Why I think the game is in development hell

[Ranni the Witch]

As the wait for Silksong continues the idea that it's in dev hell becomes more and more popular, and here's why I think so.

First off, half of the original Hollow Knights success can be chalked up to luck. The game was a crowdfunded kickstarter project from a studio no one had heard of that luckily got the required funding, then it released an unfinished, buggy (pun intended) mess. It could have been chalked up as one of hundreds of failed games, but it didn't. TC fixed it and it was a hit. That was lucky.

Another thing is metroidvanias were at a low point at the time. HK was a novel thing because no one had seen a metroidvania in years. Now HK has sparked a metroidvania boom in the industry. Nine Sols, Grime, Blasphemous, Ori, Haiku, Crowsworn, and many more. This means Silksong isn't one of a kind like HK was, it's one of many. It has competition that HK didn't. Granted, very few going to skip Silksong for another game. This just means that the standard for games like this has gotten higher since Hollow Knight, and now TC has to meet that standard.

Lastly, TC struck gold with HK and it's going to be hard to hit it again. There are a lot of examples of devs who put out a hit and fumbled the sequel (looking at you Duke Nukem.) No one had expectations for HK, and now the pressure is mounted for TC to make another HK level masterpiece. The longer development takes, the higher expectations get, the more TC has to do, which leads to development taking longer.

This is why I think the game is currently in dev hell, and why I think it's still a couple years out. High community expectations lead to longer dev time, which leads to higher community expectations, which leads to longer dev time. A vicious cycle we can't escape.

[ChekinNooget]

idk what you're talking about it im playing the game right now

[Phirestar]

Originally posted by Ranni the Witch:

First off, half of the original Hollow Knights success can be chalked up to luck. The game was a crowdfunded kickstarter project from a studio no one had heard of that luckily got the required funding, then it released an unfinished, buggy (pun intended) mess. It could have been chalked up as one of hundreds of failed games, but it didn't. TC fixed it and it was a hit. That was lucky.

Most major indie titles can probably credit a large portion of their success to luck. If you’ve been around the entertainment industry for a while, you will know that the quality of a product does not at all line up with how likely it is to be popular.

I’ve played some very exceptional games like CrossCode and Rain World, which deliver well crafted and highly unique experiences that’ve stuck with me for years after playing them, that nonetheless went largely unnoticed and didn’t garner a lot of popularity until possible a long while later. And yet, literal joke games like Goat Simulator and Getting Over It - titles designed for the explicit purpose of being bad games - end up finding plenty of notoriety on the basis of, “Funni YouTube man played it and made me laugh.”

I also feel that claiming Hollow Knight could’ve been buried and forgotten by its issues at launch is a bit hyperbolic. You’re forgetting just how awful some games can be, and still somehow ride out the storm. Bethesda can have game-breaking that wipe inventory items, and can literally dox peoples’ personal information on their preorders, yet the game at the heart of these controversies, Fallout 76, is still around today. I find it hard to believe that Hollow Knight was buggy enough to be considered not worth playing, by most early players, when the gaming community’s standards are as deep underground as the Abyss.

Originally posted by Ranni the Witch:

Another thing is metroidvanias were at a low point at the time. HK was a novel thing because no one had seen a metroidvania in years. Now HK has sparked a metroidvania boom in the industry. Nine Sols, Grime, Blasphemous, Ori, Haiku, Crowsworn, and many more. This means Silksong isn't one of a kind like HK was, it's one of many. It has competition that HK didn't. Granted, very few going to skip Silksong for another game. This just means that the standard for games like this has gotten higher since Hollow Knight, and now TC has to meet that standard.

On the one hand, I think it’s entirely fair to argue that Hollow Knight certainly brought a lot of attention and interest into the genre.

But on the other hand, I also think that many aren’t aware that plenty of notable metroidvania games were being released and / or developed around the time of Hollow Knight’s launch and prior.

• Cave Story was released in 2006.
  
• Dust: An Elysian Tail was released in 2012.
  
• Axiom Verge was released in 2015.
  
• Ori and the Blind Forest was released in 2015.
  
• Salt and Sanctuary was released in 2016.

And there was also Dead Cells in 2017, which did originally market itself as “roguevania”, placing a big emphasis on being inspired by Castlevania and its ideas from Symphony of the Night.

Those are just a few of the more prominent examples, but the point is to illustrate that the genre was getting a lot of love already by the time Team Cherry hit the scene. They might’ve elevated it to a new height, perhaps, but it’s rather iffy to say that metroidvanias were dead at that point.

Originally posted by Ranni the Witch:

Lastly, TC struck gold with HK and it's going to be hard to hit it again. There are a lot of examples of devs who put out a hit and fumbled the sequel (looking at you Duke Nukem.) No one had expectations for HK, and now the pressure is mounted for TC to make another HK level masterpiece. The longer development takes, the higher expectations get, the more TC has to do, which leads to development taking longer.

My problem with this statement is that it’s making the assumption that Team Cherry is trying to meet the unrealistic expectations of certain fans who’ve let their hype get out of control.

Team Cherry is a three-man studio whom aren’t bound to the whims of a marketing department. They don’t have some guy out here, like Leth for example, being like, “Yeah, it’s gonna be the biggest game ever! This is the metroidvania to end all metroidvanias!” No, they advertised the game as exactly what it is: a sequel to Hollow Knight, which looks to improve upon what they did in the first game. I think that if you’re expecting Silksong to be more Hollow Knight, but with some changes made to make the formula a bit better, then your expectations will likely be met.

This problem of “the hype not being met” is partly the responsibility of the individual to take accountability for. Were they to release a poor quality product that cut corners or felt like a cheap cash-grab, that’d be one thing. But if you’re sitting there picturing all of these different scenarios, where you expect Silksong to have this feature or that idea, and then you’re disappointed when it doesn’t, they cannot do anything about that.

Trying to make a game that matches whatever ideas people can come up with in their head is a feeble effort that you shouldn’t bother inventing time or energy into, because people can come up with any sort of crazy stuff.


My take on this is that the game has ceased development, at least in terms of having new content added to it, and that Silksong is currently in a finalization stage: bugs being polished, ports being assembled and approved with the platform holders, and most importantly, a proper release window being worked out.

The fact that they’ve been doing these free trial periods on the Switch for the first game suggest to me that they’re looking to get the last few people on board with playing Hollow Knight before the sequel comes out, and that we won’t be seeing the game until some time after those trial periods are concluded, including in places where it hasn’t come yet such as North America and Australia.

[Count von Bunnyhopven]

I suspect that the real reason its not being released can be summed up as: "Perfect is the enemy of good"

When the original Hollow Knight was released they had a limited budget and had to cut corners and release things they did not feel were perfect or polished. But it was at least something.

This time around they have infinite money and time and they will never call it done because they dont have anything to put pressure on them to release. It will be like Duke Nukem Forever who had a bunch of half done versions of the game that all got scrapped over its 13 year development. Because it was not good enough. Eventually it was sent to a new developer who did a rush job of it and the rest is history.

What Team Cherry really need to do is to release a prologue or something and then decide that this part of the game is finished. That way they no longer have to care about that part. Whats released is done and it no longer needs to be improved.

[Abnorc]

I think it's fine for them to work until they're comfortable releasing it. I'd rather "wait" for the full game and just experience that rather than have them divide it up into a prologue and some follow-up game afterwards. Well made and compelling games with lots of charm are coming out faster than I can play them. Of course, I still check the community hub every so often just in case they decide to drop some news.

I also would be surprised if they really had an infinite budget. Is Hollow Knight still that profitable for them? After all this time since release with no news, one can only hope they're doing well keeping the lights on.

[Count von Bunnyhopven]

Originally posted by Abnorc:

I think it's fine for them to work until they're comfortable releasing it. I'd rather "wait" for the full game and just experience that rather than have them divide it up into a prologue and some follow-up game afterwards. Well made and compelling games with lots of charm are coming out faster than I can play them. Of course, I still check the community hub every so often just in case they decide to drop some news.

I also would be surprised if they really had an infinite budget. Is Hollow Knight still that profitable for them? After all this time since release with no news, one can only hope they're doing well keeping the lights on.

Hollow Knight probably sold 10-20 million copies at $15 each on all platforms. Maybe $9 after steam and taxes. So $90-180 million or so? That would still be enough to keep the 3 people in the company paid and comfortable pretty much forever.

[Valladina]

Originally posted by Count von Bunnyhopven:

Originally posted by Abnorc:

I think it's fine for them to work until they're comfortable releasing it. I'd rather "wait" for the full game and just experience that rather than have them divide it up into a prologue and some follow-up game afterwards. Well made and compelling games with lots of charm are coming out faster than I can play them. Of course, I still check the community hub every so often just in case they decide to drop some news.

I also would be surprised if they really had an infinite budget. Is Hollow Knight still that profitable for them? After all this time since release with no news, one can only hope they're doing well keeping the lights on.

Hollow Knight probably sold 10-20 million copies at $15 each on all platforms. Maybe $9 after steam and taxes. So $90-180 million or so? That would still be enough to keep the 3 people in the company paid and comfortable pretty much forever.

Bro what are you smoking...

[BlackSunEmpire]

After watching the Nintendo Direct right now, Nintendo is still the King of development hell and disappointments.

They could have released so many games this year:

- Metroid Prime 4 (7 years of development hell)
- a new Donkey Kong Country (10 years of development hell)
- a new Mario Kart (10 years of development hell)
- a new main line F-Zero (11 years of development hell)

What do they do ?

They slap an AI upscale filter on DKC Returns from 2010 and resell it for probably 60 $ on the switch and that's literally it. 😂

Team Cherry not communicating for 5 years is nothing against Nintendos shenanigans over the last 10 years.

[Faucheur !]

no more update for silksong sound like a scam like the day before XD

[Exodia900]

Originally posted by Abnorc:

I think it's fine for them to work until they're comfortable releasing it. I'd rather "wait" for the full game and just experience that rather than have them divide it up into a prologue and some follow-up game afterwards. Well made and compelling games with lots of charm are coming out faster than I can play them. Of course, I still check the community hub every so often just in case they decide to drop some news.

I also would be surprised if they really had an infinite budget. Is Hollow Knight still that profitable for them? After all this time since release with no news, one can only hope they're doing well keeping the lights on.

The problem is that they said it themself that at one point the game was pretty much done, but they had the reaction to always wanting to and something more again and again. And as long as they continue with this mentality it will take more years at this point

[mdesaleah]

Originally posted by BlackSunEmpire:

After watching the Nintendo Direct right now, Nintendo is still the King of development hell and disappointments.

They could have released so many games this year:

- Metroid Prime 4 (7 years of development hell)
- a new Donkey Kong Country (10 years of development hell)
- a new Mario Kart (10 years of development hell)
- a new main line F-Zero (11 years of development hell)

What do they do ?

They slap an AI upscale filter on DKC Returns from 2010 and resell it for probably 60 $ on the switch and that's literally it. 😂

Team Cherry not communicating for 5 years is nothing against Nintendos shenanigans over the last 10 years.

Dev hell implies they were ever working on something to begin with.

DK Country never had "dev hell". Its just a series on pause.

Mario Kart never had "dev hell". They were busy updating 8 for years.

F-Zero never had "dev hell". Since Nintendo only though about that series for a second with the battle royale game, and then forgot it existed again.

The only one on there that actually did was Prime 4, and that was a case of throwing away the original version in favor of completely restarting with the original dev studio instead.

[BlackSunEmpire]

Originally posted by mdesaleah:

Mario Kart never had "dev hell". They were busy updating 8 for years.

Updating Mario Kart 8 for 10 years ? 😂

Lets call it what it is, double dipping.

Doing low effort ports of 8-10 year old games and selling them for 60 $ ! on the switch has become their goto move over the last 10 years. Tropical Freeze, DKC Returns, Luigis Mansion 2, Super Mario 3D World, Pikmin 3, Mario Kart 8, Toads Treasure Tracker, .....

Originally posted by mdesaleah:

The only one on there that actually did was Prime 4, and that was a case of throwing away the original version in favor of completely restarting with the original dev studio instead.

Also not true, Pikmin 4 was in development hell for over 10 years.
Miyamoto even acknowledged that multiple times.

Originally posted by mdesaleah:

DK Country never had "dev hell". Its just a series on pause.

What was Retro Studio doing then, from 2014 - 2019 before they started development on Metriod Prime 4 ? Another development hell situation.

And how do you know that another DKC is not in development and will release on the switch 2 ?

I love Nintendo fanboys, they are the most delusional ones ;)
And I say that as someone who owned most of their systems (Gameboy, Super Nintendo, N64, Gamecube, DS, Switch). Their development teams are great, but their management suck since 20 years now. So many dormant franchises, which could be put to good use:

F-Zero, DKC, Wave Race, Mario Kart, Metroid Prime,....

[mdesaleah]

^A lot of assumptions right there.

Pikmin 4 was definitely in dev hell. But you never mentioned it, and its been long released at this point. So kind of irrelevant.

Saying series like DK, Mario Kart, are in dev hell is like saying that Pikmin is in dev hell because 5 hasnt been announced (regardless that it just got content). Or Super Smash Bros is in "dev hell". Just factually wrong.

Fzero isnt in dev hell, if it was never in development to begin with. So saying more forgotten series are in "dev hell" makes no sense.

Its not even a "fanboy" thing. Its just a lack of you knowing when "development hell" applies.

[BlackSunEmpire]

Originally posted by mdesaleah:

^A lot of assumptions right there.

You mean like assuming that a new DKC or Mario Kart is not in development ?

[ChekinNooget]

WOOO NEW MARIO+LUIGI LETS GOO 🔥🔥🔥🔥