Hollow Knight Silksong var undervejs i mange, lange år før udvikler Team Cherry endelig valgte at lancere det, og godt nok var det ikke noget egentligt "shadow drop", men da holdet endelig formelt afslørede spillet på ny under Gamescom, der var da bare få uger til lanceringen i september.
Det mener instruktøren bag Hell is Us, Jonathan Jacques-Belletête, er en smule følelseskoldt af udvikler Team Cherry, fordi spillets gigantiske popularitet eventuelt endte med at dræne interessen for andre spil i samme tidsperiode, uden at disse studier havde tid til at skifte strategi.
I et interview med Friends-per-Second podcastet siger han dette:
"When you know you're that big, I think a shadow drop is a bit like... wow. As the 'GTA 6 of indie'... to shadow drop something like this is a little callous. For us, there were emails and texts and messages back and forth between a lot of people, between us and our publisher — it was a real thing — we decided to keep the date, and I'm happy that we did. We're still much bigger than some of the smaller ones who would have gotten a lot more affected and who decided to change their dates — changing the date of Hell is Us would have been a pretty big endeavour."
Han smider naturligvis ikke bare en masse skyld ovre på Team Cherry, og bifalder Silksongs popularitet:
"Honestly, it's not just Silksong, there was Cronos, it was a busy time. That's the thing nowadays, honestly — getting a window where you're pretty much alone is almost impossible. 15 years ago, the mid-end of the summer was always a dead period. But there's no such thing anymore. It's just constant madness."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opeNl55y-0Y