Mina the Hollower

Mina the Hollower is a 2026 top-down action-adventure game developed and published by Yacht Club Games, the studio behind Shovel Knight.¹³¹⁸ Rendered in an 8-bit aesthetic modeled on the Game Boy Color but refined for modern hardware, it casts the player as Mina, a mouse-like inventor and “Hollower” who can burrow into the ground, on a mission to rescue the cursed Tenebrous Isle.¹²¹⁸ The game released on May 29, 2026, at a price of $19.99, on Windows, macOS, Linux, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.¹¹¹³ It received critical acclaim, holding a Metacritic score of 90 on PC, and sold over 300,000 copies within three days of launch.⁵²

Setting and story

The narrative follows Mina, a whip-wielding Hollower and “visionary inventor” whose advances in “Spark Technology” first brought electricity and prosperity to Tenebrous Isle.¹² When she receives a troubling letter from Baron Lionel, her longtime patron and the overseer of the isle, reporting that the Spark Generators have gone dark amid suspected foul play, she sets out across the island to restore six broken generator towers.¹²¹³ In one account of the opening, Mina’s ship is run aground by a beast, a friend-turned-foe attacks her, and she escapes into the city of Ossex to learn that a rebellion is afoot before beginning her quest to re-light the six towers.¹⁶ As Mina progresses, she becomes aware of harmful side effects from the generators and a conspiracy to conceal them, in what critics described as a climate-change allegory that builds toward a bleak but touching ending.¹³ The writing weaves in themes of politics, misguided public opinion, environmentalism, and wealth disparity while remaining playful and acknowledging the player’s actions.⁸

The tone is one of “cute gothic horror,” set across crypts, haunted houses, cursed farms, a swamp, a beach, and a baroque graveyard, and radiating outward from the central hub city of Ossex.⁷¹³ The world is populated by colorful, often bizarre characters—many of whom act as signposts toward objectives while others deliver non-sequiturs, turn into pickpockets, or transform into mini-bosses—and by imposing, screen-filling bosses.¹³¹ Its regions include named locales such as Queensbury Crypt, the Bayou, and Septemburg, the last a Halloween-themed area that IGN’s reviewer singled out as a standout piece of storytelling.¹¹⁵¹⁶

Gameplay

Combat and movement are built around “Hollowing,” Mina’s signature ability to burrow into soft soil by long-pressing the jump button.¹¹³ While underground she is invincible against regular melee attacks, popping back out a beat or two later with an extended jump; the move doubles as a dash, a dodge, a means of crossing gaps, and a way to reach hidden rooms and puzzle solutions.¹¹³ She can drill under certain objects to destroy or pick them up and dig down in specific spots to find secret rooms.⁷ Certain hazards, such as lava, prevent burrowing, and the ability can be chained directly into an attack to strike an enemy from behind.¹

Mina wields one of several weapons chosen at the campaign’s outset, swappable at the blacksmith in Ossex whenever the player has earned enough bones.¹ These include her canonical whip, the Nightstar, which can uniquely pull armored enemies out of position; the heavy, committal Blaststrike Maul; the fast dual blades Whisper and Vesper; a shield built around parries and counter-windows, acquired through a duel with the blacksmith’s brother; and the Battery Buster, an electric firearm that alternates between a melee mode that builds charge and a blaster that fires ricocheting electric bolts.¹ Secondary “Sidearms” and equippable “Trinkets” further customize her moveset and stats, with dozens of trinkets hidden across the world—such as the Proto Spark, which grants a one-time revival before it must be reset at a checkpoint.¹⁶¹⁴⁸

The game’s economy runs on “bones,” which serve as both currency and experience, spent at the blacksmith and trinket store and scooped from defeated enemies.¹ In a mechanic drawn from Souls games, dying in the field drops the player’s entire bone stockpile at the spot of death, recoverable on one attempt before it is lost for good; the economy scales as the player advances, so early losses that feel catastrophic become minor.¹⁸ Healing uses a rationed reserve of plasma vials, described as the game’s version of an Estus Flask, which fill by dealing damage and leave Mina immobile and vulnerable for up to three seconds while healing.¹ Unlike many Zelda-inspired games, the six dungeons—each culminating in a climb up a generator tower—have no fixed order and nothing is gated behind items earned earlier; progress instead depends on puzzle-solving, exploration, note-taking, and skill, with the in-game newspaper hawked by “Newsie” providing hints toward the next objective.¹³¹⁵¹⁶ The interconnected maps loop back on themselves with unlockable shortcuts and considerable verticality.¹³ The game includes an extensive suite of difficulty “modifiers”—239 of which become available after completion, ranging from stat boosts to esoteric options such as burrowing infinitely or killing all enemies in one hit—that adjust the challenge for a wide range of players, though using them disables achievements.¹⁶

Development

Yacht Club Games announced Mina the Hollower on February 1, 2022, during its “Yacht Club Games Presents” showcase, which aired on G4’s program Xplay, launching a Kickstarter campaign alongside the reveal.¹² The studio financed the majority of the project itself but used Kickstarter to build a community and fund a more expansive game, partnering with the merchandise maker Fangamer on backer rewards including a physical soundtrack, enamel pins, an art book, and a plush.¹² The project took roughly six years to design and build, growing from what a Eurogamer critic characterized as a “coding doodle” into a panoramic adventure.⁷ The game was originally scheduled for a Halloween release on October 31, 2025, but was delayed weeks before launch; it went gold near the end of April 2026, and Yacht Club then confirmed the May 29, 2026 release date via a video shared with Kickstarter backers.³¹¹

The soundtrack was composed by longtime Yacht Club collaborator Jake Kaufman?, the chiptune composer of Shovel Knight, with two additional tracks contributed by Yuzo Koshiro?, the composer known for Streets of Rage? and Etrian Odyssey?.¹⁰²¹ As part of a Kickstarter update, the studio also shared all art assets from Shovel Knight as a tool for aspiring developers.¹⁰ The commercial success of Mina the Hollower was reported to have secured the future of Yacht Club Games, which had previously been described as in serious danger of closing if the game did not succeed.⁶

Influences and reception

Yacht Club Games has openly acknowledged the game’s lineage; developer Sandy Gordon described its original prototype as a mixture of Castlevania’s “deliberate action combat” melded with the top-down Game Boy Color adventuring of Link’s Awakening?, with an added focus on top-down platforming and “a healthy pinch of Bloodborne? for added spooky vibes”.⁴ The team drew its Victorian Gothic Horror atmosphere from period novels including Frankenstein, Dracula, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, poems by Edgar Allan Poe?, and the theme of scientific advance as a double-edged sword, along with Disneyland attractions such as the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean.⁴ Critics repeatedly compared the structure and punishing combat to Dark Souls? and FromSoftware’s RPGs while noting the top-down exploration owed to the Game Boy Zelda? games, particularly Link’s Awakening and the Oracle titles.⁸¹⁵ IGN’s reviewer characterized it as borrowing Zelda’s open-world structure, Castlevania’s horror setting and soundtrack, and the combat and progression of FromSoftware’s Souls games, likening the sidearms to Castlevania’s sub-weapons.¹⁵ IGN also noted Yacht Club’s earlier Shovel Knight drew heavily from NES classics such as Mega Man.¹⁵

The game earned “universal acclaim,” with a Metascore of 90 on PC across 70 critic reviews, of which 94 percent were positive and none negative.⁵ IGN, TheGamer, Shacknews, RPG Site, The Outerhaven, Player 2, SteamDeckHQ, Cubed3, Screen Rant, and DualShockers awarded it perfect scores, with multiple reviewers calling it a “masterpiece” and an “instant classic”.⁵ GameSpot wrote that while Shovel Knight was a well-deserved debut, Mina the Hollower “may be its masterpiece”.⁶ Game Informer designated it a “Must Play,” praising its density of discoveries and sense of place while noting frustrations with its movement and hollowing controls.⁸ Giant Bomb offered a more measured assessment, arguing that the Dark Souls influences kept it from being the best Zelda-style game and the Zelda mechanics kept it from being the best Soulslike.⁶ Japan’s Famitsu reviewers praised the burrowing mechanic and the fine-grained assistance options while noting some difficulty reading the Game Boy Color–style pixel art.⁹ Ars Technica called it “an instant contender for one of the best games of 2026,” and Eurogamer awarded it a perfect score, describing an adventure that “takes inspiration from the greats”.¹³⁷ Playthroughs ran roughly 18 to 20 hours for a first completion at around half of the game’s collectibles found.¹⁶¹³