Hollow Knight Silksong: how 3 people in Australia made the world’s hottest game

This professional online article, published in The Conversation, examines the international success of Hollow Knight and its sequel Silksong, developed by Adelaide studio Team Cherry. It analyses these titles as exemplars of Australia’s independent game development sector, contextualising their achievements through industry data from the Australia Plays 2025 and Australian Game Development Survey 2024 reports. The discussion highlights structural characteristics of the Australian games industry, including export orientation, intellectual property generation, and sectoral resilience, while also considering the scale and diversity of the national player community. The article argues that the prominence of these globally acclaimed indie titles underscores both the creative capacity of small studios and the continuing requirement for stable, long-term policy support to ensure sustainable industry growth.