Silksong Sold 7 Million Copies, Crashed Storefronts, and Its First Big Expansion Is Free

Hollow Knight: Silksong spent years becoming gaming's favorite "is it ever coming out?" joke. Then it actually launched, sold more than seven million copies in a few months, pulled millions more through Game Pass, and hit storefronts hard enough that Team Cherry joked about crashing them. Now Hornet is heading to sea in Sea of Sorrow, the game's first major expansion, and Team Cherry is charging exactly $0 for it.

For years, Silksong fans survived on screenshots, scraps of news, fake release dates and enough clown memes to fill an actual circus. Then September 4, 2025 happened. The game finally released, and the joke immediately changed from "Silksong never" to "why is this bug killing me for the 34th time?"

The numbers were just as ridiculous. Team Cherry confirmed that more than 7 million people bought Silksong in a little over three months, with millions more playing through Xbox Game Pass. This came from a studio that still describes itself as a three person indie team.

That would already be enough for most developers to disappear for a year, buy several suspiciously expensive chairs and answer no emails.

Team Cherry announced a free expansion instead.

Sea of Sorrow Is Sending Hornet Somewhere Much Wetter

Sea of Sorrow is coming in 2026, and Team Cherry says it will bring new areas, new bosses, new tools and more, all wrapped around a nautical theme. The teaser shows Hornet standing above crashing waves, which looks peaceful until you remember this is Hollow Knight and every beautiful location eventually contains something determined to ruin your evening.

There is still no exact release date. Team Cherry says more information will arrive shortly before release, so the Silksong community has returned to its natural habitat: analysing everything and trusting absolutely nothing.

One Reddit reaction to the announcement was beautifully efficient:

"FREE DLC. GOATED DEVS."

Another fan admitted they saw the real announcement and initially assumed it was fake. Years of waiting appear to have caused permanent damage.

The expansion is especially interesting because Silksong is already enormous. Team Cherry says Hornet's journey contains more than 200 enemies, with mossy grottos, coral forests, gilded cities, lakes of fire and misty moors packed into one interconnected kingdom.

Sea of Sorrow now has the awkward job of finding somewhere new to send players who have already climbed, fallen, died, recovered their currency, died again and insisted the entire time that they were "having fun."

Apparently, the answer is the ocean.

Seven Million Sales From Three People Is Wild

The scale of Silksong's success matters beyond one game. Team Cherry is not a giant publisher backed studio. Its site lists Ari Gibson, William Pellen and Jasmine Vine as its core team, with Christopher Larkin returning for the soundtrack.

Yet Silksong launched across PC, PlayStation, Xbox and both Switch generations at $19.99, sold seven million copies within months and became one of those rare indie releases capable of swallowing the same online conversation as games produced by teams hundreds of times larger.

Its official release trailer has also passed 20 million YouTube views.

The funniest part is that its own fanbase still treats genuine Team Cherry news like an elaborate scam. When the studio finally published the expansion announcement, one popular Reddit comment described seeing an official Team Cherry blog post after years of silence as:

"a fever dream"

Fair.

Silksong Is Finally Getting a Physical Edition

For people who still enjoy owning a box instead of trusting a digital library until the heat death of the universe, Silksong is finally getting its first physical release.

The physical editions are scheduled to ship on October 16, 2026 for Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. The standard package includes a 32 page instruction manual and a 9 by 12 inch Pharloom poster illustrated by Rubén Molina. Fangamer's current listing is already marked out of stock.

There is one important detail. Sea of Sorrow is not stored on the physical game media, but Fangamer confirms that it will still be available separately as a free download.

So the current Silksong situation is basically this: seven million sales, millions more Game Pass players, physical editions arriving in October, and a completely free major expansion still due before 2026 ends.

Not bad for a game that spent years being used as a punchline whenever another showcase ended without a release date.

Now the only major question is when Sea of Sorrow actually launches.

Which means, somehow, Silksong fans are waiting again.