William Pellen

2008–2014: Early work, flash games, and web design

Pellen worked for the company Optus from 2008 to 2011, in multiple roles.^[9][10] From 2012 to 2014,^[9] he also was a freelance web designer under the website name "Wilco Design",^[11][12][13] creating websites for clients such as the Lake Albert Caravan Park.^[14] Pellen additionally worked for the company Inprint Design Adelaide as a web designer from 2013 to 2014.^[9] In a 2021-published interview, Ari Gibson recalled him as being the "lynchpin [of] the entire operation" at an unnamed company he formerly worked for as a web designer, which Pellen stated he believed had closed by then.^[11]

As a hobby, Pellen created small indie games, not expecting game development "to become much more than that".^[8] His first released game was Return to Booty Grotto (2012), an action game where players control a fish.^[10][15] Made in Adobe Flash,^[10] It was the only completed game he released prior to co-founding Team Cherry.^[8][10] Lulanda, a Stencyl-made 2D platformer with two demos released, and the Game & Watch-inspired Wilco LCD Classics were also in development, but went unreleased.^[10][14][16] Pellen later recounted that he had been working "part-time for a while" by 2014.^[11]

2013–present: Team Cherry and professional game design

In 2013, Pellen was contacted by his longtime friend Ari Gibson, who, after seeing his work on small platformers, suggested that they enter the 27th Ludum Dare. Its theme was 10 seconds, leading them to develop Hungry Knight under the team name "Team Cherry". It was badly received by the public.^[13][17] Later in 2013, they released the small game Tomb Cat.^[10][18] In 2014, a game jam with the theme of "Beneath the Surface" began, with Pellen and Gibson planning to use some ideas from Hungry Knight, alongside new ones, for a game developed for the jam; they missed the deadline.^[17][19]

Despite this, they were invested in the idea, resulting in the development of a full game, Hollow Knight, starting. They legally founded Team Cherry that year, and started a Kickstarter project for Hollow Knight; it was a success. The game was released in February 2017 to critical acclaim. Pellen worked on the game's programming and writing, and also co-directed its development.^[17][20]

Prior to the release of Hollow Knight, Pellen and Gibson began early work on a piece of downloadable content starring Hornet as the protagonist, which eventually evolved into a sequel, Hollow Knight: Silksong.^[21][22] The game's development took over seven years, though Pellen described the process as enjoyable.^[23] Silksong released in September 2025, also to critical acclaim.^[24] Both titles' large success has given Pellen substantial wealth and an "inestimable peace of mind", with Hollow Knight and Silksong having sold roughly 15 and 7 million copies by late 2025 respectively.^[23][25]

In a 2020 interview with Edge, it was confirmed that Pellen and Gibson were in the very early stages of developing a non-Hollow Knight game, one then only existing through ideas shared in a Google Doc. Pellen described the game as "something we get to explore".^[21] In a 2025 Bloomberg interview, it was implied that his and Gibson's next game would not be a Hollow Knight one.^[20] In 2019 and 2023, Team Cherry filed trademarks for "Fearless Fox", which gaming news journalists took as a likely indication of an upcoming non-Hollow Knight game project by Pellen and Gibson with this title.^[26][27][28]