There's little doubt that Hollow Knight: Silksong is another smashing success for indie developer Team Cherry. Following the award-winning release of Hollow Knight in 2017, the Australian team immediately set to work on the sequel, which, however, was delayed several times, worrying fans in the process.
Now that it's out on PC and consoles, though, Hollow Knight: Silksong has already garnered widespread acclaim and broken records. We reported a few days ago that it had surpassed 562K concurrent players on Steam, and that was just one platform.
Today, Rhys Elliott from Alinea Analytics has shared more in-depth data about the game's popularity. According to Alinea, the game has already passed five million players across all platforms in three days, including over a million just on console Game Pass. Most of those players came from Steam, though, where over three million players purchased the game, generating around $50 million in revenue.
That is perhaps not unexpected, given that Hollow Knight: Silksong had been included in the Steam wishlists of 5.2 million users, more than any game scheduled to launch this year. Alinea Analytics data reveals that the US, China, Russia, Japan, and Brazil were the top countries on Steam, while the PlayStation audience is different: 30% from North America, 14% from Western Europe, and 14% from Eastern Asia.
The genuine surprise came from the fact that the game's audience apparently overlaps with Soulslike fans, as shown in the infographics above. Despite the different genre, they clearly enjoy the game's tight, challenging gameplay.
2025 was another strong year so far for indie games, but Hollow Knight: Silksong outsold them all by a considerable margin. Alinea Analytics reports that, after three days, these were the four best-selling games on Steam:
- R.E.P.O. - 253K units
- PEAK - 332K units
- Schedule - 858K units
- Hollow Knight: Silksong - 3 million units
Having said that, Silksong came with a lot of hype, whereas the others only became popular over time after their respective releases. As such, a more appropriate comparison will have to wait.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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