Tactical RPG Demonschool flees to November as Silksong claims another victim: 'We would not be doing Demonschool any favors by wading into waters we can clearly see are blood red'
The Silksong behemoth has claimed another victim. The tactical RPG Demonschool, which was set to launch on September 3, has been delayed to November 19, because 2025 has been "brutal" and launching the day before one of the most anticipated indie games to come along in years would just be asking for trouble.
The Demonschool release date was only announced two weeks ago, a full year after it was first delayed from its planned release in 2024 and well beyond the expected launch in early 2025. But just days after Demonschool was locked down to a date, Team Cherry made the same move, setting Silksong for release the day after Demonschool.
And so, "after much anguished consideration (and screaming, and teeth gnashing etc)," Ysbryd made the decision to push Demonschool back to November 19.
"With 11 years under our belt as an indie publisher, we at Ysbryd Games are reasonably qualified to say that any point of 2025, on balance, has been or will be as brutal as market conditions can get when it comes to releasing a game," Ysbryd wrote. "The joke got more cruel when we found out with such short notice that Hollow Knight: Silksong will launch just one day after our planned release for Demonschool.
"We have to remind ourselves that gaining visibility for Demonschool is our main goal. Thus, the Ysbryd team strongly believes we would not be doing Demonschool any favors by wading into waters we can clearly see are blood red. If the September period is going to be Silksong's moment, then we need to be elsewhere on the calendar to give Demonschool its own moment to be seen and talked about meaningfully."
The one bit of solace amidst all this is that Demonschool is in good company: CloverPit, Stomp and the Sword of Miracles, Faeland, and Aeterna Lucis have all made way for Silksong, and I wouldn't be surprised to see more hauling ass over the next week. Ironically, we cited Demonschool developer Necrosoft as the one studio committed to its release date come Hell or high water, but the decision was apparently out of its hands: The studio wrote on Bluesky that the delay "was not our choice," but it understands and isn't angry about the shift.
"Dropping the GTA of indie games with two weeks notice makes everyone freak out," Necrosoft wrote. "Ysbryd is being a good partner and paying for the delay. We're sorry this is happening."
Anyway:
— @necrosoftgames.com (@necrosoftgames.com.bsky.social) 2025-08-25T19:13:42.785Z
The studio also explained why the delay goes all the way into November, and the short version is that October is crowded as hell. And there is an upside to an extra two-month wait for Demonschool: Content including new endings and minigames that were planned for a post-release patch will now be in the game at launch.