The State Of Silksong's Goodwill | Castle Super Beast 273 Clip

[@kosm999]

Remember that scene is Disco Elysium where you find an abandoned game studio that essentially ate itself into oblivion because the developers didn’t know when to stop adding stuff to a game they would never finish? I feel like this is similar to that.

[@renaigh]

that was more of a specific allusion to ZA/UM personally.

[@thelaughingrouge]

I feel like that applies quite nicely.

[@thecaptain6520]

Nightdive dodged that bullet with the System Shock remake

[@zephshoir]

A big difference here is that Silksong does have a lot of budget for it from the sales of anything Hollow Knight. The studio in DE had a budget that run out. And I doubt making Silksong with their small team is expensive enough to be a significant risk for anything like that to happen.

[@adams3627]

​@@renaigh it's the story of a lot of small studios, I'll bet.

[@ApexGale]

My guess with Silksong is that it's fallen prey to feature creep/unrestricted scope. Any programmer will tell you one of the hardest parts of creating a product is revising your scope to actually be manageable on a timeline. But we saw how Team Cherry just kept releasing more and more massive updates for Hollow Knight that added entire new areas, bosses, and content for pretty much free. Would not be surprised if they just kept thinking "Oh, what if we add this too?" Hence why development is taking so long even after we'd already seen gameplay footage.

[@leithaziz2716]

I think Silksong's announcement was an inescapable situation where if they kept quiet about it's *existence* when it started out as DLC, then fans who backed the kickstarter might think they got suckered. But then the scope transitioned into a new game and it would take longer development time. I wonder if Team Cherry considered trying out Early Access, so they can "finish" the game whenever they want but give people a bone as a reminder of its progress.

[@rasusbeijaminas2301]

oh absolutely. The "we could release next week or we could just add this and release in two weeks" ad infinitum cycle is just too hard to resist, especially without some management on your ass

[@zi-chan-desu]

for my money it’s this AND the like. 7 different platforms they said they’re shipping this apparently bigass game to every time they’re like “we’re releasing this game for modern consoles! and PC! and previous gen consoles! and your phone! and the sega genesis! and-“ usually this becomes a total nightmare dumpster fire

[@renaigh]

or Games just take a long time to make and in the interest of avoiding crunch, the Studio would prefer to take care of each other's mental health rather than risk making mistakes that would inevitably disappoint buyers.

[@Toksyuryel]

@@renaigh Crunch is also often a symptom of scope creep.

[@lewiscarrol6193]

Funny thing is, not only did Nintendo show Silksong demo in 2019, it was playable at a Nintendo convention in my country in the same year. I even played it. 5 years ago, it's insane.

[@Nilon241]

I remember Team Cherry bragging about how they made Hollow Knight in 2 years because they worked 12 hour shifts, 6 days a week for the *entirely* of those 2 years. I do not want to imagine the amount of crunch they are going through right now.

[@thunderborn3231]

been 3 years maybe this time they're 'not' killing themselves?

[@Dasaltwarrior]

​@@thunderborn3231 I think they were probably crunching themselves up until the Unity stuff happened. Probably not the best feeling to pour literal blood sweat 'n tears into something, only to have your work potentially crumble out of the blue like that Or maybe it did and they made an engine switch. Who can really say atp aside from TC

[@Burningblood1984]

You don't take ten years to make a game by crunching. These guys have enough money from the first hollow knight to never work again. I GUARANTEE you they are working less than ten hours a month and are constantly taking six+ month long vacations like the deltarune guys.

[@Avengedtenfold]

@@Burningblood1984 You are insane.

[@ApexGale]

​@@Burningblood1984 They aren't taking vacations, the issue is almost certainly a result of poor planning/management combined with their tiny team. What they needed to do with their profit from HK was invest in expanding their dev team, get a proper development manager. There's a reason software engineers run scrums, to keep track of progress daily/weekly.

[@GoldLight73]

“Hey guys, sorry Silksong is taking so long. We’ve discovered that IRL Deepnest is located beneath our workplace so we had to change locations.” This would be a plausible excuse for an Australian team.

[@Coypop]

Dingos ate all our babies, every single one. Give us time to grieve.

[@aSkymne]

“The underminer collapsed our offices”

[@spacedog12345]

All the giant-ass snakes and spiders have taken the development team hostage.

[@jiin6]

spiders got them

[@whitebeltcentral125]

Australia IS deepnest

[@nickcasillas1618]

Hi! I’m someone who backed Crowsworn for around 1,700$USD, I will say that Pat is pretty incorrect here. Crowsworn’s have had direct contact with us the backers through a private discord, and have spoken to us multiple times as the game has progressed. Private demos have also been shown off on the show floors of various gaming events as well. It’s progressing slowly, but it seems much closer to completion than Silksong does.

[@Hexagonaldonut]

No yeah, all the love to Team Cherry for what they've made, they've been vastly worse about it in comparison to Crowsworn. Hell, there's an actual *demo* for Crowsworn. Yes, they've been taking their time, it's been a slow process, but because they've ACTUALLY BEEN COMMUNICATING WITH US, it's been pretty chill!

[@kristhaboss4451]

Didn’t the marketer for both games say that crowsworn is definitely releasing after silksong, I’m not a backer so maybe I’m incorrect but wouldn’t they know more than even the backers?

[@MetaNiteFM]

I came to say the same. At the very least they’ve given us periodic updates to be like “Look, we’re still working! We don’t know when it’ll be out. Game development is hard and takes a long time. But we made this new environment! And we’ll keep letting you know where we’re at!” That’s it. That’s all we want from them and it’s all I ask from Team Cherry

[@starwars90001]

this is a deep question because it comes down to many factors. Did you promise it? Did you set dates? Did you a announce it? Are you updating people? These things change how people react to when something coming out. Two examples of goodwill is Deltarune and Undertale Yellow. No one knew Deltarune was going to be a thing and Toby keeps posting updates and Undertale Yellow is a fangame so nobody even asused it would be finished, also both of these have demos to hold and get you onboard. Silksong is just a promise, it should never have been announced ahead of development.

[@ApexGale]

Silksong *does* have a gameplay demo that they've shown off. Issue is that was like 3 years ago and we've had no news otherwise.

[@floppytokey]

except it was announced in the kickstarter. as they said, it's a delayed backer reward.

[@jadaw644]

The initial version of it just being DLC was announced. It being changed to be a full game that was made in a new engine is a completely different story. ​@@floppytokey

[@benquinnobi6461]

Yeah but imagine this same situation but we're still imagining it as DLC. We sit here waiting 6-7 years for what we still think is just an expansion, one promised in the kickstarter, would that really make the situation better?​@@jadaw644

[@aliciafraser1835]

​@@jadaw644but, it's not? If they were changing what they were doing with that backer reward then they had no choice but to tell the public. I mean they could have hidden it and then caused their backers to freak out.

[@TheRogueWolf]

We rag on publishers for pushing developers to "get it out the door" before it's ready, but sometimes you really do need someone to say "enough, finish what you've got and ship".

[@BronzeAgePepper]

two words: feature creep

[@johndelanie3649]

Absolutely no reason they couldn't do what the did with HK and put the game out and then support it with big updates down the line. Dead Cells did it too and both those games are huge indie hits that helped out the indie scene on the map

[@chriswest6988]

The show doesn't go on because it's ready. It goes on because it's 11 : 30. Edited to break misleading time code auto formatting

[@dreamcatcherpone]

Pat, It's was recently the 6th Year anniversary of the 10 second title screen teaser trailer for Elder Scrolls 6.

[@Nilon241]

At least BGS has made games in the meantime. The devs still talk about it in podcasts and interviews. The most we've gotten out of cherry is apologies from xbox about silksong not coming out this year. We've also, you know, SEEN a bunch of Silksong footage - going from that to literally nothing is worse than just dropping a title and leaving, imo.

[@Nilon241]

Also like, ESVI is a privately funded project. We don't really owe them constant project updates. Silksong was created as a backer reward 7 years ago, with most of the backer characters being saved for it. The fact that several people paid thousands for something they have been given radio silence on for this long, is a bit gross I feel. We were all collectively on FNF's shit for not updating backers on the project they funded, and they only had 2 years of silence!

[@dudere]

@@Nilon241 Good point. Bethesda/Microsoft investors are probably getting unhappy ES6 has yet to drop. Silkson inverters are getting unhappy too. Their inverters are their players though. Meaning the people who were true believers in Hollow Knight are getting unhappy. That is a way worse situation then people who own stock and do not particularly know what it is for. At the end of the day they can buy new stock and move on. If Hollow Knight fans move on that is really sad.

[@Roobanguyable]

Bethesda just released a game so you can point to that as what they were working on. You can't do that for Team Cherry because they only have 1 game.

[@Szriko]

oh no no no that's bethesda they get a free pass for anything they do. 😃

[@alittlebirdi]

When the reaction to a release date goes from joy to relief, you've taken too long.

[@shadowednight1600]

Silksong being the new Duke Nukem Forever is now very possible

[@austin.....]

@@shadowednight1600 In the sense that nothing they could ever make will compare to the expectations we've built up all these years? Or in the sense of TIDDIES

[@thatfunkadeus]

Its astonishing how people dont seem to realize that the game isnt made. It's not done and theyre just holding it back for no reason, it is literally not finished it doesnt exist, there is no silk song yet and you couldnt just have it right now. Yeah we wish we were playing it, there are hundreds of thousands of games that you can shut up and play while you wait for these artists to do their thing and make the masterpiece yall dont deserve

[@alittlebirdi]

@@thatfunkadeus Are you ok?

[@shadowednight1600]

@@alittlebirdi I doubt it. Yes, games take time, but again I'm worried that this game may never come out

[@Malakai222]

I was at E3 2019, Silksong is the only game that was PLAYABLE at Nintendo's booth that is still not out yet, everything else released years ago

[@powerfist1340]

Elden Ring Released, sold like tits on butter, got a DLC release that was basically a sequel - which ALSO sold like tits on butter... and this in a period of time when Team Cherry has said NOTHING

[@BigFingerRo]

I'll say the same I said on the sub: There are, here in the comments, a number of people who work independently, and can confirm what I'm gonna say. A fundamental part of working independently is interfacing with your potential, past and current clients. Tell people what you sell, and once they buy, tell them how things are gonna go down. This is true for any project, from the smallest, "guy selling cakes from his kitchen" sort of ordeal, to multi-millionaire developments. It has been true since man could keep records. I believe Majima is told by Sagawa in Y0 a phrase that sums this up very eloquently: It's the ABCs. Always Be in Contact. You can't not do it. You can dance around details, and even be creative about what, how and when you relay info, but you have to give info. If you don't, you create uncertainty. And uncertainty is _bad_ for business. This, ultimately, is a business. Artists tend to be _fucking terribad_ (I include myself in this statement) at remembering this fact. Team Cherry aren't giving this to us as charity or a gift. They're not raising funds for an NGO. This is ultimately a project meant to be sold to people. People who, in some cases, _already gave money_ , by the way.This is a transaction. They give us a product, we pay. If there is no product, there is no pay. In this regard, Team Cherry has objectively handled this incorrectly.

[@Coconut-219]

🎯This is exactly the sort of thing I think when people complain that customers are being "entitled" - well of course they are in a way, that's the unwritten contract you entered when you accepted their financial support.

[@Dragonsmana]

Very well said. At some point, it at least has to be considered a form of professional courtesy. Is anyone entitled to development roadmaps or a release window? Absolutely not. Would the most minor amount of communication show some respect and keep people empathetic to the long development cycle? Absolutely. It's the sheer radio silence that gives the bad impression. I wish Team Cherry well, but any rumors or wild expectations are completely on them for completely ignoring literally everyone else and expecting nobody to have a negative reaction to it.

[@k.-flynn]

Also, a lot of people have taken advantage of the "reclusive artist" caricature to take a bunch of money from people, promise something huge, and disappear. Big developers have pulled this. People thought No Man's Sky did this. Its not out of the question that Team Cherry has done this, because their behavior looks a lot like prior scams. People will judge the silence as shady, but how could you blame them? Team Cherry hasn't provided any info to draw a conclusion from.

[@t.dmattocks6119]

@@k.-flynn I blame them because Hollow Knight exist.

[@thecaptain6520]

"When it's done." - Duke Nukem Forever

[@RipOffProductionsLLC]

At least Silksong isn't restarting from scratch every few years to chase the new biggest features.

[@kricku]

Beyond Good and Evil 2: The actual record holder

[@CompagnonDeMisere25]

@@RipOffProductionsLLC As far as we know...

[@NeutralGuyDoubleZero]

​@kricku good and evil 2 is in the dumpster sorry. Ubisoft doesn't wanna admit they've cancelled an IP and that's itm

[@RipOffProductionsLLC]

@CompagnonDeMisere25 the things we've seen show a game with remarkably similar art style and gameplay, so it's not anything like DNF's constant reinventing issues.

[@adams3627]

Honestly, this is all copium to avoid facing the increasingly-likely possibility that they've been hit with dead-webcomic syndrome. "Next panel's taking a little longer than usual" "Feeling a bit burned out, get back to you guys in a week or two" "Life has been really beating me up for a few months now, gonna go on hiatus" "Yeah, my heart's not in this, I think I'm done you guys." Only they CAN'T admit that it's dead because there's millions of dollars in sales to worry about, kickstarter backers waiting hungrily for the thing you promised them YEARS ago, and probably death threats if they come out and say it isn't happening. I hope I'm wrong, but it feels more likely to be true by the day.

[@fable23]

Don't forget legal action. Silksong is technically a backer reward, which means it is part of a product that was promised in exchange for money. If they don't deliver on that promise, then they either have to return that money to anyone who asks for it, or get sued.

[@JMenitta]

I think what frustrates me the most with this is the idea that "Team Cherry doesn't OWE you anything or an explanation." I guess they don't but for the past 5 years it has been free to post on the Internet. It takes 2 minutes. I'm doing it now. Just A N Y communication for this is easy. Nobody is asking for massive marketing or constant Nintendo treehouse showcases. I've seen indie devs always engage with their communities. It's not hard. The idea that they can't is fucking nonsense.

[@UltimaKeyMaster]

The crazy thing about that is they absolutely positively do owe their backers an explanation. They have not gotten everything they paid for, and I don't thing even non-backers should be silent about that when if this was Star Citizen, we'd be lambasting it to hell and back.

[@SnowyJop]

Star Citizen and Hollow Knight are definitely 2 completely different situations to be fair. The original Hollow Knight kickstarter raised 50k and Star Citizen raised like millions. And to be honest with you I imagine many Hollow Knight kickstarter backers already felt like they got their moneys worth. You could never accuse Hollow Knight of being an incomplete product

[@lozg8887]

This. I'm not super salty about it or anything - it's just a videogame after all and it isn't like I don't have tonnes of great games sitting in my backlog, and I was not an original backer. However, I did buy Hollow Knight four times (one for my PC, one for my Switch, and two Steam gifts for other people) and through word of mouth I know of two people that bought the game based off my recommendation. I suspect a decent number of Hollow Knight fans can tell a similar story, and so I am sympathetic to the view that the complete radio silence is kinda disrespectful to the people that bought their game and set them up for life, made them able to work indefinitely on their dream project for as long as it takes at whatever pace they want. They couldn't have done that without the fans they are now giving the cold shoulder to, so it is completely understandable that some fans will react in a bitter way as time drags on.

[@SpoopyPants]

It really isn't even the extended developer time at this point, it 100% is the radio silence on the entire development of the game. Even a screenshot every few months would have been fine. Even a single video on their twitter showing off "In Silksong you will be able to do whatever the fuck" with some fun movement tech would have been fine. Even just a little meme of a fun critter. Not an Early Access date, a Roadmap, teasers, visuals, even just fucking CONCEPT ART. We get NOTHING. Games like Darkest Dungeon 2 give massive Roadmaps for their content even in Early Access. Indie Developers try their damnest to get Social Media attention and a good Player Community. Smaller Developers have to tear limbs trying to get an Audience that Team Cherry has been keeping on a leash for a damn near DECADE now and do nothing with. If you were an actual Hollowknight fan involved in the community then I can 100% understand when that kind of sadness turns into Anger.

[@kjj26k]

Hello Games showed us all 6 years ago that the best thing an Indie Dev can do when they f-up and piss people off is to shut up and let the game do the talking.

[@randomd00d19]

Amen. The radio silence is hands down the worst part. I'm going to go so far as to call it "fan abuse". It's wrong to do this to a fan base. Maybe a year of radio silence is ok, but this went beyond absurd 2 years ago.

[@plinfan6541]

@@kjj26k Ehh, somewhat diffrent story. Hello Game came out and fell on their face and then said "we will fix this!" before disappearing. And, only a few years later, they came out with Update after Update that slowly brought people back. But at all points a full game was already out to be played, so it wasn't actully nothing going on like with Silksong. People that Pre-ordered did get a Game, it just wasn't very good at launch.

[@SpoopyPants]

@@kjj26k Sean Murray is very active with his community besides the constant updates these days. It is very wholesome to see him post a lot of screenshots and show off people playing his game.

[@Szriko]

@@randomd00d19 Calling it abuse is one of the most eye-rolling modern day first world pampered candy-ass shit I've ever seen. It's a product. You are not being abused because you cannot CONSUME PRODUCT. What is wrong with you?

[@MAJR172]

It's been 7 years since Metroid Prime 4 was announced... Edit: I think Crazy Talk lent me some of its power cause HS!

[@BronzeAgePepper]

and the ONE announcement we got after that was that Nintendo was starting completely over from scratch and hiring Retro Studios to redo it for them. And since we know their next console is being announced this year I'm getting a hunch it could be a BotW situation, where the game is playable on both the current console and launch of a new console, which is a ton more work making sure the game can work on both systems

[@DANCERcow]

Not this year, they never said they are announcing it, but that they'll have an announcement regarding it and that this announcement will be after June but no later than March 2025 end of this fiscal year! More than likely they will make this announcement next year

[@Artista_Frustrado]

yeah, except we basically got the "we won't know when it will be ready" update from Retro at the start of the project: Retro went through a huge slew of hiring directorial staff in the first 2 years, and then we got that team redoing the entirety of Prime 1 so they could get their process figured out

[@Ty-Inari]

it HURTS..

[@grahamcarpenter691]

I continue to believe, deliberately in bad faith, that Metroid Prime 4 isn’t in production and is just a hoax by Nintendo. I’ll believe it when they release any screenshots, concept art, anything.

[@CompagnonDeMisere25]

By the time Silksong comes out Woolie will have finished his Baldur's Gate 3 playthrought.

[@cattibingo]

Every time someone talks about silksong's release it gets delayed another day. Right now its projected to come out shortly after the heat death of the universe.

[@DarkestAndBlackest]

When your kick starter rewards are old enough to be conceived and enter kindergarten without any real results, that is way too long.

[@oaz8072]

never leave it up to the audience what it means never leave it up to the artist if it's good enough

[@GabeSweetMan]

Words to live by

[@yyflame]

I think another problem was silk song is that they’ve reached half-life three level of hype due to the timeline of development and the promises they’ve made. What I mean by that is, even if they release a perfect game, a lot of fans will still be disappointed because it won’t be the game they’ve been building in their mind for the last five years

[@15redcrow]

I was thinking the same thing when I thought about the development. Especially if they’re prone to feature-creep, who is to say that they are too much a perfectionist that they would outright not release it cause it would not live to their fan’s expectation and by extension, their’s?

[@1wayroad935]

Think about this. We've had both Jedi Fallen Order/Survivor games and three Resident Evil games in the span since Silksong's announcement.

[@Dragonsmana]

And 2 parts of the FF7 Remake release.

[@thelaughingrouge]

Baulders gate 3

[@GinraiPrime666]

Still nothing compared to the amount of things that happened between Devil May Cry's 4 and 5, such as the Wii U and PS Vita beginning and ending production!

[@ARB1452]

it's like how no man's sky was conceived of, developed, rushed out and then had almost 8 years of excellent and free updates redeeming it all within Star Citizen's development so far.

[@MeatbagSlayer]

Rain World, a game that came out a month after HK and went updateless for almost 5 years, got a massive QOL update and a fully fledged DLC before Silksong came out. And the Watcher is 100% gonna drop before SK, too -I know Downpour was mostly fanmade and not by the original 3 devs, but you can buy it with real money, so it counts-

[@pinkfloyd36123]

the thing is, who even wants a silksong that's twice as big as hollow knight? hollow knight is probably the longest 2D metroidvania ever, it can take upwards of 30 hours to do everything first time, and i know a ton of ppl got burnt out on it. why would anyone (except the absolute most hardcore fans) want a 60 hour version, that's just ludicrous.

[@t.dmattocks6119]

I want it.

[@silverphoenix4934]

I agree there's such a thing as too long and for a metroidvania like hollow knight where you need to remember where you left off. This is just too much. I will be there tho

[@johnarcher6150]

Development hell is real and we are in it

[@cyberninjazero5659]

Development hell is empty, and all the Dev leads are here

[@anonymouskaiju9101]

I;'ll say this. I feel like hollow knight is cool because it's such a massive metroidvania but I feel like it's the upper limit of how big a metroidvania should be, so the idea that they've been working on it so long to make it potentially unreasonably big is worrying.

[@chriswest6988]

I played all of hollow knight before the pantheons and loved it...the third time I gave it a shot. I actually quit twice because I was lost and had no idea how to progress (and it turns out hadn't found the blacksmith or badge shop as early as I could have). I remember loving Hollow Knight but intellectually I know that must be partially because of peak-end bias. If they stand by not auto mapping and silksong is bigger and more complex, who knows if I even finish it.

[@Toksyuryel]

The metric I like to use for how long is too long is "how many people have died waiting for this to come out"

[@UCannotDefeatMyShmeat]

How many children have been sired since you announced the game?

[@PredictableEnigma]

I feel like it being announced right before covid tips the scales a bit

[@thelaughingrouge]

My son was in elementary school when Skyrim came out, he has graduated college and still no TES6. Now THAT'S too long.

[@Nilon241]

The real Path of Pain is waiting for literally any news about Silksong.

[@cyberninjazero5659]

Feel Pain, Accept Pain and Know Pain

[@Sonicfalcon16]

Sage of the silk path

[@moonpoff6456]

KZbin literally gave me an ad for a "Legally Distinct looking Hollow Knight-esque game coming soon" while watching this video, and I feel that that really is just the icing on the cake

[@KingClockwork]

When Silksong comes out I will play it. That's it. That's my thoughts on the matter.

[@_Sage967_]

the problem is "what if i dont have the time?" people like Hollow Knight and want to play Silk Song and dont want anything to get in the way. not everyone can or will suddenly free up time to play it and one's general interest in it could just fade over time especially with various heavy hitters comin out the gates people that are really plugged in or follow particular devs closely are hit the worst by this while others similar to you probably just pick up whatever whenever. it's a great way to discover gems because you dont depend on others leading you to it

[@Mushin-jq3vw]

yep, this is only a problem if you make it one. Or if you paid a bunch of money to the kickstarter, then i'd understand the issues

[@SockMasterFloe]

"When" ? Try "If"

[@themissinggene]

Jack Spicer!?

[@trickster721]

You mean you won't lose your mind if you don't see a new screenshot for an upcoming game every month for five years? What are you, a functioning adult with things to do?

[@sonicboomers122]

Silksong and Pyschonauts 2 awaken that part of me that understand mister Business man. Like situations like this is why managers and executives exist.

[@RedEyesBlackKnight]

All ill say is, we live in a post "last guardian" world. Its not impossible for games in development hell to come out, just very unlikely.

[@chuckleshelicopterwigwamjo6305]

Games in development hell certainly come out, but they're usually not very good.

[@thelaughingrouge]

Last guardian isn't the shining light of "but it came out though!" It felt like a game that came out 10 years prior, and not in a good way.

[@notribadsvault]

The devs behind Kingdom Come are an example of the right way to announce an indie sequel. The sequel was long awaited but they were radio silent for 5 years until they gave everyone a pleasant surprise by announcing it would come out this year.

[@Jirekianu]

"We're working so hard we don't have time to make updates." You literally put one community manager or dev (who volunteered) on the task of showing some stuff off. Screenshots, a little voice over work to explain where things are at, how "finished" things are in a general sense. Not even committing to a release date or time frame. Just to show that "Yes, we're not just reiterating the same stalling bullshit". It's like one day, maybe two days of work for one schmuck. And then you submit it to the leads/head guys and let them look it over and give it a thumbs up. The worst case scenario is like a week worth of work and agonizing over how much to share etc.

[@fien111]

Baldur's Gate 3 started real development around the same time as Silksong, maybe a year earlier. It's been out for almost a year. You do NOT want that to be your comparison, Team Cherry.

[@thelaughingrouge]

Oh damn, that is NOT a flattering comparison for team cherry!

[@madrocts]

Didn't BG3 come out with a borked 3rd act?

[@UltimaKeyMaster]

@@madrocts It's fixed now, at least with character endings. Which makes the argument *even worse* for Team Cherry.

[@wadespencer3623]

@@UltimaKeyMaster I don't know anything about stuff like that, but just starting recently I saw they're still doing pretty major, impressive patches that go so far as adding a bit more content. It's crazy.

[@felabugg1]

Also if I'm not wrong Larian's offices fucking FLOODED in the middle of BG3. And they STILL got it out before Silksong.

[@matthewschoen9827]

The engine switch justification doesn't even hold water as a feasible excuse given the timeframe. I would encourage anyone to look up Road to Vostok, a solo dev who ported his entire game from unity to godot in less than a year and resumed work on new features. I know it's not 1:1 given how different games are, but it's an easy thing for people to point to and say, "One guy did it, why can't you?" At this point, i really wonder if team cherry regrets announcing Silk Song at all.

[@hairlessbear6945]

The most important thing I've learned about collaborative work is that if there is no due date there's no do date.

[@Confussed-Oddish]

Silksong is truly my favorite Barkley 2-like.

[@MrJans3n]

I'm still praying to the b-ball gods that someday we'll get Barkley 2

[@ridleyrage5283]

Ya mean 'Barkley GAIDEN 2

[@Confussed-Oddish]

@@ridleyrage5283 It's usually just shortened to Barkley 2, so no I don't mean that cause no one calls it that.

[@pwnyboy9714]

There is a higher than non-zero chance that I will die before Silksong comes out.

[@grimfield5734]

That's kinda been my thought. The longer they take to "perfect" it, the fewer kickstarter backers will recieve it due to passing from you name it.

[@pwnyboy9714]

@@grimfield5734 There are probably a higher than you expect number of people that died during COVID who were also backers. And like, no, that's not a fair weight to put on the teams back. I would not make that as a criticism... BUT IT IS AN OBSERVATION.

[@thecaptain6520]

​@pwnyboy9714 that is 100% valid criticism. Paying money for something and having to wait so long to the point that your death is guaranteed before release is pretty scummy. They're literally using dead peoples money to fund their yac-I mean game.

[@BronzeAgePepper]

​@@pwnyboy9714 Devs probably reading that criticism/observation thinking "okay yeah, that's pretty bad, but AT LEAST we're not Valve promising people a followup to Half-Life 2. How many times over has the cycle of life and death happened among the people waiting for THAT?"

[@Biodeamon]

don't be so pessimistic. we won't let you die so easily.

[@Xhog0]

Considering how long it’s been since Silksong was announced, it is a miracle that Hollow Knight even released at all.

[@psykomancer4420]

Thinking about it, there are crazy projects by single or small dev teams that take this long, so it's the obligation to backers + absence of communication that really kills it in Silksong's case.

[@StardustSynchron]

Can’t wait for my grandchildren to play Silksong on release 😊

[@ckbooks]

I wish I could find the links, but I do remember someone from TC saying in an interview that their internal philosophy was that they'd rather wait until the game was done and drop a surprise announcement rather than giving vague estimates about when they *hoped* it would release. There have also been reports from people playing pre-release builds that the game is in very promising shape. The proof will ultimately be in the release version, but I've always gotten the impression that this isn't a dev hell situation so much as an eccentricity of a very small dev team.

[@t.dmattocks6119]

That's my pov as well. I don't get the rage really.

[@SWProductions100]

The lack of communication could hurt them. Stoic - the creators of 'The Banner Saga' - said they learned this the hard way. They didn't communicate with their audience when working on the sequel. I think they kind of just assumed the audience would be there on release. While the sequel was released to positive reception, the lack of communication resulted in much lower numbers.

[@Birdyboys]

I’m glad people are finally ending the “entitled fans” narrative. I was pretty forgiving towards Team Cherry’s lack of communication but they crossed the line by not stepping in during that Xbox Twitter fiasco. Waiting until a month before the deadline to admit the game isn’t done yet is absurd.

[@SuperMrSkully]

It screams scam

[@MrBda241]

Silksongs biggest hindrance is that it is a crowd funded, and they have to deliver it less they forever burn some good will, which is already beginning to happen due to lack of news, updates and unrealistic hype

[@SuperMrSkully]

It's not just good will, if they don't deliver, we'll see a class action lawsuit that hasn't been seen before.

[@vidmuncher]

To paraphrase Yukito Kishiro...."We mangaka may despise deadlines, but they are ultimately what pushes us to complete our work"

[@robertwallen1582]

I'm really curious If Hollow Knight really made enough money to spend this much working on the 2nd one and not lose all the profits honestly. The team is living off of one game sales for 7yrs, it's not infinite even if only 3 people!

[@Norphesius]

Just doing some crude napkin math, if Team Cherry only made money off of each copy they sold (at full price) on steam that left a review, with no other consoles and steam taking a 30% cut, thats about $3.2 million. Split between 3 people over 7 years thats ~$150,000 per person per year. Again, not including everyone else who bought it on other all the other platforms or didn't leave a review. Including those I think they could easily spend a decade on Silksong, and have money left over to make a whole nother reasonably sized game.

[@zaneseibert]

The game sold 3 million copies and has a 3 person team. They never have to work another day in their lives.

[@burek8557]

I knew I should've put MILKBONG in chat.

[@Day100]

This feature creep is likely more iterative in constant rewrites and adding of engine functions than it is flowing prebaked additions.

[@Terithian]

They really need someone who can tell them when to stop. With Hollow Knight the Kickstarter sort of served that purpose, as they had to lay out relatively explicit requirements and expectations, so the pressure of that served that purpose for them. With Silksong though, they have said almost nothing so they have no publicly available plan to stick to, and thus no pressure to fulfill those commitments. I'm not saying they need to tell us everything, but they need to get someone who can put their foot down and say "stop".

[@joemcstinky]

At this point, I’m just excited for the post-release written piece about the game’s development history

[@timlerch7425]

If Woolie claims this is not a journalism podcast, then someone needs to explain that the research they individually do to decode and deconstruct the situation is better investigative games journalism than most websites I know.

[@Sonicfalcon16]

the best journalists are ones who don't want to be one

[@dodiswatchbobobo]

Remember that section in Disco Elysium with the failed RPG team that just kept making the game bigger and bigger the less resources they had? I feel like the Silksong dev offices look similar to that place.

[@Dan-qy6zv]

TCs major problem is the lack of communication. Everything would be OK if they gave us bi-monthly updates to say "Hey. Still alive. Game development is goin well. Here's a screenshot." The fact we've gone this long with silence is torture.

[@rat-prophetistfordism8344]

Came back to this after the announcement of Pathologic 3, a game in very simillar circumstances.

[@rudeboyspodcast]

I waited 7 years for UFO 50 from its announcement to its release, and it will come out before Silksong. Lol

[@TheTyper]

I appreciate Pat deciding to use this opportunity this year to truly visit the subject with more of an investigation. This is maybe the most nuanced talk a out Silksong you two have done, it has framed the conversation really well as a wider topic about games, delays, crowdfunding complications that create rifts between consumers and creators if not navigated right, and the complications that can come from video game dev. Kentucky Route Zero was a five act indie game made by two people and each act after the first took longer to make than the last one. The third act was the largest one but the fifth took the longest to make because one of the devs had a debilitating sickness that only got worse as the dev went on. This didn't really become public knowledge till after the game came out. This theme hit particularly hard in the game's story: A magical realist story exploring the American dream backdropped against how it impacts humans on a financial and human dignity scale. The first act came out in I want to say 2012-13, the final landed in 19 or 20. These things happen, these things exist all the time, and people have to choose how they want to fund their products and engage with the people funding them. It's an unwanted reality of game dev, but thank you Woolie and Pat for exploring the consumer and dev sides of it

[@Hiagi]

At this point, Team Cherry’s best course of action would be to just shadow-drop it without a release date. However, I don’t envy their decision/development process. I believe their notion of over-delivering has come back to bite them and now it’s taken so long that it cannot possibly live up to whatever mythical game the consumers have it their heads. Team Cherry’s now stuck between a rock and a harder dick of their fan’s expectations, so they’re choosing to keep their head down and deliver the best game they can to exceed those expectations… no matter how long it takes

[@leithaziz2716]

Hollow Knight is one of my favorite games of all time and to be real, I don't really know what's the appropriate response to have with this dilemma. I personally would just not think about Silksong untill it comes out. If the devs wanna polish the game further then more power to them. At the same time, I don't blame people (especially ones who backed the kickstarter) who worry we might have another Cyberpunk situation in the making. The game taking more and more time is also building up unfair expectations if you factor in potential development restarts (which we have no idea on). I don't wanna harass the devs if they want to stay quiet and work on their own pace in peace, but reminding people that there's a finish-line in sight where the game will come out would alleviate a lot of worry.

[@Szriko]

The kickstarter was for Hollow Knight. Hollow Knight exists. Anyone who cares strongly is a freak that needs to go touch grass.

[@GorFrag]

they might have kicked unity to the side. but it would be nice to know that.

[@Shadow6OO]

Did they not have a whole ass post saying such when the Unity thing came up? I distinctly remember there being a post by Team Cherry saying that.

[@plinfan6541]

@@Shadow6OO Not quite, a bunch of Devs made posts about the Unity situation. Team Cherry itself only responded to one guy joking that this will delay even further with a like and that was the last we know.

[@Shadow6OO]

Looking back on the Unity thing when it happened, a bunch of indie teams did release official statements on it, but yeah, apparently, Team Cherry wasn't one of them.

[@psyc840]

@@Shadow6OOYeah I remember one of the big ones was Relogic (the Terraria guys), who essentially said that they didn’t really use the system much anyway so fuck ‘em.

[@isaackane4931]

The problem with Silksong is that Team Cherry backed themselves into a corner. Making some rather stupid decisions based on what we've seen. A Hornet DLC was already promised, but for some reason they decided to make a full Sequel out of it. They shouldn't have announced the game so early on, but they didn't have much choice, again due to the original game needing the DLC. Leading to now, where so much time has passed, and we get so little news on the project. If talked to the community more, and made frequent announcments on how far along the game was coming, I think people would be more lenient. But with such long gaps, you can imagine why patience is wearing thin. That said though, I'm more or less fine with waiting. I'd rather Team Cherry take their time and not burn themselves out, especially if they ended up biting off more than they could chew.

[@UltimaKeyMaster]

What should've happened is they should've made the Hornet DLC, then been like "hey we had a bunch of ideas for more Hornet stuff on the table, maybe we'll make it its own game later!" That way nobody cares about the long wait because the Kickstarter backers got everything they paid for already. You don't just Mario Galaxy 2 a game when your fans only paid for the one game with the intention of that 2's content being in that first one.

[@superbnns]

Team Cherry had the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever by shadow dropping the game a day after this podcast came out

[@alephnole7009]

They need like an hour long dev log just explaining the last year of work and the current goals.

[@barrett627]

Some of my favorite games were sequels 8+ years in the making, so I'm fine with waiting and a 10-year game dev cycle isn't too alien in the industry historically speaking, but the obligations and lack of communication with backers who are still promised something that really makes me more upset about silksong

[@Garl_Vinland]

Blasphemous 2 kind of had a foreboding issue where it just didn’t live up to the first one with all its dlc included. Silksong might of seen that and said it needs to have the same length as the original with all the dlc.

[@Munkee7777]

Everyone would be fine mostly with the silksong wait if they said ANYTHING man, like the complete lack of communication is terrible

[@sssdrake]

coming back to this later and having read some studies, people will be 100% ok with waiting longer as long as they know the progress of the thing they are waiting for. its why elevators tell you what floor they are on and train platforms show estimated times and locations of the next ride.

[@ceast5273]

I wish they'd just release what they have, call it Alpha, and update it as they finish content.

[@15redcrow]

Imagine if this is a PalWorld situation, where the game has been done for YEARS and they keep working on it and adding stuff to it in on the side until they’re about to go bankrupt and then release it

[@gavi888]

It'll be out when it's out, and we like that: it'll be out when it's out. But great work ethic.

[@rosenrot234]

Least with waiting for Deltarune you get a bunch of banging tunes to listen to until the next part comes out. Big Shot still slaps

[@FlutterSwag]

i swear if crowsworn comes out b4 silksong im gonna do absolutely nothing cause ill be playing crowsworn

[@User5770]

At this point I will assume Silksong is performance art. If and when it materializes I'll play it.

[@Gunzerkingidiot]

They really shouldn't just made the DLC as it was. Then just make a sequel. Cuz god damn.

[@t.dmattocks6119]

Insane perspective. I want a cool game!

[@Gunzerkingidiot]

@t.dmattocks6119 this whole issue started as them announcing a DLC then decided to turn it into a game. Leading to it being announced technically way too early.

[@meman29]

Have you guys heard about what's going on with Transformers Re:Activate? It was a live service game that was announced back in 2022, but its been radio silent since Dec. 2023, and they've recently removed all their trailers from socials/their website

[@meman29]

Also, they've already released the tie-in toys, with no media for it to tie in to

[@leithaziz2716]

Transformers fans have it rough with games, man. High Moon got shutdown and the staff's forced to work on cod. This means we'll never get a sequel to Fall of Cybertron (Rise of the Dark Spark doesn't count), and it and WFC even got delisted. I don't feel Platinum will do another game like TF Devastation either.

[@Tamaki742]

Oh, it's not happening, then.

[@Speedstar235]

There's theory going around that it being a live-service game, after witnessing trainwrecks like Suicide Squad KTJL, made someone get cold feet and could be remaking the game into presumably a proper single player game of some sort? I ain't holding my breath for it either but its either that or yea, straight cancelled despite tie-in toys making the rounds.

[@Tamaki742]

@@Speedstar235 Apparently the development itself already started from 2017, so it's also likely that they've been in some development hell in the past 5 - 6 years.

[@PregnantAdamSandler]

Crowsworn iirc did actually release a public demo that people got to try out.

[@kot4311]

The fact that they bring up Elden Ring is wild because it came out 3 years after Sekiro. That’s the same gap between DS3 and Sekiro. The only difference is that they showed off a teaser super early which gave people false expectations that the game was coming out soon

[@kingofthemoon3063]

Its TWICE AS BIG as Hollow Knight?! That actually bothers me. Hollow Knight was already extremely long!

[@superbnns]

I've seen people disregard new game trailers in these shows simply because it isn't Silksong, even if it's for a game they otherwise might have liked. It's an unfair antipathy and does a disservice to the devs that aren't Team Cherry, but I don't think you can put blame on Team Cherry for that. Assuming they're actually working on the game, it's completely valid for them to be silent while working on it. Honestly I think the best approach (for non-backers) is to simply forget the game exists until we have official word from TC themselves.

[@PredictableEnigma]

For real, like you need things to play while waiting on Silksong anyways so like check em out. Lots of talent out there

[@user-js4iw9rz2w]

I don't think it's completely valid to be silent when you've already accepted money for a product in development.

[@UltimaKeyMaster]

I'm not exactly going to be silent over a company that has so far taken money from fans and not delivered on all their promises for close to a decade now.

[@GamePlayuh9510]

Personally, I would prefer that devs stay quiet until a month, at most, before release. Small time window to build hype, but not so long that everyone gets bored and moves on during the time frame.

[@SWProductions100]

I'm not sure how good that is for audience retention. Stoic - the studio that made 'The Banner Saga' - said they felt a lack of audience communication resulted in their sequel getting much lower sales.

[@LordQuadros]

As someone who's had Hollow Knight sitting in his backlog for a good few years, the wait and hype around Silksong has made me not only more apathetic to itself, but to the original game. It sucks seeing at least half the comments on every indie showcase being some permutation of "WHERE SILKSONG?!" when there are so many cool and interesting games being made by passionate teams shown. It is a little absurd to hold creators responsible for the larger scale cultural consequences in most cases, but it's a factor, and I know I'm not the only one affected by it.

[@satellitecannon4717]

The problem that silksong has is that even if it comes out, it needs to show that there has been this many years of development put into this game. Pat said that you can look at games like anthem and final fantasy 15 and see that these games did not took this long to make. You need to show 5 plus years of work that was put into the game. Because if this game comes out and there is barley any content or its broken on release, then what was the point of waiting. There has been many games that came out and are still in development that build up hype and the longer you take to release, the more us players are hoping to get a great experience.

[@MFGod_Hand]

PLAY NINE SOLS! FRIENDSHIP ENDED WITH HOLLOW KNIGHT

[@coolfish420]

this sounds what it's like waiting for the next game of thrones book

[@GFSA3]

Three games that will never come out: Silk Song, Metroid Prime 4, and Transformers Reactivated.

[@WeaponOfMyDestructio]

This sounds like a boyfriend that keeps making excuses why he's keeps missing dates.

[@VixiBombae]

bro even selaco came out before silksong, damn

[@Ghosthacker94]

No, it didn't. A game in Early Access with an incomplete episodic structure is not what "out" means

[@UltimaKeyMaster]

@@Ghosthacker94 If you're able to pay for a game, it's out.

[@Ghosthacker94]

@@UltimaKeyMaster no. the fact that EA games are unfinished products and yet routinely get leeway from reviewers everywhere confirms this too

[@VixiBombae]

@@Ghosthacker94 my brother in christ you play selaco and tell me that's not a finished game under the guise of early access

[@Jack-dj5cd]

One time I said that the radio silence regarding silksong was ridiculous and got attacked for it. That was 2 years ago

[@Sylentmana]

I love Hollow Knight but after this I’ll never back any projects by Team Cherry, especially since they can’t even be bothered to give basic updates on their progress.

[@ErikR1287]

On top of 2 years without any update since the 2022 Xbox trailer, this year just hits different because of the Xbox store page, global ratings, and kickstarter log ins for the first time in 3-4 years. So fans are very on edge for news regarding those facts

[@BenLubar]

My philosophy is zero hype until there's something I can put in front of people. If I have some grand plan for a game, I only tell people I can trust to not overreact and then I tell everyone else as I finish the pieces enough to make them available for beta testing. It helps that nobody who isn't already playing my game gives a shit about it.

[@nickONtheNET332]

Companies announce early because it also acts as a giant hiring ad. The problem stems from dev times ballooning. Before we had to wait 2-3 years from announcement to release, now we have to wait 4-6.

[@blackdragon227]

Also Sekiro came out during the ER dev time so there wasn't nothing

[@thatfunkadeus]

I couldve told you that Pat having a loudness noise gate would be an issue

[@TheTolnoc]

Hollow Knight was some of the sickest, most atmospheric shit I've ever played, so I'll wait for Silksong.

[@thesacredbeast2000]

I mean, my one complaint with Hollow Knight was that it had way too much, like by the time I stumbled back out of spider hell and went to kill the true final boss I was in no mood for any dlc let alone four of them, and I've yet to replay it since any time I want to play a metroidvania there's an unending pile of them that I can get in and out in a brisk 2 to 6 hours. my point is, yeah obviously Silksong isn't coming out for maybe years still, team cherry won't think it's done till it's at least way too long, don't ever expect it's near until the release date is firm, and even then expect another delay.

[@Ghosthacker94]

Pat: "Two games with long development times and no updates - Cyberpunk 2077 and Elden Ring" Pat is unable to count apparently. Cyberpunk was announced in 2013. Elden Ring began development after The Ringed City in 2017 and FromSoft put out Sekiro in 2019 then announced Elden Ring 2019 and released it 2022. 5 years for a game of this size and being released 3 years after announcement is NOT long at all and bears no comparison to Cyberpunk 2077 at all lmao.

[@SuperMrSkully]

Yeah, plus Elden Ring reuses assets like it's going out of style, plus Cyberpunk 2077 was atrocious at launch and for about a year after launch.

[@bidou7789]

I've never touched HK but saw it everywhere. I legit thought Silksong was already out.

[@ItsDatCajunStuff]

Like others suggested, Hollow Knight was a collection of great ideas the developers experimented with that was sort of an accidental mega hit. With Silksong, it's very likely that they're planning to develop a hit first and experiment second. It's the curse of having to one-up the original. That perfectionism Woolie mentioned is real, and while big publishers might not care about beating their previous efforts, indie developers might care too much.