Silksong: Time, Community and the Power of Lean Teams
“Sometimes it's not about how fast you ship, but who you ship with — and why.”
Recently, Hollow Knight: Silksong reached a 100 on Metacritic — extraordinary for any game. What makes the feat even more striking is that it was built by just three people: Ari Gibson, William Pellen and Jack Vine, who make up Team Cherry.
That success carries a legacy, too. Its predecessor, Hollow Knight (2017), had already built a solid fan base and sold millions of copies — which helped sustain the expectations for the sequel.
But another point caught my attention: the development time. Silksong took around seven years to finish — a long stretch, especially for such a small team.
Even so, the studio never seemed pressured by artificially short deadlines. The creators say the project 'never stalled', and that progress was steady — if slow — thanks to the lean nature of the team and its creative ambition.
That time was not an obstacle — it was an investment. And the results speak for themselves: on Steam alone, Silksong sold more than 3.2 million copies in under two weeks; within days it had passed 5 million players across all platforms; and estimates suggested it could move over 5 million units in its first months, generating around US$100 million in revenue.
These numbers show that when you have an engaged community, an established reputation and trust in your delivery, longer timelines can be absorbed — as long as you don't sacrifice the pillars of quality and consistency.
A small team, taking years to build something with excellence — yet able to rally a legion of fans at launch. That leads me to a powerful reflection: sometimes it's not about how fast you ship, but who you ship with — and why.
And you? Have you ever been part of a lean team that was given the time it needed to mature a product, and made a huge impact because of it?
