on valentines day 2019 team cherry announced a sequel with hornet as the player character and it seems to have been in development hell ever since. we last got a trailer in 2022 and the knowledge that it should be out within a year of that trailer.
...and an announcement a year later saying it was delayed some more...
i am holding onto the hope that it's coming out this year. a delay from an intended late 2023 release into a late 2024 release makes sense, plus it's gotten its age ratings and shit more recently. it Is very funny to me than fangamer has already started selling silksong-branded merch. my guess is that they were being worked out when the late 2023 release was still the plan?

my predictions and theories

here are some of my own thoughts and ideas to come back to whenever we do hear from TC again to see if i got anything right.

on memories and the wastelands

let's take a look at the howling cliffs lore tablet:

well clearly the part about there being nothing else around is bullshit (or was when it was written at least- who knows how much time has passed while hallownest has been in stasis?), but i'm mainly putting this here for the third line.
in the quirrel comic he points out how the majority of life in the wastelands is very simple and non-sapient. he meets another wanderer, but they can barely talk.
in those who've already been exposed to the wyrm's light (or his exuvia, i guess), leaving the kingdom seems to make you lose your memories of it. we see this in quirrel's situation, the knight's too i believe? quirrel only remembers he's been here before when he sees monomon again. it's possible that this is a side effect of monomon's seal, but let's take it at face value- spending an extensive amount of time in the wasteland between kingdoms affects your sanity and your memories.
what does this mean for hornet?
in the opening cutscene for silksong, hornet is taken across the wastes for what seems to be.. a while (maybe that's where she's been the past 5 years?). her cage seems to have a seal of binding on it:
...but that's broken by one of lace's butterflies (we'll get back to that later). she does seem to be within the gates of pharloom by this point, but...
there's also her heritage. as a child of the pale king hornet is effectively half-wyrm herself. does this make her more resistant to the wastes? i headcanon she has a teeny tiny amount of foresight from him that comes across more as very good reactions in practice, but that's not really relevant.
enough theorising on what could make her immune to wasteland memory fuckery- what if she isn't?
i think she'll have forgotten a little bit- her last few days or hours in hallownest before being taken. she's resistant enough to remember most of it but not enough to be fully unscathed. plus whatever spells were put on her to keep her in captivity and any injuries from the fall (in the 2019 e3 demo, she starts out knocked out and on one mask, and you're prompted to heal before properly beginning). this also deals with the problem of avoiding making any ending canon. (this is assuming silksong isn't a prequel, and still rules out sealed siblings unless she's astral projecting or some shit.)
and what if she forgot more the longer she was away from hallownest? imagining an ending where she loses herself to pharloom and forgets she ever even wanted to go home. not sure what would trigger this, though. maybe a "neutral ending" akin to the hollow knight ending. whatever objective hornet has in pharloom is complete, but she remains without closure.

sacred flowers of a land serene

if you try to give the white lady a delicate flower, she says this;
ah, what precious gift it offers, though alas i shan't accept.
not of me that flower, nor of this kingdom. far it travelled to reach this place, brought by one beloved, fair knight of lands serene.
there is rare power hidden in those frail petals.
to hold it so close, one must surely be unaware of its nature...
more white flowers appear a few times in trailers and in the e3 demo.
the field of them in the second image is interesting. the arena for what is likely lace's rematch which makes me think its an important late game area akin to the arena for hornet's rematch in front of the cast-off shell.
i don't really know where the game would take this but a nod to it would be fun. is the language ze'mer speaks one of pharloom's?

a land haunted by silk and song

like the original game, silksong's demo begins with a poem.
they see your beauty, so frail and fine,
they see your peace, woven of faith and toil,
they forget your heart, bound in slumber and servitude,
when you wake they shall see your truth,
a beast's nature bare to all.
- from pharloom's folly by the conductor romino
a lot to unpack, but i'm focusing on the name of the poet. the elegy for hallownest was written by one of the three dreamers, so i imagine conductor romino will be important to silksong's story too. pharloom is haunted by song, and a conductor controls an orchestra. is the conductor (or conductors) someone who's controlling the kingdom similarly?
lace seems to be conducting the butterflies next to her before her first boss fight in the demo. a similar butterfly appears to break the seal of binding on hornet in the introduction cutscene.

according to the treehouse presenters lace is a member of a larger group going against hornet. could be a "the conductors?" i'm pretty sure she'll become an ally at some point in the game- maybe sooner than she makes it public. if the butterfly at the beginning of the game is hers, is it freeing hornet an accident? or a sabotage?

ascension

this one is more of a "i think it'd be a cool scene" than anything else...
it's also more of an extension on something already confirmed. while hollow knight was a descent into the abyss, hornet starts at the bottom of pharloom and works her way up. what if, by the climax of the game, we end up above ground? i don't know if it'd happen but i think it'd be fun, especially with all the horrors sunlight implies in the first game.

moving on

the pale king's children are prone to sacrifice. what is hornet's endless guard over a rotting corpse but yet another?
while i said before that hornet forgetting hallownest wouldn't be a good ending for her, i think she deserves to move on from it. hallownest persists in an unnatural stasis, the pale king's desperate attempt to keep his kingdom alive. hornet knows this.
if, knowing that truth, you'd still attempt a role in Hallownest's perpetuation, seek the grave in ash and the mark it would grant to one like you.
(hornet during the memorial statue cutscene in the city of tears)

funny then, that such darkness gives me hope. within it, i see the chance of change.
a difficult journey you would face, but a choice it can create. prolong our world's stasis or face the heart of its infection.
(hornet after the knight obtains the shade cloak)

queen vespa is a little more direct re: my point here if you speak to her ghost after killing hive knight.
my knight... at last you are freed.
small thing. i know your kind.
if you attempt to resolve your past then know i am not the queen you seek.
it is the pale beings that bear blame for your nature.
though this hive exists within hallownest, we play no part in its attempt at perpetuation.
to rail against nature is folly. all things must accept an end.
hallownest is long gone, has been for a very long time. even with the radiance killed and the infection gone it would still be little but ruins and corpses.
i think the best outcome for a post-silksong hornet would be to accept this and let hallownest go, without forgetting it entirely.