Netizens across the globe were treated to a rude awakening when Steam started throwing up a bunch of error messages just recently. Steam appears to be down right now – which leaves most of its services inaccessible.
This phenomenon can be attributed to the release of a particular game – Hollow Knight Silksong, which was undoubtedly one of the most anticipated releases for 2025.
It’s not just Steam though, as multiple other services such as Game Pass have also been affected by the rising tide of popularity.
Game Services Crash as Thousands of Players Attempt to Play Hollow Knight Silksong
It’s not a far stretch to consider Team Cherry’s sequel to 2017’s beloved metroidvania, Hollow Knight, is akin to the likes of Grand Theft Auto 6. Both games have been in development for an excruciatingly long period of time, and have caused waves in the gaming community, so their popularity should not really come as a surprise.
What did manage to catch everyone off guard was multiple game hosting services going for a free fall with the launch of Silksong. As of the time of writing this article, Steam’s servers appear to have completely fallen, with players basically being unable to access anything other than their pre-existing library of games.
The Steam Store is entirely unusable at this point, all while maintaining a ridiculously high active player count for Hollow Knight Silksong. The game’s release has also managed to cripple Xbox’s Game Pass service, with many reporting painfully slow download speeds.
Interestingly enough, this seems to include piracy websites as well, many of which have crumbled thanks to multiple players rushing in to download the game from their servers.
It might be a while before services are completely restored though.
It’s quite the phenomenon, and a testament to Team Cherry’s popularity, and of the passionate player base that follows it.
