Mina the Hollower

How a top-down pixel game took 2026's critical crown

Step back and Mina's standing is faintly absurd. In a year stacked with blockbusters, a top-down pixel action-adventure posted 93 on Metacritic and 91 on OpenCritic, burrowing past Forza Horizon 6 to become the best-reviewed game of 2026 to date.

Remember the company it was keeping: 2026 is wall-to-wall with blockbusters, and a single industrial flagship like Forza Horizon 6 is enough to swallow the entire spotlight. For a top-down pixel game with no 3D, no open world, and visuals deliberately built to look decades old to wrestle the top of the critical charts away from that field says something no Metascore can. It won on ideas and execution, not on raw production budget — and that, more than the 93 itself, is the headline.

The commerce is just as firm. Three hundred thousand copies moved in the first three days, then past five hundred thousand — landing squarely on the "comfortable" line Yacht Club drew for itself before launch, a release the studio openly called make-or-break, and one that secured its near future.

The opening Steam concurrent peak neared eight thousand, almost triple Shovel Knight's all-time high. That is years of Shovel Knight goodwill cashing in, and proof that the small-but-sharp retro-action lane still commands real demand in 2026, even crowded shoulder to shoulder with the year's blockbusters.

The game was Kickstarter-funded, delayed more than once, declared finished before it would name a "true" release date — a textbook case of the difficult-but-worth-it indie, the kind of project that looked like a gamble right up until the reviews landed. Same price, same content, no platform cut anywhere.

Whether to buy it comes down to your patience for old-school grit

This is, in the end, a game with a spine, and it does not try to please everyone.

Decide one thing first: are you here to explore a beautifully crafted, box-canyon island, or to be schooled repeatedly by a roster of hardcore bosses? Mina offers both, but it will not soften the latter to protect the former. It is a game with opinions and a spine, one that knows exactly who it is for and is unafraid to lose everyone else.

If you miss the box-canyon exploration of a handheld Zelda and can stomach death stakes and tell-reading far harsher than Nintendo ever served, this is the indie you cannot skip in 2026 — it pins you with burrow combat, gothic mood, and an isle packed to the gills with secrets. Flip it around: if you want waypoints and a breezy, low-stakes Zelda-like, the difficulty, the spiteful map, and that straight-line-only swing will likely usher you out. Mina and Tunic sit at the two poles of the modern-throwback lane — Tunic conjures distance through mystery and riddles, Mina forces growth through difficulty and combat density. Version-wise, do not overthink it: every platform runs the same, and handhelds are the most comfortable home thanks to the featherweight pixel art that never strains a battery or a fan. Pick it up anywhere, and you are a few seconds from burrowing back into the cursed isle. It is not a game that wants to be everyone's favorite, but for the right player it lands among the best of the year, and the scoreboard agrees. Few releases this confident about who they are come along, and that conviction shows in every locked weapon, unmarked map, and unforgiving boss. Confidence, far more than simple nostalgia, is ultimately what makes Mina the Hollower worth your time, and what will keep people talking about it long after the year's louder blockbusters have faded.