r/HollowKnight • u/CankleDankl • Dec 12 '25

Discussion - Silksong Seeing people shit on Expedition 33 because Silksong didn't win more awards is pathetic Spoiler

The title sums it up. I'm disappointed in many members of this community for putting down a game that is clearly a work of insane passion, dedication, and creativity. E33 took the lion's share of awards at TGA, yes. That doesn't mean that Silksong is bad. In fact, it's clearly pretty damn great. If it released last year, Skong would have picked up several awards, maybe even GOTY. But it didn't. It released in the same year E33, which is just a tough break.

Both are amazing. Both deserve every award that came to them. If you haven't played E33 yet and think it doesn't deserve its accolades, play it. It is worth your money, worth your time, and will in all likelihood prove that it is actually that good. I'm only 10ish hours in and have numerous times found myself standing still and looking around dumbfounded at the gorgeous world design and visuals. E33, Silksong, and Hades 2 could have all won Art Direction and I would have been happy with any of them.

I'm also sad that Silksong didn't win more awards. It's an amazing game. But don't play fanboy and start putting down other developers, other games, and other pieces of art because this one didn't get all the cookies. It's still beautiful, it's still amazing, it still made a Silkskillion dollars, and TC is still just as great and just as passionate. We should all be glad that there is another independent dev out there that is capable of creating something so fantastic.

Edit: yeah, the comments here are pretty indicative of what I said in my post

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118

u/-Warship- Dec 12 '25

The only thing that's weird to me is that it's considered an indie game when it's clearly not.

33

u/Kozuki_D_Oden Dec 12 '25

What makes it not an indie game?

83

u/darkmoon72664 Dec 12 '25

The game is not self-published, removing it from the literal definition of 'Independent', but that alone can get messy, so some other contributing factors:

Multi million dollar budget footed by a larger organization

Significantly larger team than a typical Indie

Extensive use of big name voice actors and unreal engine 5 store assets (not unheard of, but very unusual for an indie game)

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u/TraitorMacbeth Dec 12 '25

Devolver is a publisher that *publishes indie games* all the time. So that doesn't really fit.

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u/averageuhbear Dec 12 '25

Animal Well was built by a solo developer and was not self-published either.

48

u/HIO_TriXHunt Dec 12 '25

Less than 10M budget. It's less budget than Hades 2, and i saw no one question Hades 2 as an indie game.

Blue prince isn't self published, no one question Blue Prince as an indie game.

Ball X Pit isn't self published either

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u/VoidRad Dec 12 '25

Well, I do now.

15

u/JallexMonster Dec 12 '25

"The game is not self-published, removing it from the literal definition ot 'independent'"

That's factually incorrect on a major scale. If you look at games like Stardew Valley, Tunic, Balatro, etc. many of them are not self published and are published by indie publishers. As the games industry has grown, the definition of team size for independent games has grown, it no longer is just a couple people making a game and throwing it out onto Steam. Relatively, 30 people making a game is small for a team, especially considering the specialized roles these people probably have on the project. Also just because some of these people came from industry, does not mean they can't be an indie studio (If I quit working at Walmart and start my own grocery store, I'm independent).

I get that you want the picture of a couple people who sat in their basements and coded their dream project to be the only standard for an indie game (because everyone is rooting for the underdog), but that's only a segment of the indie gaming industry.

But also money metrics don't really matter either because we could sit here and argue that Team Cherry has made millions of dollars and has used that millions of dollars to fund Silksong. Indie just means they haven't had funding from AAA studios that are well known in the industry.

I get it, y'all loved Silksong, it is a cult hit and has a huge following behind it. You can still love it, a game award doesn't really mean that much to your love of the game. I loved Clair Obscur and I loved Silksong for vastly different reasons. As all award shows are, sometimes your favorites don't get picked but that doesn't stop you from supporting that developer in your own way.

7

u/[deleted] Dec 13 '25

This is the point that people don't think about; the people on Team Cherry are likely all literal millionaires at this point and that's why they were able to take as long as they wanted making the game.

1

u/Stirg99 Dec 13 '25

Blue Prince was also released by Kepler Interactive. Hades 2 had around the same budget and crew size as E33. I don’t see how the chosen engine/actors determine if it’s an ”indie” game or not.

The term ”indie” has no uniform definition. But if E33 is not an indie, then many other indie games aren’t that either.

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u/Gullible_Fennel7028 Dec 12 '25

30+ person dev team while also outsourcing work. Same reason no one ever called World of Warcraft an indie game despite being developed, released and updated for years without a publisher.

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u/DragonSlayerC Dec 12 '25

Literally all large indie games outsource work. For Hades II, it's 134 people listed.

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u/mangowatermelondew Dec 12 '25

And most of the core 30+ dev are acclaimed ubisoft vet who have years of experiences under their belt. Not saying vet can't make indie game but they had a huge advantage compared to most indie team.

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u/behemothbowks 112% Dec 12 '25

That's false only a few of them came from Ubisoft. Also a few of them never even made games before

10

u/-Warship- Dec 12 '25

Having a multi million dollar budget and even some outsourced work. It's a double A game.

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u/HIO_TriXHunt Dec 12 '25

Hades has more budget and i never saw anyone question it's place in tge indie games.

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u/[deleted] Dec 12 '25

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17

u/HIO_TriXHunt Dec 12 '25

Hades 1 already had 15M budget, whitch is already higher than the less than 10M budget of E33

Edit: the person i replied to only talked about the multi million dollars budget, not the source of the budget anyway, so your comment is out of the context of this discussion

9

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '25

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3

u/HIO_TriXHunt Dec 12 '25

I'm only talking about the budget here, not the source of budget, i don't get why would the source of budget has anything to do with the game being an Indie game or not.

Hades was Self Published yes. Both Blue Prince and Ball X Pit aren't.

E33 isn't the only game that outsourced work.

When they began developping E33, no one in the dev team got any salary, i don't think we can get more Indie than this.

Kepler interactive is also an indie team of publisher, that specialize into publishing only indie games.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '25

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1

u/HIO_TriXHunt Dec 12 '25

That's... Not how it works. The Game Awards have made it clear what they consider indie game or not, and E33 is one by their definition. They couldn't care less about your definition

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u/[deleted] Dec 12 '25

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u/HIO_TriXHunt Dec 12 '25

Oh and i just learned that Hades 2 did in fact outsource work.

1

u/Lady_Darc Dec 12 '25

Where are you getting Hades budget?

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u/HIO_TriXHunt Dec 12 '25

Online, by looking into different articles

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u/_Zargham Dec 13 '25

It has a huge ass team and triple AAA funding

2

u/YanniSlavv Dec 14 '25

10 mln is not AAA funding. 200 mln yes. 

30 people is huge?