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In December 2025, Yacht Club Games founder Cris Velasco said that despite the studio's success with the 2014 hit Shovel Knight, it would be in serious trouble if its then-upcoming game Mina the Hollower wasn't a hit: "It's make-or-break for sure," Velasco said at the time. Six months later, Mina has arrived, and it looks like the studio has made it—for now, at least.
Velasco told Bloomberg that Mina the Hollower sold 300,000 copies in its first three days of release, putting it well above the 200,000 figure he said last year "would be really, really great." It's still off the "golden" mark of 500,000 units sold, but the very strong critical response—Mina is currently tied with Forza Horizon 6 as the top-rated game of 2026 on Metacritic—means that sales number will likely continue to climb.
Among those many glowing reviews is our own, in which we awarded Mina the Hollower a very rare 90% score.
"This is a demanding game filled with bosses eager to pummel players down to size. Even regular enemies demand nothing less than my full attention," reviewer Kerry Brunskill enthused. "But if I'm not interested in that side of things it is also a beautiful, atmospheric game with an intriguing narrative, stuffed full of secrets and quirky characters ... Reaching the credits only makes me realise how much there's still left to uncover, and how many ways I have to go about it."
Continuing, even accelerating, sales, driven by that critical consensus, is what Velasco is looking for. "I wonder how come the best-reviewed game of 2026 is not the fastest-selling game, so I feel a big fire lit to close that gap," he said.
There is definitely a gap. I don't think connecting review scores to sales is a winning idea, but another top-rated indie darling of 2026, Mewgenics, put up one million copies sold in its first week of release. As it stands, the success of Mina the Hollower means Yacht Club will in the short term be able to continue operating without making layoffs or relying on external investment, but the strength of the game's launch hopefully means the studio will ultimately be set for many years to come.
