Mina the Hollower digs deep into gothic horror and comes up with something rare: a game that earns its praise. It lands on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC, Switch and Switch 2.
Trailer, via Yacht Club Games.
The Cursed Village
The village at the center of Mina the Hollower sits under a curse, and the game puts players in the middle of it. Mina digs through soil, tunnels under walls, and drops into hidden chambers most players will miss on a first run. The digging system changes how a player reads every room. A wall is not a wall. It is a question.
Combat That Bites Back
Fights in Mina the Hollower demand patience. Enemies hit hard, and the game does not soften that blow with easy checkpoints. Boss fights ask players to learn patterns across several tries, and each loss teaches something specific about timing.
That difficulty will turn some players away.
Others will find it exactly why Mina the Hollower stands out from a crowded field of similar games.
The Map and Its Secrets
The world map in Mina the Hollower rewards return visits in a way few games manage well. New tools open old doors, and the game trusts players to remember where those doors were. Side paths hide gear, lore, and faster paths that make later digging runs quicker.
The game leans into a retro Game Boy Color-inspired pixel-art style that suits its tone. The village feels lived-in and decayed at once, and the color work shifts as players move between surface streets and underground tunnels. The soundtrack matches that mood, staying quiet in the tunnels and swelling during boss encounters.
Switch 2 and Performance
Mina the Hollower runs across five platforms, and each version holds up well. The Switch 2 release in particular handles the game’s shifts between surface and underground spaces without trouble, a detail that matters given how often players move between the two.
Load times stay short on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S as well.
Numbers to Know
- Platforms: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC, Switch, Switch 2
- Critical score: 9.1/10
- Setting: a cursed village
- Core system: digging and tunnel travel
The game is not without friction. Some boss encounters lean so hard into punishment that momentum stalls, and a handful of map sections repeat ideas players have already mastered partway through. Neither issue undoes what Mina the Hollower accomplishes elsewhere.
What Mina the Hollower gets right is rare in games built around exploration: it makes the act of digging feel like discovery, not duty. The village rewards curiosity at every layer, literally. Few games this year will match that feeling.
Mina the Hollower earns its score honestly, through design that respects player attention and a world worth digging through twice. It scores 9.1 of 10.
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