Shovel Knight Dev’s Next Game Is “Make Or Break,” Needs To Sell 200,000 Copies

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According to Sean Velasco, the head of Yacht Club Games (the team behind Shovel Knight), their upcoming game, Mina the Hollower, is incredibly important for the studio’s future.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Velasco of Yacht Club Games explained that the success of their new game, Mina the Hollower, is crucial for the studio to stay independent. He said selling 200,000 copies would be a fantastic outcome. The studio recently had to reduce its staff and paused work on another game to focus on finishing Mina the Hollower.

Velasco admitted the success of the project hinges on sales numbers. Selling 500,000 copies would be a huge win, while 200,000 would still be very positive. However, sales of only 100,000 would be disappointing.

Mina the Hollower, which was planned to come out in October, has been delayed with no new release date announced. The delay was announced shortly before the original launch.

So, I was reading that the delay for the game happened because the team at Yacht Club discovered some things they wanted to improve. They said it wasn’t a huge setback, just a chance to really polish things up and get the balancing right so the game could be its best. They didn’t want to announce a new release date until they’d actually submitted the game to Sony, Nintendo, and whoever else, which makes sense – they wanted to be sure before promising anything!

Until 2024, the studio had been working on two separate projects. One team was developing Mina the Hollower, a 2D game inspired by classic Zelda titles with a retro Game Boy look. The other team was creating a new 3D Shovel Knight game that hadn’t been publicly revealed. However, in 2024, the entire studio focused solely on Mina the Hollower, as reported by Bloomberg.

I still remember when Yacht Club released Shovel Knight back in 2014 – it was an instant hit! The idea of a knight fighting with a shovel was just so cool and different. People really connected with the character, and it was amazing to see Shovel Knight get so popular that Nintendo made an Amiibo of him and even put him in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as an assist trophy! It was a huge moment for indie games, and I was thrilled to see it happen.

Following the success of Shovel Knight, the studio created several expansions and new games based on the original. Their latest project, Shovel Knight Dig, came out in 2022 and was made with help from Nitrome.

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2025-12-02 21:10