Hollow Knight: Silksong Passes 5 Million Players in Just Three Days, With Strong Overlap Among Soulslike Fans
Team Cherry’s long-awaited Hollow Knight: Silksong has proven itself to be not only one of the most anticipated indie sequels of all time but also one of the most successful launches in recent memory. After years of delays and mounting hype, the game is now out on PC and consoles and has immediately broken records across multiple platforms.
Just days ago, it was reported that Silksong reached over 562,000 concurrent players on Steam, but new data from Rhys Elliott of Alinea Analytics paints an even clearer picture of the game’s explosive success. According to Alinea, Silksong has already surpassed five million players across all platforms in just three days, with over three million units sold on Steam alone, generating around $50 million in revenue. Console Game Pass accounted for over one million players, while PlayStation contributed a sizeable portion of the audience as well.
This rapid success was perhaps inevitable, given the massive anticipation that had built around the sequel. On Steam alone, Silksong had accumulated 5.2 million wishlists, more than any other title scheduled to launch this year. Alinea’s data highlights key player markets on Steam, with the United States, China, Russia, Japan, and Brazil leading the charts. On PlayStation, the breakdown is slightly different, with 30% of players from North America, 14% from Western Europe, and 14% from Eastern Asia.
Perhaps the most intriguing insight from Alinea’s report is the overlap in Silksong’s player base with Soulslike fans. Despite differences in genre, the shared appreciation for tight combat systems, challenging difficulty, and rewarding progression seems to have created a strong crossover audience, placing Silksong in similar territory to franchises like Dark Souls and Elden Ring in terms of fan engagement.
As far as indie games go, 2025 has already been a strong year, but Silksong has eclipsed the competition by a wide margin. On Steam, Alinea reports that after just three days these were the platform’s top sellers:
R.E.P.O. – 253K units
PEAK – 332K units
Schedule – 858K units
Hollow Knight: Silksong – 3M units
The other indie titles gained traction gradually after release, while Silksong launched with enormous momentum thanks to years of anticipation. Whether it sustains that momentum remains to be seen, but for now, Team Cherry’s sequel is firmly established as one of the biggest indie launches of all time.
Did you expect Silksong to break 5 million players this quickly, or did even this level of success surprise you?
