Hollow Knight: Silksong has been a long-time coming, six years of development and a whole lot of silence until its release date trailer earlier this week, but it seems press or streamers interested in getting the game early will be out of luck. It is open-ended enough, though, that it may provide codes post-launch.
According to Jason Schreier on Bluesky, he was told by Team Cherry that it felt it was unfair to Kickstarter backers and other players for critics to be able to play it early. It’s also possibly not the only reason, as Schreier speculates it might just be also just be lot for the small team to handle getting codes ready for critics.
Team Cherry’s reasoning isn’t too out of the ordinary, as yeah, it would be unfair for critics to play it before people like Kickstarter backers who put money into the game, but it’s also a touch bizarre to not want that potential glowing praise before release.
Hollow Knight: Silksong releases to PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2 on September 4 and will be a Day One game on Game Pass.