Silksong is crushing Hollow Knight sales with 6 million downloads after 4 weeks, analyst reports – 4 million on Steam alone

Hollow Knight: Silksong has surpassed six million downloads across PC and console, as reported by Alinea Analytics, placing its launch trajectory significantly ahead of the original Hollow Knight, which performed well but only reached 15 million copies over an extended period.

The head of Alinea’s market analysis, Rhys Elliott, explores September’s most-popular titles in a Substack article, with the latest Skate 4 (or skate. if you’re incorrect) unsurprisingly clinching the top position as a free-to-play offering despite receiving mixed reviews.

Alinea ranks Silksong as the third most-downloaded game of the month with 6.4 million downloads, trailing EA’s FC 26, which, interestingly, is the type of game analysts foresee the company focusing on following its $55 billion acquisition.

However, it’s important to note that this does not translate to 6.4 million units of Silksong sold, largely because Silksong is available on Xbox Game Pass. The developers at Team Cherry entered the scene just before Microsoft upset many with a substantial increase in Game Pass pricing, and the Game Pass demographic evidently took full advantage.

“Xbox tripled PlayStation’s download figures thanks to Silksong’s Game Pass availability,” Elliott elaborates.

Nevertheless, “Steam accounted for 4 million of those downloads,” Elliott mentions, and download statistics from Steam can be more accurately related to sales. Estimates from Gamalytic, PlayTracker, and VG Insights, compiled on SteamDB, suggest that Silksong has sold 4.62 million, 5.84 million, and 6.65 million copies on Steam, respectively.

Thus, 4 million units sold seems like a reasonable, even modest estimation for Steam. When it comes to player counts alone, Silksong has completely overshadowed Hollow Knight from every angle.

Veteran analyst Mat Piscatella from Circana previously noted that Steam was indisputably Silksong’s leading platform in the US. The game exceeded 587,000 simultaneous players on Valve‘s marketplace – figures that are rarely observed in single-player or indie titles, much less single-player indie titles.

After the September Silksong Rush, now October boasts an abundance of games: developer postpones sequel to a delightful roguelike because “it has become too crowded” and “even the most precious gem might be overlooked.”

Austin has served as a video game journalist for 12 years, having contributed to publications such as PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and others while completing his journalism degree. He has been part of GamesRadar+ since 2019. They have yet to recognize that his role is a facade for his long-standing Destiny column, and he has maintained the pretense with numerous news articles and occasional features, all while playing as many roguelikes as feasible.