On September 4, 2025, the highly anticipated "Hollow Knight: Silksong" officially launched, and the immediate surge in player traffic caused Steam and several other gaming platforms to crash for nearly two hours. 
This unexpected outage, dubbed the "Silksong Incident" by players, not only sent shockwaves through the gaming community but also sparked industry-wide concerns: when "Grand Theft Auto VI" (GTA 6) arrives on May 26, 2026, could it trigger an even larger technical meltdown?
According to Downdetector statistics, over 70,000 players reported connection issues on "Silksong"'s launch day, with Steam's servers experiencing a near-total collapse. Beyond Valve's platform, Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo's online stores also suffered service interruptions or technical glitches during the same period. For an indie game priced at just $20, causing such widespread platform disruption highlights its immense market influence. 
Seven years in the making, "Silksong" amassed over 5 million wishlists on Steam alone, and its concurrent player count surpassed 530,000 at launch. Many developers even opted to delay their own game releases to avoid competing with it. However, compared to this indie title, the scale and anticipation for "GTA 6" are on an entirely different level.
Looking back at 2013, "Grand Theft Auto V" sold over 11 million copies on its launch day and set six Guinness World Records, including "fastest entertainment product to gross $1 billion." Today, some in the industry are even calling "GTA 6" the first "5A game" in history, with its open-world scale and cultural impact expected to far exceed its predecessor. 
Analysts suggest that if "Silksong" could cripple global gaming platforms, the arrival of "GTA 6" will likely bring an even greater traffic surge. Platform holders like Valve, Sony, and Microsoft must proactively reinforce their servers and system resilience or risk an industry-wide meltdown.
Following "Silksong," "GTA 6" is poised to be the ultimate test of the gaming industry's infrastructure.
via： Game Rant