Mina the Hollower buys Yacht Club time, and a new 3D game is underway

Specimen of the week: a small mouse with a whip, burrowing under hazards and monsters on a cursed island. That is Mina, the hero of Mina the Hollower, and she has just done something rarer than slaying a boss. She has kept a small studio alive.

Here is what the game is. Mina the Hollower is an old-school action-adventure from Yacht Club Games, the team behind Shovel Knight. You play Mina, a renowned Hollower on a desperate mission to rescue a cursed island, and the developers describe pixel-perfect graphics, beastly bosses and infectious music. ¹ It is on Switch and Switch 2, and has also reached Steam and GOG at $19.99. ¹² Eurogamer’s review gave it five stars. ³

The news is about what the game bought. Before launch, the studio called it a “make-or-break” moment, after a pandemic and a failed attempt to become a multi-project studio left it on thin ice. ³⁴ Asked in a Reddit AMA whether Mina secured financial stability, co-founder Sean Velasco answered “yes… for now!” ³ The game sold more than 500,000 copies in its first two weeks. ³ That clears the bar Velasco himself set earlier, when he said selling 500,000 copies would leave the studio “golden.” ⁴

So what is the team doing with the breathing room? Most of it is now on a new 3D game. Developer Alec Faulkner stopped short of confirming Shovel Knight 3D but said “most of us are currently working on a 3D game, yes!” ³ Velasco previously said a 3D Shovel Knight project was about halfway done before the whole studio pivoted to Mina. ³

Mina is not being abandoned, either. The team is working on post-release features, including expanded randomizer options, enemy and boss randomization, more modifiers and speedrunner tools. ³¹ There is nothing to announce on DLC. ¹ A physical release is still planned, and the studio is looking for the right publishing and distribution partner. ¹ Sales have “slowed quite a lot” since launch, the studio admits. ¹

What sets it apart is partly the price and partly the candor. The team chose $20 without much debate, and Velasco said they did not want the price to be something anyone would even question. ² Co-founder Nick Wozniac was frank about the lesson: splitting the team across two games was a mistake, and “keeping the team tight and focused is what helped Mina land.” ³

Who is it for? Anyone who loved Shovel Knight’s craft and wants a bigger, stranger adventure with plenty of modifiers to bend the rules. ² It is also for anyone who likes rooting for a small team that got a second chance.

Field note: the studio calls the game its first completely new project in 12 years, with an estimated development cost of $5 million. ²

Our read: “For now” is the honest phrase here, and I like that they said it out loud. Sales have slowed, the new game is unannounced, and the studio has just relearned that a small team does best when it stays small and focused. That is a success story, with the honest asterisk attached.

Worth knowing: Mina the Hollower is available now on Switch, Switch 2, Steam and GOG, priced at $19.99. ¹²

Footnotes

1. GoNintendo, “Yacht Club talks Mina the Hollower: Physical plans, no DLC, new post-launch features, game sales and more”. Retrieved October 31, 2026. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

2. PCGamesN, “Inspired by Silksong, Mina the Hollower dev says its $20 price was an easy decision”. Retrieved October 31, 2026. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

3. Eurogamer, “GOTY hopeful Mina the Hollower bought the studio financial stability “for now,” while the Shovel Knight devs work on a new 3D game”. Retrieved October 31, 2026. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

4. Video Games Chronicle, “Shovel Knight studio Yacht Club Games is ‘make or break’ and relying on its next game’s success”. Retrieved October 31, 2026. ↩ ↩²