Hollow Knight’s developers expect Silksong to lose at The Game Awards: ‘Expedition 33 is exceptional’

Team Cherry’s two co-founders have said they might not travel to this year’s The Game Awards, despite Hollow Knight: Silksong being up for five awards, because they believe they’ll lose out to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

In an extensive interview with Bloomberg covering Silksong’s reception and their plans for the future, Ari Gibson and William Pellen were asked if they planned to attend the LA event, which takes place on Thursday, December 11.

“Maybe not,” Pellen replied. “We’re pretty busy.”

Asked if the pair planned to record a video message instead, in case they win one of the categories in which they’re nominated, Gibson suggested that he believed Silksong was unlikely to win, due to Expedition 33’s broader appeal.

“This year I think we’re safe,” he said. “I think Expedition 33 — it’s exceptional and broadly palatable. Whereas we’re on that knife’s edge, where it appeals to some and infuriates others.”

Silksong is nominated for five Game Awards, including Game of the Year, Best Art Direction, Best Score and Music, Best Independent Game, and Best Action/Adventure Game. Clair Obscur is also nominated in all but one of these categories, Action/Adventure.

The Game Awards winners are set to be determined by a blended vote between a jury of media publications, including VGC (90%), and public fan voting (10%).

In total, Sandfall Interactive’s breakout RPG is nominated for 12 Game Awards – a record for a single game. However, if past trends continue, the big Game Awards winner could be neither Expedition 33 nor Silksong.

Elsewhere in the Bloomberg interview, the Team Cherry co-founders confirmed they’re currently working on DLC for Silksong, and are also thinking about how it could work on different games outside of Hollow Knight in the future.

Asked for their response to the reception of Silksong, Pellen replied: “It’s good. Pretty different release than Hollow Knight, obviously, because so many people were playing it at once. The sheer volume of it can be a little overwhelming. Not even in a bad way, but there’s so much coming through at once. Whereas Hollow Knight was a slow burn.”