Hollow Knight: Silksong launched last week and immediately saw its highest engagement on PC via Steam. According to Circana’s US Player Engagement Tracker, over 7% of active Steam users played Silksong on launch day, ranking it as the third-most-played game overall, just behind Helldivers II and Counter-Strike 2. It should be noted that it was on Steam that the original Hollow Knight gained its loyal following.
“It was anticipated that Hollow Knight: Silksong would have the highest initial appeal with the core enthusiast audience, particularly on PC. So far, that seems to have been the case,” Circana’s Mat Piscatella added. “On console, being on Game Pass certainly appears to have helped boost launch-day engagement on Xbox.”
Looking at the stats for Xbox, Silksong managed to secure over 2% engagement, placing it at 12th overall. Now, this metric reflects active players, not total downloads or interest–so plenty may have grabbed it for later. PlayStation, on the other hand, saw under 1% engagement, coming in at a distant 55th place, but it was not available via any services like it was on Xbox. Without access to Nintendo platform data–which Circana’s tracker currently doesn’t cover–it’s hard to gauge what could be the actual biggest player base in the future, especially since the original Hollow Knight had a huge Switch following as well.
Hollow Knight: Silksong has only been out for a week, but the buzz was so strong around the sudden launch that several indie studios pushed back their own release dates to avoid being swallowed in Hornet’s shadow. It’s rare for a non-AAA game to shift the calendar for others, but that’s the kind of cultural weight Silksong carries in the indie space.
While the data is just a snapshot of opening-day engagement, the full weekly rankings are set to be released on Monday. Then we’ll get a clearer picture of just how far Silksong’s reach is–but if this early data is any indication, it’s off to a very strong, PC-first start.
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