Many great indie games have come and gone over the years, but almost none of them have come close to generating the same amount of excitement as Hollow Knight: Silksong has. Team Cherry's long-awaited successor to the 2017 Metroidvania Hollow Knight can perhaps best be described as the GTA 6 of indie games. Even though it didn't have a major marketing budget behind it and wasn't backed by a major company, the game single-handedly managed to dominate gaming discussions for more than 5 years. The live chats of virtually every major gaming showcase were inundated with comments from gamers begging for more Hollow Knight: Silksong news, to the point that it became a popular meme.
Even though Hollow Knight: Silksong is finally out on all major platforms, its momentum has shown no signs of stopping. The game had over 500,000 concurrent players on Steam just a few days after its launch, and it sold more than 3 million copies on said storefront in less than a week. Hollow Knight: Silksong's launch was so successful, in fact, that the game caused the PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, and PC stores to crash due to a sudden spike in players who were all trying to download it at the same time. The popularity of Team Cherry's latest title is entirely deserved, but it's unfortunate that another indie game from an equally esteemed developer isn't getting the same amount of attention as it has.
Mina the Hollower Should Be Getting as Much Attention as Silksong
Yacht Club Games, an independent studio located in Los Angeles, California, is developing a brand-new game called Mina the Hollower, and it's scheduled to come out this Halloween. While they do both have the word "hollow" in their names, Mina the Hollower is a pretty different game compared to Hollow Knight: Silksong, both gameplay- and story-wise. That said, because it's been so long since Yacht Club Games last released an original IP, its launch is almost as big a deal as Silksong's.
Yacht Club Games, the Studio Behind Shovel Knight, is the Maker of Mina the Hollower
For those who don't know, Yacht Club Games is behind Shovel Knight, a retro-inspired 2D platformer that originally came out on the Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, and PC back in June 2014. Shovel Knight was basically the poster child for indie games way before Hollow Knight was even a thing. To put it another way, the game was one of the first independently-developed games that really kicked off the indie game boom during the early 2010s. It sold millions of copies, received multiple expansions, and was even considered one of the best games of all time by many journalists.
Mina the Hollower Takes a Lot of Inspiration from Early Game Boy Color Games
Ever since the launch of the original Shovel Knight, Yacht Club Games hasn't released any major new games, aside from a few Shovel Knight spin-offs that it created in collaboration with other studios. Mina the Hollower is, as such, the first standalone game it has developed entirely by itself in more than a decade.
Unlike Hollow Knight: Silksong and Shovel Knight, Mina the Hollower is an isometric action-adventure game that takes a lot of inspiration from classic Game Boy Color games, like The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons. It follows an anthropomorphic mouse and inventor called Mina, who goes on a quest to restore power to a cursed island. The game features fast-paced combat, a 1700s Victorian gothic setting, a MSX-style soundtrack, and a series of interconnected levels to explore.
Mina the Hollower originally started life as a side project made by a single Yacht Club Games employee. The executives at the studio loved the concept of the game so much, however, that they decided to turn it into a commercial project.
A Demo for Mina the Hollower is Available Right Now
Yacht Club Games originally launched a Kickstarter campaign for Mina the Hollower in 2022, and up until recently, updates on the game had been virtually non-existent. Now that the game is finally coming out, however, it may end up being a legitimate contender for Game of the Year alongside Hollow Knight: Silksong. Players who are on the fence about Mina the Hollower can currently check out a free demo for the game, which is available on all modern platforms.
OpenCritic Reviews
- Developer(s)
- Yacht Club Games
- Publisher(s)
- Yacht Club Games
- Number of Players
- Single-player
- Steam Deck Compatibility
- Unknown
