to the crushing disappointment every time there’s a new announcement showcase without fresh news of the haunting 2D action platformer’s impending arrival. So even just five seconds of footage inside a sizzle reel inside a 60-minute Nintendo Direct was like mana from heaven when Team Cherry quietly re-affirmed a 2025 release window for Silksong on Switch 2 (and Switch 1), as well as PlayStation, Xbox, and PC.
But that’s not all. A few fresh screenshots surfaced as well, including a callback to a scene first teased back during the game’s February 2019 reveal when it was still planned as DLC for the original 2017 GOTY contender (though many fans didn’t actually discover Hollow Knight until it came to Switch the following year). The new image quickly racked up 6.9k likes on Reddit (nice) and shows protagonist Hornet sitting on a bench in the city Bellhart.
What exactly has changed? Well there’s combat UI now, for one. There’s also a lot more detail in the citizens crowding around the foreground while an increased soft focus has blurred out more of the homes in the city’s background. The image is sharper and more detailed, though most casual observers would probably be hard-pressed to tell you which one was from six years ago and which only surfaced this week. “OMG IS THIS REAL,” wrote one fan on Reddit. “Yup it’s real,” responded another. “We’re so fucking back rn.”
A few more new screenshots surfaced which also parallel scenes previously teased in more recent screenshots from the PlayStation Store. Hollow Knight superfan account Mossbag has cataloged them:
2025 is currently shaping up to be a massive year for sequels that fans have been waiting forever for. It will only have been eight years since Hollow Knight first came out. Meanwhile it’s been 11 years since the last Mario Kart first hit Wii U, and over 12 since the last Grand Theft Auto launched. Time will tell if they all manage to live up to the ever-skyrocketing hype. But some super fans have mixed feelings about the long waits finally being over. “In a weird way, there’s a part of me that’s not ready for the end,” wrote the Daily Silksong News account on April 2, which posts YouTube videos every day about how little news there is about Silksong.
A recent video by the Hollow Knight archive helpfully catalogs what the last six years have been like for fans. All footage of the game that currently exists totals less than four minutes. Even including screenshots from all the official blog posts, and press exclusives only gets the video up to six and a half. Few sequels have the weight of immeasurable expectations on them like Silksong does, thought it’s one of a number of upcoming sequels aiming to match or surpass the magic of the originals including Hades 2, Slay the Spire 2, and Enter the Gungeon 2. No matter how they finally turn out, they’ll all have something else in common as well: they’ll all be on Switch 2.
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