Hollow Knight: Silksong Launch Sends Steam and Nintendo eShop Offline as Fans Flood Stores
Hollow Knight: Silksong’s launch traffic briefly knocked parts of Steam and the Nintendo eShop offline on Thursday morning, as many players tried to buy or download the game at once.
- Major storefronts experienced errors around the game’s scheduled PC launch time.
- Steam and Nintendo eShop users reported specific connection and server error messages.
- The developer didn’t enable preloads, and the game is now available across many platforms.
What happened
Around 10 a.m. EDT, users trying to access the Steam storefront saw intermittent failures as Hollow Knight: Silksong went live for Windows PC. In some cases, the Steam site or desktop app returned an error instead of showing the store page; however, the site did load for some visitors at times.
For reference, you can try the official Steam listing for the game on the Hollow Knight: Silksong page.
Error messages seen
Players reported the following message when Steam failed to respond: “Something Went Wrong. We were unable to service your request. Please try again later.”
Meanwhile, Nintendo eShop visitors encountered an error that read: “Error Code: 2811-7429. Couldn’t connect to the server. The network may be busy, or there may be a problem with the server. Please try again later.”
Why this likely happened
High traffic at launch is the most likely cause. Silksong launched without preloads enabled across multiple storefronts, so thousands of players attempting purchases and downloads at once can create a brief overload.
Platforms and availability
The developer released Hollow Knight: Silksong on multiple systems on Sept. 4. It is available for Linux, Mac, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
What to expect next
Steam and Nintendo’s stores generally recover quickly from traffic spikes, and reports indicated that Steam was intermittently coming back online as the issue was addressed. If you hit an error, try again after a short wait and the download or purchase should go through once the traffic eases.
In short: the launch sparked heavy demand, storefronts momentarily struggled, and the game is available now across the listed platforms.
