THE CRUNCH
Yacht Club Games says Mina the Hollower sold well enough to secure the studio's future, at least for the time being. In a Reddit AMA, co-founder Sean Velasco confirmed the game had brought financial stability, answering simply: "yes… for now!" The old-school adventure passed 500,000 sales in its first two weeks, putting it on the way to the one million copies the developers once hoped for. With the studio on steadier ground, most of the team has moved on to a new 3D game.
The stakes were high. Before launch, Yacht Club had described Mina the Hollower as a "make-or-break" moment, after a pandemic and a failed attempt to run as a multi-project studio left the developer stretched thin. Co-founder Nick Wozniac reflected on that lesson in the AMA, saying that splitting the team across two games was a mistake and that keeping the team "tight and focused" is what helped Mina land.
Alec Faulkner stopped short of confirming a 3D Shovel Knight game, but said "most of us are currently working on a 3D game, yes!" Velasco had previously told Bloomberg the project was halfway done before the whole studio pivoted to finish Mina. The developers are also not done with Mina itself, promising post-release features including expanded randomizer options, enemy and boss randomisation, more modifiers and speedrunner features.