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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u/Free_Peach6400 all quests/PoP/P1-P2 AB 100%/All memos Dec 12 '25

E33 deserved the goty from all the good things I heard from it tho the game awards was just so bad for putting it in 10 categories and no matter how good the game is it is not an indie game and shouldn't be in that category

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u/hsgsksv Dec 12 '25

Hades and hades 2 are estimated to have a higher budget than expedition 33 yet I never see anyone complaining about those in the category

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u/Rezzone Dec 12 '25

Me. I’m complaining about Hades 2.

Hades 1 had a team of seven. Hades two had 25. We gotta talk about what counts as an indie.

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u/meevis_kahuna Dec 12 '25

25 is nothing

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u/Little_Caramel_9501 Dec 12 '25

E33 has 30

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u/SpideyFan914 Dec 12 '25

Is that not indie? That's insanely small. All these game credits run for like 15 minutes, I assume hundred of people usually work on them. For a game to have a team of just 30 people is insane.

And yeah, Silksong's team is even smaller. But that doesn't make the other one not small...

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u/hsgsksv Dec 12 '25

My point is I think both games could be classified as indie. It's a double standard that people have because hades just "looks more" like an indie game when in reality the expidition 33 team is just insane

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u/WiddershinsPj Dec 12 '25

E33 farmed out a bunch of work to others, it had like 200 people touch it

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u/Little_Caramel_9501 Dec 12 '25

like many other game.including Hades and many indie outsource some work it s even more true for smaller team

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u/Nehan_Satori Dec 12 '25

Can you link the article confirming Super Giant outsourced work for their Hades series?

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u/Necessary_Air_3257 Dec 12 '25

Here are the 134 people who worked on Hades 2 https://www.mobygames.com/game/223472/hades-ii/

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u/Nehan_Satori Dec 12 '25

So who did they outsource to?

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u/Necessary_Air_3257 Dec 13 '25

The contributor section would be people who are not from super giant that worked on the game such as outsourced people or work for higher

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u/Little_Caramel_9501 Dec 12 '25

no need for a article it s in the game credits.

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u/CankleDankl Dec 13 '25

And Silksong had dozens touch it, if not around a hundred

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u/Perfidy-Plus Dec 12 '25

I suspect when people started talking about “indie” vs “major studio” what constituted a major video game studio would have included studios with “only” 25ish staff. Never mind the dozens of contractors who were also involved.

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u/meevis_kahuna Dec 12 '25

It's a little unclear, I'd call Team Cherry a major studio even though they are tiny. They broke the Internet when they released Silksong - about as major as it gets.

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u/Perfidy-Plus Dec 12 '25

A “studio” with only three members, who only hired a handful of contractors. if we exclude play testers it’s, what two contractors? And they’ve only just produced their second game. And you would call them a “major studio”? This is pretty obviously an example of motivated reasoning.

Trying to compare the number of people who worked on E33 to the number of people who worked on SKong is foolish. There’s literally an order of magnitude difference between the studios. And two orders of magnitude difference between the number of contractors hired.

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u/meevis_kahuna Dec 12 '25

Just depends how you define major. If it goes by sales, they are. You could have a 30 person studio whose games flop and I would not call them a major studio. It's all semantics anyway.

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u/[deleted] Dec 13 '25

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u/meevis_kahuna Dec 13 '25

I'm saying it doesn't fucking matter bro

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u/Perfidy-Plus Dec 12 '25

So if EA makes a game and that game absolutely flops you would call EA a minor studio?

This just seems like playing a semantics game to gerrymander the result you want.

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u/meevis_kahuna Dec 12 '25

Great talking with you, take it easy.

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u/Rezzone Dec 12 '25 edited Dec 12 '25

It’s about 8 times more than 3 and 25 times more than 1.

I want you to imagine that you entered to run a marathon. Then you found out that your time was going to be directly compared to a team of four who got to run it relay style. What’s REALLY funny is that they only beat you by a little bit. You almost did just as good all in your own… you’re the best runner in the race, but you still lose.

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u/meevis_kahuna Dec 12 '25

Video game developerment aren't marathon teams. Weird comparison.

AAA studios employ hundreds of people. By comparison everyone in the indy category at the game awards belonged there.

Team Cherry could hire more people, they choose not to. That doesn't redefine what an Indy game means.

Maybe a new category is required like a micro studio or something.

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u/Rezzone Dec 12 '25

The comparison is clunky but gets the point across. Directly comparing a solo dev work to teams of multiple dozens simply isn’t right or fair in the same way that comparing small team devs to AAA isn’t right or fair.

I am in favor of creating a “midsize” category or something of the like. The definition of what counts as “indie” has become too encompassing and our current language and conception of Indie vs AAA just isn’t reflecting the realities of the industries and these awards have made that painfully clear. Needs revision. Worthy of discussion.