Hollow Knight Smashes Steam Peak Player Count After Silksong Release

The original Hollow Knight has smashed its all-time concurrent player count on Steam following the recent release of its sequel, Silksong. Hollow Knight has enjoyed a resurgence in interest with Silksong‘s arrival, and the numbers prove it.

2017’s Hollow Knight is commonly regarded as one of the best Metroidvania games ever made. It found immediate critical success on its release, and word of mouth led commercial success to follow. It has since surpassed the 15 million sales mark, a remarkable achievement for indie developer Team Cherry. It came as no surprise then that its long-awaited sequel, Hollow Knight: Silksong, has immediately proved to be a smash hit upon its release a few days ago.

Hollow Knight Reaches New All-Time High Player Count on Steam

However, according to SteamDB, the original Hollow Knight is more popular than it ever has been on Steam right now. Hollow Knight has smashed its all-time peak player count on Steam, with the number currently sitting at 92,866 at the time of writing but is constantly rising. Although Hollow Knight has enjoyed higher player counts in recent weeks thanks to Silksong‘s hype, the numbers are reaching massive new highs at the moment.

For context, this is the first time Hollow Knight has ever broken the 90,000 concurrent player milestone on Steam. It managed to pass 70,000 last month, but its peak prior to that was 20,324 back in August 2022. The recent increase in interest is massive for the game, even if the numbers still pale in comparison to Hollow Knight: Silksong‘s incredible Steam player count, which right now sits at a peak of 587,150.

It’s not clear exactly why players are choosing to return to the original Hollow Knight. While some players are having serious gripes with Hollow Knight: Silksong, the game has largely been excellently received by the community. It’s very possible that the enormous hype for the sequel has led many gamers to finally play the original for the first time, which could then filter them into giving Hollow Knight: Silksong a try further down the line.