Hollow Knight: Silksong Hype Seems To Have Crashed Multiple Storefronts

At around 10 a.m. EST, Steam was down with the following error message: “Something Went Wrong. We were unable to service your request. Please try again later. E502 L3.” The full downtime featuring the previously mentioned message went on for about another 15 to 20 minutes. However, after this, other technical issues persisted, and at least in my case, I still haven’t been able to get past adding the game to my cart 40 minutes later, with checkout stuck in a loading screen. Honestly, I have a hard time remembering the last time this happened with a game purchase, and the closest thing I can think of is what occurs whenever new console pre-orders open. Steam wasn’t the only storefront affected, and apparently, Xbox, PSN, and the Switch store were also encountering issues.

It goes without saying that these problems are likely a result of the huge number of Hollow Knight superfans flocking to digital storefronts, with the traffic spikes proving more than Valve, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony’s servers could handle.

For context, it was recently announced that Hollow Knight sold 15 million copies, an incredibly impressive number, especially for a release made by such a small team. The game’s follow-up, Hollow Knight: Silksong, was announced back in February 2019, only for its development to go on longer than many initially expected, causing the fanbase to become increasingly rabid.

Then two weeks ago, Team Cherry surprisingly announced a September 4 release, prompting several other games to change their release dates. While some assumed that the game was in development hell due to its lengthy lead time, in an interview with Bloomberg, Team Cherry revealed that they had made so much money from their previous game that they could afford to take as long as they wanted with this sequel, and apparently enjoyed filling this follow-up with as much as they could. And now fans only have to wait a tiny bit longer to check it out.