Mina the Hollower

Mighty · 66 top critics · 41 articles · May 29, 2026

Yacht Club Games

What critics said

I can’t wait to revisit Mina’s story to blaze a new path through it, and to try weapons and trinkets unexplored on my maiden voyage. Just like I could revisit the world of Shovel Knight through its added campaigns, so too can I look forward to pushing over the stones I left unturned when I next boot up Mina the Hollower. The once hollow part of my heart that long awaited this release is now full, and I couldn’t be happier.

Eurogamer100

Explore every inch of a cursed island in an adventure that takes inspiration from the greats.

PC Gamer90

Mina is a gloriously gothic combination of ferocious combat and beautiful scenery, with enough secrets and modifiers to keep the game fresh and fun for a very long time.

Show 17 more reviews ↓

PlayStation Universe100

Mina the Hollower news

Interview: "There's Clearly Some Castlevania And Final Fantasy In There" - Mina The Hollower Composer Talks Secrets & Inspiration

Burrowing from the greats. Late last year, Yacht Club Games founder Sean Velasco described Mina The Hollower as "make or break" for the studio. After a long development process and a last-minute delay, Yacht Club needed Mina to hit if it was going to have a future. Two months since launch, and it's fair to say that it's hit. The game shifted a whopping 300,000 sales in its first three days, and surpassed the big 500,000-mark in the following weeks. I crowned it my Game of the Year So Far in our

Nintendo Life

Interview

Mina the Hollower has a secret ending, but good luck seeing it

If you want to see Mina's alternate conclusion, prepare yourself for an ordeal.

PC Gamer / Rick Lane

Guide

Mina the Hollower sells 500k copies less than two weeks after launch as Yacht Club Games teases "the adventure is just getting started"

Shovel Knight studio Yacht Club Games was worried last year about Mina the Hollower's launch after such a long time away from the public, but it turns out it had nothing to worry about. Mina's debut has now sold over 500k copies in less than two weeks.

Eurogamer / Fran Ruiz

Business

Mina the Hollower Well on Its Way to Saving Dev, Sells Half a Million Copies

After reports the game was make or break. Indie darling Mina the Hollower has now sold more than 500,000 copies since its release last month, further helping to ensure Yacht Club Games has a future in the games industry. Reports from late last year suggested the developer was in financial trouble, to the point where it had to let go of staff. The team's co-founder, Sean Velasco, described Mina the Hollower as a "make-or-break" moment for the developer, and estimated 200,000 units would need to b

Push Square

Business

Mina The Hollower Has Now Sold Half A Million Copies

"We're completely blown away". Mina The Hollower was described as a "make-or-break" release for Yacht Club Games, with the indie developer admitting it needed a strong return. Fortunately, it's already surpassed multiple milestones, and the company has now officially confirmed it's sold more than half a million copies since it launched last month on 29th May 2026.

Nintendo Life

Business

Mina the Hollower has the best sidequests of any game in 2026

These quests are anything but hollow.

PC Gamer / Ted Litchfield

Review

Yacht Club Games Teases Some "Very Secret Things" In Mina The Hollower

But some playthroughs are missing up to "50 percent of the game". Yacht Club's new title Mina The Hollower is filled with all sorts of surprises and secrets, but according to the lead programmer David D'Angelo, the average amount of items discovered in each playthrough right now is only "around 50 to 70 percent". Speaking to Eurogamer, D'Angelo explained how this means some players are effectively "missing 50 percent" of what the game has to offer.

Nintendo Life

Interview

Think you've got a handle on Mina the Hollower? Yacht Club reckons many playthroughs are "missing 50 percent of the game", and "there are a few very secret things" players are yet to find

Mina the Hollower may look like a cute and unassuming game at first glance, with its retro pixel aesthetic and demure mouse hero, but don't be fooled. Developer Yacht Club Game has hidden myriad secrets within its world, the Tenebrous Isle, for players to unearth. And even after a week of scrutiny by eager fans, it seems many of these remain undiscovered.

Eurogamer / Victoria Phillips Kennedy

Interview

Critically Acclaimed Mina the Hollower Has Sold Over 300,000 Copies

Yacht Club Games says its high-scoring, retro-style action game has secured its short-term future and protected it from making cuts. The post Critically Acclaimed Mina the Hollower Has Sold Over 300,000 Copies

This Week in Video Games / Jamie Hore

Business

Mina the Hollower sells 300,000 copies in three days

Yacht Club Games previously indicated the title's performance would 'make or break' the studio.

Game Developer / Chris Kerr

Business

"I don't think we can ask people to pay $30 for a pixel art game" - How Mina the Hollower's modest $20 price point may have saved developer Yacht Club Games

Mina the Hollower sold 300,000 copies in three days over its launch weekend, with developer Yacht Club Games assuring it is going to be "fine" after previously saying this game would be "make-or-break" for the studio.

Eurogamer / Victoria Phillips Kennedy

Business

Mina The Hollower Sold 300,000 Copies In Its First Three Days

Yacht Club confirms strong sales. Yacht Club Games previously mentioned how Mina The Hollower was "make-or-break" for the indie developer, and it seems the game's lengthy development cycle has officially paid off. In an update after last week's launch, the team has now revealed Mina has officially sold 300,000 copies in its first three days on the market. The title has not only been made available on the Switch and Switch 2, but also PC, PlayStation and Xbox platforms. Read the full article on n

Nintendo Life

Business

Mina the Hollower sells 300,000 in 3 days, Yacht Club Games is saved

Founder Cris Velasco said last year the Mina the Hollower was "make-or-break" for the studio, and they made it—for now, anyway.

PC Gamer / Andy Chalk

Business

Mina the Hollower Sells Over 300k Copies in 3 Days

The newest retro sensation is selling fast on various platforms as Mina the Hollower sales have crossed 300k copies in only 3 days

TechRaptor / Don Parsons

Business

Mina the Hollower is another absolute gem from Yacht Club Games

Yacht Club Games who made the popular Shovel Knight series are back with Mina the Hollower, a retro styled pixel-art action adventure game. Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

GamingOnLinux / Liam Squires-Hand

Review

Is Mina the Hollower too hard? The debate is on, as players discuss the challenge of Yacht Club's smash hit

Mina the Hollower is a smash hit, with heaps of players flocking to Yacht Club's retro-inspired action adventure. However, a section of the playerbase have asked the bold question: is it too hard?

Eurogamer / Connor Makar

Culture

Mina The Hollower Is Now Metacritic's Highest-Rated Game Of 2026

Early sales data has also been shared. 2026 has already been a blockbuster year for video games, and it just keeps getting better. Following the recent success of titles such as Resident Evil Requiem and Forza Horizon 6, the new game of the year contender is surprisingly Mina The Hollower!

Nintendo Life

Business

Mina the Hollower review

Here is a game that feels like an adventure. And it feels like it was an adventure to make, too. Mina the Hollower took six years to design and build, six years that took it from what sounds like a kind of coding doodle to a panoramic journey across a richly imagined island, taking in platforming and combat, puzzle-solving, and sheer immersion in the world building. It's Zelda and it's Bloodborne. It's smacking bosses and reading the in-game newspaper. All of which is to say that those six years

Eurogamer / Christian Donlan

Review

Shovel Knight studio’s ‘make or break’ new game has the highest reviews of the year

Platformer Mina the Hollower debuts with huge review scores

VGC / Andy Robinson

Review

31 hours with the spit-shined Mina the Hollower (and 34 with the four games that came before it)

A review of a stunning new Super Nintendo-style epic made by a studio that keeps getting better

Game File / Stephen Totilo

Review

Mina the Hollower is the best old-school action adventure I've played in a while

Smooth movement, compelling combat, and tons of secrets make for an innovative throwback.

Ars Technica / Kyle Orland

Review

Round Up: The Reviews Are In For Mina The Hollower

Hole lot of love. Mina The Hollower might just be our most-anticipated indie of the year. Yacht Club Games' throwback Zelda-like has felt like a long time coming, and today, we've started to get an idea of what we can expect from the full game. Yes, while we technically have to wait until release day (29th May) to go hands-on ourselves, the review embargo has lifted, and the scores are flooding in. Spoiler: they're pretty darn positive.

Nintendo Life

Review

Mina the Hollower review

Mina can offer whatever challenge you're up for.

PC Gamer / Kerry Brunskill

Review

Round Up: Mina the Hollower Earns Critical Acclaim, Best-Rated Game of 2026 in First Reviews

Called a "must play" in 93 Metacritic rating. Mina the Hollower has shot to the top of the review scoreboards for 2026, as its set of critic reviews ready for its launch have earned the game an overall Metacritic score of 93. This makes it the highest-rated game of 2026 so far on the website, beating the 91 score for Forza Horizon 6, and the 89 ratings handed to Pokémon Pokopia and Resident Evil Requiem. The score is based on 32 reviews at the time of writing, with more expected to come. Read th

Push Square

Review

Mina The Hollower Hits Xbox This Week, And It's Metacritic's 'Best Game' Of 2026 So Far

The reviews have just landed. The Game of the Year contenders aren't slowing down right now! Following the likes of Forza Horizon 6 and 007 First Light receiving amazing reviews over the past few weeks, Mina The Hollower sounds like another must-play Xbox title. We covered this game recently — it's the new top-down action adventure game from the makers of Shovel Knight — and even they were hyping it up as "one of the greatest top-down adventures ever" ahead of its release on May 29th. Read the f

Pure Xbox

Release date

Mina the Hollower Review - An Epic Retro Throwback

Mina the Hollower, being the hotly anticipated title that it is, does not disappoint. This retro-style adventure is one worth playing.

TechRaptor / Austin Suther

Review

Mina the Hollower is an 8-bit world of complex wonder

My favourite moment in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening happens in a library. You're wandering between the stacks, trying to learn more about this strange island you've washed up on, when you spy a book that's hidden up high, stuck at the top of a book shelf, and well out of range of your grasping hands.

Eurogamer / Christian Donlan

Review

Mina the Hollower Review

A big game in a small package, and an absolute masterpiece of an adventure.

IGN / Tom Marks

Review

Mina The Hollower Surpasses The Greatness Of Shovel Knight

With Mina the Hollower, Yacht Club Games has cemented itself as one of the premiere independent studios in the industry today. Its breakout hit, Shovel Knight, was a retro-throwback platformer that merged classic 8-bit-style action with some modern touches. Mina the Hollower looked similarly old-school, with a look and feel that obviously pays tribute to the Zelda Game Boy spin-offs. But this time, the fusion of newer souls-like design sensibilities makes it more than a freshened-up homage. It r

GameSpot / Steve Watts

Review

Review: Mina The Hollower - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition (Switch 2) - Yacht Club Is Back With Another Masterful Love Letter

The Legend of Mina. Since its release in 2014, Shovel Knight has been a gift that keeps on giving. Groundbreaking for its hugely successful crowdfunding campaign, it also helped usher in a glorious era of throwback platforming gems like Sabotage Studio’s The Messenger. Yacht Club Games has spent years expanding the Shovel-verse while developing its next project in parallel. Now that follow-up is finally here, and with Mina the Hollower, the studio is moving beyond Mario-like platforming to explo

Nintendo Life

Review

The best part of Mina the Hollower is how it randomizes the Zelda formula

After rolling credits on Mina the Hollower, I did something unusual for me and immediately started a new file. I'm not typically one to replay games right after I beat them. But Mina, a new action-adventure title from Shovel Knight creators Yacht Club Games, offers something that got me to jump right back into a brand-new adventure: a built-in randomizer. Randomizers shuffle things like items and enemies so that players can experience games they might be very familiar with in a whole new way. I

The Verge

Review

Round Up: Mina The Hollower Gets Glowing Comparisons To Zelda & Soulsborne In Final Previews

The big cheese. A week ago, we had no idea whether Mina the Hollower would make its spring 2026 release window. Now, we not only know when it's coming out, but also that some outlets have spent some time with the final build of the game. And it sounds like 29th May can't come soon enough. While we weren't lucky enough to go hands-on, we're living vicariously through other people's impressions, almost all of which are extremely positive. They have been basically since the first PAX and GDC demos,

Nintendo Life

Preview

Mina the Hollower Preview: Kinda Like Bloodborne as a Cute 8-Bit Adventure Game

If you grew up playing NES games, Game Boy games, or similar games from that era — if you remember spending an entire afternoon stuck on a single screen until you figured out the trick to moving forward — Mina the Hollower is aimed squarely at you. I've still got plenty of questions about the back half of this thing, but after several hours with the early game, I'm fully hooked and am prepared to blast through the rest without stopping to ask when it drops on all platforms on May 29.

IGN / Ryan McCaffrey

Preview

Mina The Hollower Promises 'One Of The Greatest Top-Down Adventures Ever' On Xbox This Month

From the developers behind Shovel Knight. When we published our May 2026 indie games roundup back at the start of the week, we didn't know that one of the most major indie releases of the entire year would be releasing on May 29th, 2026! That game is Mina The Hollower, which is a top-down action-adventure game from the developer of Shovel Knight. This one's been highly anticipated for a very long time now, and it's finally nailed down its release date to this month. Read the full article on pure

Pure Xbox

Release date

Yacht Club Games "make-or-break" moment Mina the Hollower gets a May release date

It's been four years since Yacht Club Games last put out a game, and 12 years since Shovel Knight first launched. In those years, their entire output has been completely Shovel Knight focused, in the form of either expansions or spin-offs. Back in 2022, they announced something new: Mina the Hollower. And after an indefinite delay, the Zelda-ish action adventure game has a release date.

Rock Paper Shotgun / Oisin Kuhnke

Release date

Pixelated Zelda-like Mina the Hollower lands its "final" release date

After a bit of a delay, Shovel Knight developer Yacht Club Games has announced its new - and "final" - release date for Mina the Hollower.

Eurogamer / Victoria Phillips Kennedy

Release date

Mina The Hollower Finally Lands On Switch 1 & 2 In Just A Few Weeks

Squeaking into that Spring window. Yacht Club Games' highly anticipated Zelda-inspired adventure, Mina the Hollower, will be coming to Switch 1 and Switch 2 on 29th May 2026. Not only that, the developer has also confirmed the game will cost $19.99 (other regional prices to be confirmed). The announcement came via a YouTube short on the official Yacht Club Games channel.

Nintendo Life

Release date

Mina the Hollower Finally Has a PS5 Release Date, and It's Very Soon

So close. After going gold late last month, Mina the Hollower finally has a PS5 release date: 29th May. The hotly anticipated GBC-style action adventure will cost just $19.99. Yacht Club Games has been working on this one for what feels like an eternity, after it was officially announced back in 2022. Read the full article on pushsquare.com

Push Square

Release date

Mina the Hollower launches May 29

8-bit action adventure game Mina the Hollower will launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, Switch … Source

Gematsu / Sal Romano

Release date

Looks Like 'Mina The Hollower' Will Be Getting A New Release Date Soon

The mouse has gone gold. Yacht Club Games has been pretty tight-lipped about its upcoming Game Boy-inspired, Zelda-style adventure Mina the Hollower, which is due to launch in spring 2026. But the developer has revealed today that the game has finally gone Gold. So while we're approaching the end of that spring 2026 window, it sounds like we'll be getting a date very soon.

Nintendo Life

Rumour

It's Been 84 Years! GBC-Inspired Adventure Mina the Hollower Is Finally Ready for PS5 Release

It's (almost) time. As of less than two hours ago when we publish this, Mina the Hollower is finished. We need to be perfectly clear here: the GBC-style adventure game still doesn’t have a release date outside of a vague Spring 2026 window. Read the full article on pushsquare.com

Push Square

Release date