Excitement and hype have been building around Hollow Knight Silksong's release for years, so it was no surprise when its launch, which occurred 11 days ago at the time of this writing, was a big deal. Several indie games delayed their launches to get out of Silksong's way to try to avoid every ounce of attention being swallowed by Silksong, but others, like Hell is Us, stuck it out, proudly launching alongside Silksong on September 4, 2025.
Now that both games are out, and developer Rogue Factor survived the first week and a half of launching alongside Team Cherry's long-awaited sequel, Hell is Us director Jonathan Jacques-Belletête had a few thoughts on how Team Cherry handled launching the most wishlisted game on Steam.
"I mean, they're allowed to do what they did," began Jacques-Belletête when answering what it was like finding out they'd be releasing the same day as Silksong on an episode of the Friends Per Second podcast per TWIV. "There's no laws or rules against that. And I don't want to get into, 'Oh they caused this to us or somebody else.' I don't really care about that, and I don't want to get into that type of debate. But I do, it's hard for me not to say, like, when you know you're that big, I think a shadow drop is a bit like wow. You know what I mean? As the GTA VI of indie, right? And I know now this term gets thrown around left and right, but people in the industry, that's how we were calling such a game. To shadow drop something like this is a little callous."
Jacques-Belletête also confirmed that there were conversations between Rogue Factor and its publisher, Nacon, regarding whether Hell is Us should be delayed, and that while it wasn't the deciding factor, at least one point of friction against that decision would be having to refund pre-orders, and hope those players purchase them again for the new date.
"The real pain in the ass is that you have to refund your pre-orders when you do that, right? That's the real, 'How you gonna do this?' now you need to rebuild them. We didn't say 'Oh my god, we have to do it but we can't because of that.' We were like, 'No, I think we can get through the storm.'"
Obviously, Hell is Us kept its date, which Jacques-Belletête says he was "happy" about, and noted that Rogue Factor is still a larger studio than several of the other indies that delayed their games, which went into the team believing they could weather the storm of Silksong.
But while he doesn't have any hard numbers, it's his belief that Silksong did impact the launch sales of Hell is Us. "I don't have any specific numbers, at least not at this time. But for sure it did." He continued to say that it's not just about Hollow Knight, but about how it's practically impossible to find a release window where you aren't going up against a big upcoming title.
"That's the thing nowadays, getting a window where you're pretty much alone is almost impossible. 15 years ago, the mid-end of the summer was always a dead period. But there's no such thing anymore. It's just constant madness."
When we start looking at sales reports for September, it'll be interesting to see where Hell is Us lands on the charts, especially if it lands within a few places of Silksong. As Jacques-Belletête pointed out, there are no laws against what Team Cherry did, and it's difficult for everyone in the industry, no matter who you are, to draw the ever-shrinking attention spans of modern players away from the hundreds of other options they have to any one game. But it seems odd to even suggest that Team Cherry, or any other studio in its place, owes other studios the courtesy of a long lead time.
Team Cherry launched Hollow Knight Silksong in the way that it did with the intention of getting as many eyes as possible on it for September 4. Rogue Factor did the same with its own strategy. Is that callousness, or competitiveness?
For more on Hell is Us, you can check out my review, in which I noted that despite a few flaws, Rogue Factor is largely able to succeed at what it is trying to do with Hell is Us, and that it is overall "one of the 2025's best games."
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