Hollow Knight Releases!

"Hahaha..." The host laughed awkwardly. Once the comments had finished playing, the screen displayed the results, all based on the reviews the players had just submitted.

Freshly baked.

"How about we make the next game a little harder?" Seeing the screen filled with "Very Easy," she blurted it out without thinking.

The moment she said it, she regretted it.

She had played Ethan Vale's games too. No matter which one, none of them had anything to do with "Very Easy."

"Sure." Ethan Vale smiled and nodded.

"I'll raise the difficulty in future games."

"I'm glad everyone likes these games. I'll stay true to my original intention and keep bringing everyone joy." Ethan Vale looked into the camera with a half-smile.

Hearing that, countless players suddenly shivered.

The girls holding trophies followed Ethan Vale off the stage. Carter and the others immediately came over. Seeing Ethan Vale's dark expression, the two of them could not help laughing. "Everyone was just joking with you."

"Everyone's too stubborn. I voted for 'Very Easy' too." Evan chuckled.

Ethan Vale looked at the two of them, on the verge of tears.

He was not angry. Of course he knew it was a joke.

But having the resources of an entire gaming empire at his disposal yet still being unable to complete a simple system task, unable to eat the duck meat that had been practically shoved into his mouth, made him deeply upset.

It hurt. It hurt so much.

"What I meant was, I'll really step it up." Ethan Vale took a deep breath.

He looked at the trophies behind him. This was what players were like. As long as your game was good and they liked it, they could help you win every trophy—but when it came to writing reviews, they would only ever give one answer.

Very Easy!

"I'll stay true to my original intention in making games. I hope everyone can stay true to their original intention when giving ratings too. Don't go crying when you can't handle it." Ethan Vale returned to his seat and waited for the awards ceremony to end.

Carter and Evan looked at each other, both drawing in a sharp breath.

This... was a good thing, right?

Then why did it not sound like one?

After the TGA awards ended, the media continued heavily promoting the winning games over the next few days.

Three days later, just as the buzz was beginning to fade, Sprout Studio, Steam, and Xbox officially announced a new game together.

Hollow Knight

Promotions from all three sides came pouring in.

Steam's promotion was relatively restrained, but Xbox spared no effort.

Only then did players realize that the partnership mentioned in the earlier announcement was real—and far deeper than anyone had imagined.

As long as they turned on their computers and opened the relevant platform software, they could almost always hear the name Hollow Knight.

"Judging from the promotional footage, the art style has made a huge breakthrough this time. The old thief said it too—this game is almost entirely hand-drawn art." Yinzi watched the sales countdown.

It would release right on time on January 1, New Year's Day.

Yinzi watched the trailer again and again.

The protagonist was adorable: a little knight wielding a Nail. The trailer opened with him leaping down from a frigid cliff.

The howling wind over that perilous precipice seemed to tell of the underground world's past, while the little knight's hollow eyes held no emotion at all.

The trailer showcased every kind of scene in the game: the rich underground world, exquisite crystal mines, dangerous green-lit regions, and the fallen, crazed noble insects throughout the City of Tears.

This world was filled with insects. It was a world of insects.

"The old thief is putting more and more care into his games." With ten minutes left before release, he was already waiting faithfully on the page.

The release countdown had entered its final stretch.

From the information revealed officially, he had learned the general premise of the game.

The game was set in a tangled underground kingdom called Hollow Nest. Our protagonist, the little knight wielding a Nail, would begin his adventure in this subterranean realm.

He would need to use his abilities to explore ruins, kill monsters, or befriend some of them to gain their help.

"The game costs 58. If the whole game is hand-drawn art, that price feels a little cheap."

"But then again, it feels like the old thief is being deliberately sinister by pricing it so low. He just wants to lure more players in. At the awards ceremony, he said future games would really step it up." Yinzi looked at the cute character. The longer he looked, the more those hollow eye sockets gave him chills.

The chat was amused too.

'This time, I won't review it unless I beat it. But once I do, I'll rate it Very Easy.'

'A side-scroller? How hard can it be?'

'I think you've forgotten the terror of being dominated by five cells.'

'The name Hollow Knight was mentioned back in Dead Cells. I just want to know how big the old thief's gaming blueprint is.'

'Three minutes left. Get ready!'

Yinzi switched pages as well. The final three minutes had arrived.

For some reason, his palms were sweating. No designer's games had ever made him look forward to them this much, made him wait here for the final release.

As the clock ticked over to midnight, he immediately opened the purchase page and quickly bought the game.

The game was around 9 GB, so downloading it would take some time.

While waiting, Yinzi refreshed the purchase page.

He clicked directly on the game's download statistics.

Players could not see the game's sales numbers, but they could see its download count. Only a minute had passed since downloads opened, yet the game had already surpassed one hundred thousand downloads.

But the person most concerned with the download data was not Yinzi. It was Evan.

Ever since downloads opened, he had been continuously refreshing the page. In addition to sales, he could also see sales figures for Hollow Knight game cartridges.

He could also see Hollow Knight's download count in the Xbox game store.

His data was far more comprehensive than that of players who only followed Steam.

"Boss, console purchases suddenly increased by a thousand units just now." At the same time, a subordinate reported the new development to Evan.

Evan froze. He did not think it was a coincidence.

A thousand sales was not a huge number, but it had happened far too suddenly.

Could the release of Hollow Knight really drive console sales?

He could not figure it out, nor could he understand it.

But Silver said it was not hard to understand at all. Just like him—he had just used his phone to place an order for a console.

"It's not like I'm short on money. Aside from PC, the old thief's games are only available in the XGP store, so I might as well buy one. It's no big deal."

"Maybe the old thief's games will get more and more popular, and Xbox consoles will become impossible to find later."

Please vote~~ La la