Players eagerly anticipating the launch of Hollow Knight: Silksong this morning are facing significant challenges when attempting to purchase and download the game from Steam. Writers at Ars Technica reported difficulties with loading store pages, adding the game to their shopping cart, and completing the checkout process.
This experience reflects a wave of similar complaints on social media, with platforms like BlueSky and Twitter being flooded with user frustrations. Data from DownDetector revealed a sharp increase in reported issues, peaking with over 11,000 complaints in the moments following the game’s 10 am Eastern time release. Despite the server troubles, SteamDB shows that there were over 100,000 concurrent players for Silksong at the time of this article.
Simultaneously, Ars Technica experienced substantial delays and outright errors when trying to download other games and updates, as well as syncing cloud saves. The Humble Store has posted a notification for North American buyers stating, “We have run out of Steam keys for Hollow Knight: Silksong in your region, but more are on their way! As soon as we receive more Steam keys, we will add them to your download page. Sorry about the delay!”
In contrast, the PC version of Silksong appears to be available for purchase and download without notable issues at this time. Ars Technica successfully completed the purchase and download of the Switch 2 version from the Nintendo eShop, despite some reports of issues from other users. However, an update from Nintendo at 11:18 am indicated that the “Nintendo eShop network service is unavailable at this time. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.” Additionally, the game is currently categorized as “Announced” and is not yet available for purchase on the PlayStation Store.
Server difficulties like these are not entirely new for Steam. Concerns about Valve’s bandwidth and server downtime have been voiced since as early as 2010, and a DDoS attack disrupted services briefly during the holiday season of 2015. Nevertheless, the Steam platform has generally experienced increased stability in recent years, as Valve manages an impressive bandwidth ranging from 15Tbps to over 30Tbps based on the time of day.
Notably, unlike many highly anticipated titles, Silksong did not offer players the option to pre-purchase or pre-load the game before today’s launch, which might be a factor in the overwhelming demand leading to server issues. User Danjer on Bluesky expressed surprise at this decision, stating, “I was shocked to see that you couldn’t download and preload Silksong ahead of its release, and this is why. This was inevitable.”
On social media platforms like Reddit, users are already engaging in humor related to the server issues. Memes regarding the elusive gremlins on Steam’s error pages are circulating, with players joking that these error messages represent some of the most challenging early bosses in the game.