About

Silksong Steam Server Crash refers to memes about the release of Hollow Knight: Silksong overloading and crashing the Steam servers, making it temporarily difficult or impossible for some fans to purchase and install the video game. Purportedly, the release also caused issues with the PlayStation server. Silksong was released on September 4th, 2025, six years after it was announced. Its release quickly overloaded the Steam servers, causing them to crash. The crashes inspired memes on social media, including fan art depicting the game's protagonist Hornet fighting Steam's error message characters, depicted as colorful monsters, including memes that refer to them as the game's first boss.

Origin

On September 4th, 2025, the long-awaited sequel to Hollow Knight, Hollow Knight: Silksong, released across platforms. That morning, following the release, many posts started appearing online claiming that Steam was down due to too many people trying to buy the game. One of the earliest examples was posted to the /r/Silksong^[1] subreddit that morning by Redditor u/dumb-throwawayy, garnering over 14,000 upvotes in about six hours.

Spread

Memes about the crashes continued to go viral on social media that day. For example, on September 4th, 2025, Redditor u/jennervk posted an edit to /r/Silksong^[2] of Hornet about to fight the Steam error message characters, writing, "Struggling with this boss, anyone have any tips?" garnering over 9,900 upvotes in under six hours.

Around the same time, a discussion thread was started on the /r/HollowKnight^[3] subreddit to discuss the crashes, garnering over 11,000 upvotes and 1,500 comments in a few hours.

Also on September 4th, 2025, X^[4] user @LordBosk posted a version of the Hydrogen Bomb vs. Coughing Baby meme referencing the Steam crashes, garnering over 56,000 likes in several hours.

Around that time, X^[5] user @Saelens16 posted a piece of fan art depicting Hornet in a fight against the Steam error characters, garnering over 67,000 likes in several hours. It was reposted to the /r/HollowKnight^[6] subreddit, garnering over 1,100 upvotes in four hours.

Later on September 4th, X^[7] user @fin_sharkoo posted a piece of fan art of Hornet over the error message saying "Git Gud," garnering over 10,000 likes in three hours.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References