Yacht Club Games is officially back. The studio’s highly anticipated retro action-adventure title, Mina the Hollower, launches today, May 28, 2026, on PC via Steam. Console players on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and the Nintendo Switch 1 and 2 will gain access tomorrow.
Review embargoes lifted yesterday, and the scores are extremely high. The game is pulling perfect 10/10 ratings from major outlets like IGN. Based on Wikipedia’s tracking of the cross-platform launch, the title debuted with a 93/100 Metacritic score on PC, a 92 on PS5, and an 85 on the Nintendo Switch 2.
The Nightstar Whip and Hollowing Mechanics
The game follows Mina, a genius inventor mouse wielding a whip called the Nightstar. She navigates a pixel-perfect world that pulls heavy inspiration from both classic top-down Zelda titles and the aggressive combat pacing of Bloodborne.
The core gameplay loop centers around a specific “Hollowing” mechanic. Mina can burrow underground for fast traversal and temporary invincibility to dodge incoming enemy attacks. You string these burrowing moves together with whip strikes to survive the challenging environments.
This is Yacht Club Games’ first brand-new standalone IP since they finished the Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove saga. The new game faced a few delays during its development cycle, which only built up the anticipation. The Steam community is surging with activity this morning as players react to the perfect scores and debate its status as an instant genre classic.
What the 93 Metacritic Score Means for Indie Sequels
These high review scores give the broader indie gaming market a clear blueprint for moving past a flagship franchise. Studios often get trapped producing endless sequels to their one big hit to keep revenue flowing.
By stepping away from the Shovel Knight universe after 34 hours of legacy content, Yacht Club proved they can build entirely new mechanical loops from scratch without losing their core fan base. Other independent developers will look at this successful launch and likely reconsider their own reliance on legacy sequels in favor of new IP generation.