When Grand Theft Auto 6’s release window was finally announced – the first time, at least – several publishers confirmed that they were intentionally avoiding that entire release window for fear of clashing with the likely video game behemoth. Nobody wanted to be competing directly with Rockstar’s newest blockbuster, except for Devolver, which vowed to release a game on the exact same day, because it’s a funny bit.
GTA 6 now has a confirmed release date in 2026, which means that the release schedule has solidified quite a bit. October is now a completely jam-packed month, partly because this is before the holiday shopping season, but partly because everybody now knows that GTA 6 won’t be completely dominating the news cycle and players’ time.
Hollow Knight: Silksong didn’t give its competition the same grace of being able to move around its release date. The highly anticipated sequel to the critically acclaimed Metroidvania, which for years has inspired fans to beg for a release date announcement in the comments of every games showcase, announced last week that it would finally be launching on September 4. That’s two weeks notice. Understandably, some studios with release dates around the same time are now panicking.
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Games Are Moving Out Of Silksong’s Way
In the same way that publishers intentionally avoided GTA 6, multiple indie studios are now likewise delaying their games to avoid Silksong. Two such games that we’ve reported on at TheGamer are Aeterna Lucis, a Metroidvania, and CloverPit, a slot machine roguelike.
Another indie developer announced it would be delaying the demo of its Metroidvania Stomp and the Sword of Miracles as it was relying on the success of that demo to boost the Kickstarter it had been planning to launch. Demonschool, a tactics RPG slated for a September 3 launch, has now been delayed to November.
Even Bennett Foddy, the developer behind Baby Steps, told Aftermath that he was contemplating delaying the game. All of these developers directly cited Silksong as a contributing factor to their decisions.
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2025 Might Not Have GTA 6, But It Has Silksong
It’s fascinating how alike the launches of GTA 6 and Silksong have turned out to be, despite them being drastically different games. The former, of course, is the newest installment of one of the most famous video game series ever, developed by one of the most renowned video game developers of all time, made with a massive budget and a huge team. The latter is an indie Metroidvania, a sequel to a critically acclaimed but nonetheless small project.
Both were almost completely silent about development as it progressed, driving fans into conspiracy-minded frenzies. And, of course, both have driven their competition away from their release dates.
Is all this hubbub necessary? Probably not, if you’re not in direct competition with either of these games. But it’s understandable that indie developers really don’t want to get overlooked in the weeks where Silksong dominates the news cycle, and it’s hard enough out here for indies as it is. It might not be a time-suck the same way GTA 6 will be, but anything that might disrupt an indie’s marketing cycle is likely to have an outsized impact on its financial performance, especially considering how important early word of mouth can be in a smaller game’s success.
We all talked about how GTA 6 would change 2025’s release schedule, but it turns out that Hollow Knight: Silksong was the real game-changer, at least in the indie space. Who could’ve guessed?
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 91/100 Critics Rec: 97%
- Released
- September 4, 2025
- ESRB
- Everyone 10+ / Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood
- Developer(s)
- Team Cherry
- Publisher(s)
- Team Cherry
- Engine
- Unity
- Genre(s)
- Metroidvania, Action, Adventure, Soulslike
