September might be packed with game releases, but Silksong set an early watermark for the month by clearing out the release calendar of competitors, claiming a place in all-time peak player count rankings, and—lest we forget—setting Steam entirely on fire. As the dust settles, we’re now getting our first estimates for just how many copies Silksong has sold.
In its game discovery newsletter, games industry analyst firm GameDiscoverCo estimates based on available data that Hollow Knight: Silksong has already sold more than 3.2 million copies on Steam. Additionally, GameDiscoverCo reckons it’s been downloaded approximately 1.5 million times through Xbox Game Pass, though it’s unclear how many of those downloads were distributed between console and PC.
For an indie release from a relatively small production team, that’s a phenomenal success, particularly when compared with other Metroidvanias. Silksong’s in a genre with no shortage of enthusiasts, but Metroidvanias aren’t what we’d typically consider as having mass market appeal.
Comparing Steam sales numbers against other games released this year with the Metroidvania tag, GamesDiscoverCo says “Silksong’s dominance is striking.” Using GamesDiscoverCo’s numbers, Silksong has sold more than 69 times as many copies on Steam as the next-best performing game, Sega’s Shinobi: Art of Vengeance.
While the six years of Silksong’s harrowing hype cycle no doubt had some effect on its launch day interest, it seems like the strongest factor in its favor was—unsurprisingly—the reputation of the first Hollow Knight. “The overlap with OG Hollow Knight players is a whopping 79%,” GameDiscoverCo says. In other words, almost four out of five Silksong players have played or owned Hollow Knight, which has sold more than 11.4 million copies on Steam to date.
“This means that 22% of all Hollow Knight Steam players have already bought the sequel,” GameDiscoverCo says. In terms of franchise loyalty, Hollow Knight is bringing almost as many repeat customers as Elden Ring Nightreign, which had an 81% overlap with the original Elden Ring.
As impressive as Silksong’s early performance has been, GameDiscoverCo says it’s a phenomenon that isn’t a particularly useful point of comparison for other game launches.
“Our biggest takeaway? Think of Silkson’s success more as a ‘rabid 20-30 million person fanbase gets to enjoy a long-awaited sequel’ than a success that can be analyzed in context with most new releases,” GameDiscoverCo says.
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