In case you didn’t know, Mina the Hollower is the hugely anticipated follow up from the team that delivered the phenomenal Shovel Knight. Yacht Club has been busy making Mina the Hollower for six years now, and after delays, the release date has finally been confirmed for May 29th.
Just ahead of this date announcement, we had a chance to talk to Sean Velasco, founder of Yacht Club Games. We spoke about how things were going at Yacht Club Games in general as the team approaches the finish line, but also the future for Mina, any cameos we might see, how long the game will take to beat, difficulty, and more.
First up, thanks for taking the time to speak to us. How are you feeling at this stage of development?
Sean Velasco: Thank you for the opportunity. I’m tired! It does feel like we survived a battle. Mina was a long and difficult project, and it took a lot out of the team. So getting to the point where just today, we finished smoke testing a release candidate and are submitting to platforms, feels very relieving. Now, we can move onto marketing!
Is Mina the Hollower something you hope to be as big as Shovel Knight? Can you see yourselves developing content for this for years to come?
Of course I hope we sell millions, and Mina goes down as one of the most beloved successful games ever! But no, we are not planning to support it for years and years the way we did with Shovel Knight. We will likely do an update and add some minor new features and improvements, but that is about it. After spending six years on Mina, I think we’re ready to move on.
Can we expect to see any cameos or Easter eggs from games like Shovel Knight?
No, Shovel Knight is not appearing in Mina – We wanted Mina to stand on its own. That said, I do think people who know our games will recognize a lot of fun things that feel analogous to games we have created before. I hope it will be enjoyable to see how this sensibility shows up in a different kind of game.
In the demo, the difficulty is fair but not easy. Are there difficulty options for the final version?
Mina is meant to be a truly challenging game. We wanted it to be demanding in a satisfying way. But there are plenty of mechanics in the game, like Trinkets and Sidearms, that let players shape the experience for themselves. Additionally, our Accessibility Modifiers are a big part of adjusting the experience – they give players a lot of flexibility, whether they want to tune the challenge, experiment, replay the game in different ways, or even engage with its systems more deeply.
Do you feel pressure from the community as Mina is such a highly anticipated game?
Yes! Being late is not fun! I know people have been waiting a long time, but we also had to get it right. As far as the community goes, I mostly just try to keep my head down and focus on the game, so maybe I don’t feel the pressure too much. I strongly feel this is our best work yet, and the wait will be worth it.
Appreciate you may not want to say, but how long will Mina the Hollower take to complete?
Our playtesters report a play time of around 25 to 30 hours to finish the game and explore everything. But if you really want to replay it and go through New Game Plus multiple times, you sure can! My final save, with all my New Game Pluses, was over 150 hours.
How did the demo come to be? It seems to have started life as an exclusive, but it’s now on other formats?
The main goal was just to get the game in front of people! Sometimes those opportunities begin with one specific partner or showcase, and then expand or move on from there. Once we had a demo that felt like it was showing well, it made sense to bring it to more places and let more people try it.
Speaking of, Mina seems to appear in lots of different showcases. How does it feel to be so wanted, and how do those things come about – does the publisher approach you?
It feels good, but it is not accidental – we hustle for that! We push very hard to make sure the game is being seen, that people are thinking about it, and that it is part of those conversations. Of course, we always try to have something compelling to offer. Some opportunities come to us because we have a strong reputation and good relationships, which is great. But a lot of it is the result of constant effort!
Thanks to Sean for taking the time to answer our questions.
Mina the Hollower is coming to PC (Steam), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch on May 29th.
