Team Cherry

Team Cherry was founded in Adelaide, Australia, in 2014 by Ari Gibson and William Pellen, two friends from the local game-jam scene who wanted to build a game around Gibson's distinctive hand-drawn art. Joined by programmer David Kazi, they conceived Hollow Knight: a melancholic, hand-animated Metroidvania set in Hallownest, a vast ruined kingdom of insects. They ran a modest Kickstarter in 2014, raising roughly A$57,000, far more than they asked for but still a tiny budget for the sprawling world they envisioned.

Hollow Knight launched in 2017 to warm reviews that swelled, by word of mouth, into something much larger. Players fell for its atmospheric world design, punishing-but-fair combat, mournful orchestral score by Christopher Larkin, and the enormous, interconnected map studded with secrets. Rather than milk the success, Team Cherry gave it away: four substantial content expansions arrived free over the following years, dramatically enlarging the game. Hollow Knight sold millions of copies and became a touchstone of the modern indie Metroidvania, mentioned in the same breath as the genre's originators.

One planned expansion, centered on the character Hornet, grew so large it was spun off into a full sequel: Hollow Knight: Silksong. Announced in 2019, Silksong became one of gaming's most famously awaited titles, its absence from year after year of trade shows turning into a running community joke and a barometer of hype. Team Cherry, tiny and press-shy, mostly stayed silent, declining to overshare or overpromise while it finished the game on its own terms.

That discipline defined the studio: a handful of people, no publisher-driven schedule, no acquisition, no dilution of vision. Silksong finally released in 2025 to intense anticipation. Team Cherry's story is a case study in the leverage a very small team can wield when a single game lands perfectly, and in the patience required to resist turning that success into a factory. The studio remains independent and active today, still built around the same core trio.