Hollow Knight fans uncover bizarre Silksong ripoff factory on mobile stores: "Join Horney" in "the medieval game you've been waiting for"

The long and arduous wait for Hollow Knight: Silksong continues, and to make matters worse (or better, depending on your perspective), fans have discovered a series of odd ripoffs appearing on mobile storefronts.

First spotted on the Silksong subreddit, a developer by the name of sosodev has released six ripoffs with names such as Hornet: Silksong Hollow Knight and Silksong Story, all of which have the sequel’s protagonist front and centre in the artwork. You can see the ripoff factory’s full gameography on the Google Play store. Their page also includes an app called Charles Spider Train Choo Choo, which is presumably riffing on the viral horror game Choo-Choo Charles. 

One of the app’s descriptions says: “Hollowknight silksong is the medieval game that you are looking for,” with images ripped from Silksong’s previously released trailers. That’s obviously a less-than-accurate description for the dark fantasy Metroidvania, but fans seemed to be amused anyway. One Redditor joked that it “sucks that the mobile port was so rushed.” Another said that “fans are getting even more desperate now,” referencing the community’s hunger for more sequel news. 

I resently instaled the Silksong mobile port and it is great! from r/Silksong

Redditor Furodax took things a step further by actually downloading one of the fishy apps for research purposes. “Honestly I didn’t think we were going to get a mobile port this early,” Furodax joked in a Reddit post. “The combat is great and I haven’t encountered any major bugs.” Fabulous. The post also includes a screenshot from the ripoff which is just one untextured room with another untextured bench model. There’s apparently nothing to do in the untextured room, and the ‘game’ inexplicably cuts to black soon after. Let’s be honest, we aren’t that desperate to play Silksong. Are we? 

Hollow Knight: Silksong - a sequel to one of the best Metroidvanias ever  - was supposed to have been released by now. The much-anticipated game last reared its head with a trailer in summer 2022, which said the game would launch in the following twelve months. According to the developers at Team Cherry, however, the game had “gotten quite big” and needed more time in the oven. 

We still have a labyrinth of information to decipher, though. Find out everything we know about Hollow Knight: Silksong.