Hollow Knight: Silksong has a new physical edition, and early arrivals reveal a surprise message from developer Team Cherry regarding additional content coming to the game in the months and, seemingly, years ahead.
Metroidvania marketing man Matthew Griffin reminds fans that "Hollow Knight: Silksong (Standard Edition) is arriving soon on November 10th." It comes with a user manual, a hand-drawn map, and reversible cover art. We're most interested in that user manual, which ends with a section on "Content Packs," per images shared online by fans who got their physical copy a smidge early.
"The world of Hollow Knight: Silksong will expand with free content packs," this page of the manual reads. "Prepare for even more adventures filled with new friends, new abilities, and new ferocious foes!"
The plurality of this promise is what's raised some eyebrows. After the many DLCs Hollow Knight received, there was little doubt that Team Cherry would add a truckload of content to Silksong. This is not a studio known for restraint. But how would all those ideas be expressed? Official word of several "free content packs" containing multiple "new abilities" for protagonist Hornet has predictably excited fans.
The manual continues: "In the first giant expansion, voyage across and beneath a salt-stricken ocean brimming with mystery and menace." Here again, fans linger on this being the first giant expansion for Silksong.
Hollow Knight also got multiple DLC packs – Hidden Dreams, The Grimm Troupe, Lifeblood, and Godmaster – adding bosses, items, areas, storylines, and exacting arena challenges. Previous comments from developers Ari Gibson and William Pellen suggested Silksong may receive a similar variety of additional content, with Sea of Sorrow expected to be a Grimm Troupe-like shotgun blast of experiences.
The manual concludes with a Hollow Knight: Silksong - Sea of Sorrow emblem that reads, "Coming soon." You'll note that this, like everything else Team Cherry has said, doesn't say when soon is.
Last year, Team Cherry announced Sea of Sorrow and charted a 2026 launch. Apart from a February update on a port for the original Hollow Knight and a March post confirming expanded Silksong language support, the studio hasn't said anything else on its blog or social feeds all year. Pellen previously said Team Cherry would be more communicative, and we can see how that panned out. Three blog posts in a year, dare we dream?
In a read that's only slightly generous, it's possible that this blank phrasing, used in place of a definitive release date, is just generalist wording or an artifact of this physical edition's production. Maybe Team Cherry didn't want to announce anything major in such a limited product. But this does read like a step back from the 2026 target in the expansion's reveal trailer.
Team Cherry is quiet and spontaneous enough that a Sea of Sorrow shadow drop, or at least a release date with very little notice, wouldn't surprise me. Silksong's launch also came out of nowhere, giving countless other games just two weeks to flee the blast radius. But 2026 is rapidly coming to a close and we haven't heard a peep from Team Cherry about the expansion, so I also wouldn't be surprised if this manual does, as players fear, herald a delay into 2027.
Recent YouTube comments on Sea of Sorrow's trailer tell the whole story. "Team Cherry...? Where are you...?" wonders one viewer.
The vibes are very similar to those around The Duskbloods, a Nintendo Switch 2-exclusive FromSoftware game long said to be releasing in 2026. As the months flew by without any official word, a delay seemed more and more likely, though FromSoftware also notably had some negative test feedback to respond to. Lo and behold, The Duskbloods was delayed. But much like FromSoftware, Team Cherry can pretty much do what it wants, when it wants, and millions of fans will show up anyway.
