ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
If you ever wanted to be a bug-like creature swinging a sword, Hollow Knight might be the video game for you.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character, Non-English language spoken).
SHAPIRO: Diehard fans of this 2017 hit have waited years for its sequel. And today, hordes of players crashed online storefronts snagging their copies of that sequel, called Hollow Knight: Silksong. Here's NPR's Kai McNamee.
KAI MCNAMEE, BYLINE: Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, is the world's largest video game convention.
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ALAN FERRETTI HORST: Is it working? Am I live? Hi, everyone (laughter).
MCNAMEE: YouTuber Alan Ferretti Horst was there last month, livestreaming from his tent on the convention campgrounds. Online, he goes by the name BlueSR (ph), and he makes videos playing Hollow Knight. In the game, you play a knight exploring a two-dimensional world, hopping between platforms and slashing enemies.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Ooh.
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MCNAMEE: Ferretti Horst came to Gamescom for one thing - a playable demo of Hollow Knight's long-awaited sequel, Hollow Knight: Silksong.
FERRETTI HORST: You should have seen the lines. It was crazy. There were so many people excited about it.
MCNAMEE: Even better than a demo - during the convention, the creators of the game announced Silksong would be released just two weeks later.
ZACC KAZIMIERSKI: It honestly doesn't - still doesn't feel real. I feel like at any moment I could pinch myself and wake up.
MCNAMEE: Zacc Kazimierski runs a Reddit community dedicated to Hollow Knight. It's one of many online communities where people talk about the game, share fan art, hang out. And they've spent plenty of time waiting for Silksong. Over the years, speculation about Silksong's release whipped fans into bouts of frenzied excitement. Every year at major video game events, they would flock to the livestream and spam the chat with messages like, Silksong when?
KAZIMIERSKI: It was a little overwhelming, to tell you the truth. People can be a little bit overzealous about this series sometimes.
JASON SCHREIER: People kept wondering, is this going to be the Xbox event or the Nintendo Direct where Silksong finally shows up? And as the years went on, the silence just became totally deafening.
MCNAMEE: That's Bloomberg video game reporter Jason Schreier. The game's creators, Team Cherry, were almost completely silent during the sequel's development, which Schreier says only helped fuel the intrigue and draw more players to the game. Take 2019. That year, Team Cherry announced plans for a sequel, but didn't say when they'd release it. At that point, Hollow Knight had sold around 3 million copies. But as online chatter from expectant fans grew, so did sales. Today, that number is around 15 million copies. Fans of Hollow Knight will tell you its vast world, tight controls and haunting score make it a perfect game.
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MCNAMEE: Rylee Johnston breaks down video game design on her YouTube channel JuniperDev. She says the hand-drawn art sets Hollow Knight apart.
RYLEE JOHNSTON: Every time that I went to, like, a new space in the map - like the Crystal peaks, Greenpath, Fog Canyon - just discovering all the different sound effects, the enemies. Like, they build the world so well that, like, genuinely all you can feel is just awe.
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MCNAMEE: All that awe is the work of a very small crew. Team Cherry is a tiny studio, made up of only three full-time staff. Jason Schreier says that's really astonishing.
SCHREIER: Especially because you have comparative games that are made by thousands of people and don't sell nearly as many copies.
MCNAMEE: Team Cherry didn't respond to my request for an interview, but they explained to Schreier that the development of Silksong was smooth. They were just quietly working on the game, taking their time with it and not letting the online excitement distract them. Now, six years after Team Cherry announced the sequel, fans will finally see if Hollow Knight: Silksong lives up to the hype.
Kai McNamee, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHRISTOPHER LARKIN'S "HORNET") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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