{"id":137380,"date":"2026-05-30T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/#article-201829"},"modified":"2026-05-30T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T08:00:00","slug":"mina-the-hollower-is-now-metacritics-highest-rated-game-of-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2026\/05\/30\/mina-the-hollower-is-now-metacritics-highest-rated-game-of-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Mina The Hollower Is Now Metacritic&#8217;s Highest-Rated Game Of 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/0613bcfb627e9\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/0613bcfb627e9\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<figure class=\"picture\" data-uuid=\"0613bcfb627e9\"><a class=\"scanlines\" title=\"Mina the Hollower\" href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/0613bcfb627e9\/mina-the-hollower.large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/0613bcfb627e9\/mina-the-hollower.900x.jpg\" width=\"900\" height=\"507\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Mina the Hollower\"><\/a><figcaption class=\"caption\"><em class=\"credit\"><span class><\/span> Image: Yacht Club Games<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>2026 has already been a blockbuster year for video games, and it just keeps getting better. Following the recent success of titles such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch-2\/resident-evil-requiem\">Resident Evil Requiem<\/a> and <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.purexbox.com\/games\/xbox-series-x\/forza_horizon_6\">Forza Horizon 6<\/a>, the new game of the year contender is surprisingly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch-2\/mina-the-hollower-nintendo-switch-2-edition\">Mina The Hollower<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>Yes, according to Metacritic at the time of publishing this story, Yacht Club&#8217;s new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/legend_of_zelda_links_awakening\">Zelda<\/a>-style adventure is currently at the top of the site&#8217;s &#8220;best games&#8221; of 2026. The PC version in particular has an overall critic score of <strong>92<\/strong><strong>\/100<\/strong> (it <em>was<\/em> <strong>93<\/strong>), placing it ahead of Forza Horizon 6 (on 91\/100) and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch-2\/pokemon-pokopia\">Pok\u00e9mon Pokopia<\/a> &amp; Resident Evil Requiem (tied on 89\/100).<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s worth noting Mina the Hollower also currently has a score of <strong>93\/100<\/strong> on the other review aggregate website <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/opencritic.com\/game\/19213\/mina-the-hollower\">OpenCritic<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;What a way to wake up! We\u2019re ecstatic to see such an enthusiastic response to Mina the Hollower!&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<figure class=\"picture keep\" data-uuid=\"3d847466788ef\"><a class=\"scanlines\" title=\"Mina the Hollower\" href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/3d847466788ef\/mina-the-hollower.large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/3d847466788ef\/mina-the-hollower.original.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"900\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Mina the Hollower\"><\/a><figcaption class=\"caption\"><em class=\"credit\"><span class><\/span> Image: Yacht Club Games<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>While positive reception from critics doesn&#8217;t always translate to more sales, it can certainly help, and Yacht Club founder Sean Velasco has previously mentioned this release is &#8220;make-or-break&#8221; for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/shovel_knight_shovel_of_hope_dx\">Shovel Knight<\/a> studio.<\/p>\n<p>In an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2025\/12\/its-make-or-break-for-sure-shovel-knight-devs-fate-rests-on-upcoming-zelda-like\">interview with Bloomberg<\/a> late last year, Velasco suggested 500,000 copies sold would be a &#8220;golden&#8221; outcome, and even 200,000 would be &#8220;really, really great&#8221;. However, 100,00 might not be &#8220;so good&#8221;. And in another <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/newsletters\/2026-05-29\/why-mina-the-hollower-is-only-20?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc4MDA3NDA1OSwiZXhwIjoxNzgwNjc4ODU5LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJURlQ1VzFLR0NUSDkwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJCMUVBQkI5NjQ2QUM0REZFQTJBRkI4MjI1MzgyQTJFQSJ9.dJ2Z6y31-EMSCCusBqVqvdesEwltB1DF53Yw66bW9hk&amp;leadSource=uverify%20wall\">chat with Bloomberg this week<\/a>, he&#8217;s now supposedly got the ambitious goal of shifting a million copies: &#8220;If we don&#8217;t sell a million copies, I&#8217;m going to be disappointed&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, based on early Steam data, the numbers for this platform alone suggest the game has already shifted around <strong>55,000<\/strong> copies globally. And the team is still waiting for sale data to come through for the console versions. This is also <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/newsletters\/2026-05-29\/why-mina-the-hollower-is-only-20?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc4MDA3NDA1OSwiZXhwIjoxNzgwNjc4ODU5LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJURlQ1VzFLR0NUSDkwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJCMUVBQkI5NjQ2QUM0REZFQTJBRkI4MjI1MzgyQTJFQSJ9.dJ2Z6y31-EMSCCusBqVqvdesEwltB1DF53Yw66bW9hk&amp;leadSource=uverify%20wall\">reportedly a significant leap<\/a> compared to Shovel Knight, which took around a week to shift 75,000 copies across Steam, Wii U and 3DS.<\/p>\n<p>And now that Mina the Hollower is available, the plan is to apparently spend some time marketing, fixing bugs and patching the new game. We&#8217;ll keep an eye on how the game sales are tracking, but so far, Mina appears to be off to a respectable start.<\/p>\n<p><!-- cache: html:nintendolife.com\/ssl\/nintendo-switch-2\/related-articles:201288 @ 1780163487 --><\/p>\n<aside class=\"block object-related\"> <\/aside>\n<p>Have you purchased this title yet? How are you finding it so far? <em>Let us know in the comments.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image: Yacht Club Games 2026 has already been a blockbuster year for video games, and it just keeps getting better. Following the recent success of titles such as Resident Evil Requiem and Forza Horizon 6, the new game of the year contender is surprisingly Mina The Hollower! Yes, according to Metacritic at the time of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}