Silksong Might Be The Biggest Indie Release Ever, But Could Stardew Valley Dev’s Next Game Top It?

There’s no denying that the hype train for Hollow Knight: Silksong is unlike anything we’ve ever seen for an indie game. In the days leading up to its release, multiple other small studios delayed their games to stay out of Silksong’s way, something generally reserved to make space for the Grand Theft Autos of the gaming world. The sequel’s release led to Steam and the Nintendo eShop crashing (the lack of preorders played a role here, of course) and saw the metroidvania game top out at 587,000 concurrent players on Valve’s platform alone. The game also released on PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, and Switch 2, plus it’s available on Game Pass. With that in mind, the total player numbers for Silksong are huge, showcasing that the online memes and anticipation for the game to show up at events were true indicators of sales success.

All of this said, it’s begun to feel unlikely that Silksong’s launch will ever be matched by another indie game. But as Yoda said: There is another.

One indie game that could take the entire gaming world by storm is Haunted Chocolatier, the follow-up to Stardew Valley. Sure, it’s not a direct sequel to the perennially popular farming simulator (that could be in the cards eventually, though). However, Haunted Chocolatier shares a similar visual presentation and will offer a larger world than Stardew Valley, according to creator Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone. The RPG will see people living in a haunted castle and making chocolate, which requires gathering ingredients. It’s a “town game” like Stardew Valley, per Barone, though Haunted Chocolatier will lean more into the action-RPG genre. Oh, and it may just be set in the same world as Stardew Valley.

Haunted Chocolatier was announced in late 2021, so the wait has already been years long at this point–similar to Silksong. Barone has said the game will focus on mystery and whimsy, adding to the allure for an audience that loves discovering secrets on their own and through online communities. But the most obvious reason Haunted Chocolatier will be a huge event when it launches is found simply by glancing at Stardew Valley’s concurrent players on SteamDB. The farming simulator has averaged 100,000 players over the past month and, despite releasing back in 2016, peaked with over 235,000 people playing at the same time just last year.

When comparing the two, it quickly becomes evident that Hollow Knight doesn’t swim in the same waters for Steam concurrent players as Stardew Valley. Not only does Stardew Valley have a lot of players, it has a lot of engaged players–ones that keep coming back to the game and help it maintain its extreme popularity. It’s possibly an unfair comparison, as the former is strictly solo while the latter has co-op multiplayer. But it’s also possible that Stardew Valley simply has a bigger fanbase, which could catapult Haunted Chocolatier to even greater heights than what we just witnessed with Silksong.

There’s one other point to consider as well: Stardew Valley is the best-rated game of all time on Steam.Sure, platform availability could minimize its full impact, but Haunted Chocolatier is still primed for a monstrous debut. And if it follows suit with Stardew Valley, it could very easily start on PC before eventually coming to almost every platform, including mobile devices. Oh, and as for industry impact, it’s worth bringing up that Devolver Digital co-founder Nigel Lowrie has already told IGN that he monitors Haunted Chocolatier in case they need to alter release plans around it.

However, there’s also an argument that the next Silksong can’t be predicted. No one ever expected Hollow Knight to be a phenomenon–just check out this decade-old Reddit post about the game for confirmation. Additionally, some of the most popular Steam games of all time seemingly landed out of nowhere. Palworld has seen over 32 million players since coming out in early 2024, a mind-boggling number. Were you aware that there is a game called Banana on Steam that sees about 100,000 players daily? Sure, it being free-to-play certainly balloons those numbers, but not many people would expect a game about clicking on a piece of fruit to create that sort of long-term engagement. The chance to collect a rare banana and possibly sell it for actual money clearly has its attraction.

Another recent example of this phenomenon is Peak, a co-op climbing game that sees players working together to ascend a mountain. Fascinatingly enough, it’s the opposite of Haunted Chocolatier and Silksong from a developmental perspective. Peak came together during a month-long game jam, though co-developer Aggro Crab had previously pitched the concept.

The only thing that seems certain is that the indie space will continue to surprise us with unique experiences that might take years to land in our hands, or possibly appear almost magically out of thin air. Maybe Silksong is a unique moment, something that can’t be replicated. Or maybe it’s another landmark event that will be surpassed eventually, but not forgotten by those who experienced it.