Yacht Club Games built its name on a blue knight and a shovel. Mina the Hollower is the studio’s follow-up, trading that for a mouse inventor, a whip, and a Game Boy Color palette.
Trailer, via Yacht Club Games.
Tenebrous Isle Loses Its Power
Mina is a Hollower, a member of a guild dedicated to studying the Earth, and a genius inventor whose Spark Technology brought power to Tenebrous Isle. Ten years ago she and the philanthropist Lionel built the Spark Generators across the region. Lionel stayed behind and became the isle’s leader in the capital, Ossex. Now the generators have gone out, and Mina has been summoned to fix them.
Her boat is attacked on the way in and crashes. A fellow sailor, Cappy, hands her healing Plasma Vials and sends her toward Ossex.
Shock Troopers at the Gate
Ossex is already under attack by shock troopers led by Thorne, a bat who once served as the head of Lionel’s guard. Six of the seven generators have dulled, with only the capital’s core still running. Lionel wants them repaired. Thorne wants them destroyed.
Mina picks one of three starting weapons:
- Nightstar, a whip
- Whisper and Vesper, dual daggers
- Blaststrike Maul, a hammer that strikes in four directions
Two more weapons unlock later, and she holds one at a time.
Hollowing Rewrites the Fight
Her signature Hollowing technique burrows her underground for short bursts — fast traversal, gap-crossing, and invincibility while submerged. Bones, the currency, raise her combat statistics. Trinkets give permanent boosts. Sidearms offer support and combat roles but are lost on death, a rule that makes every run a real decision.
Combat runs at a deliberate 60fps in a 3/4 isometric view, an angle similar to Link’s Awakening DX.
Thorne Forged the Letter
The middle stretch belongs to Thorne. He confronts Mina and argues the generators themselves poisoned the landscape — the creatures, the pollution, the weather. Mina raises it with Lionel. He tells her to keep Thorne from destroying them, since their destruction could cause even greater harm. Thorne later admits he forged the letter that summoned her, betting she would listen where Lionel would not.
Then the sixth generator. Mina watches Lionel appear to talk Thorne down, then throw him onto the generator, whose toxins transform him into a monster. Lionel walks away. It is the cleanest piece of characterization Yacht Club has written, and the game earns it.
What 9.1 Out of 10 Buys
Mina the Hollower has sold more than 500,000 copies and holds a 9.1/10 on OpenCritic. The number is fair. The Hollowing mechanic is the best idea here — it turns defense into movement, so escaping is never passive. The weapon loadout is thinner than it looks, since one held at a time limits experimentation. The sidearm loss-on-death rule will frustrate players who hoard.
None of that dents the whole. Yacht Club took the Game Boy’s grammar seriously rather than nostalgically, and built a 19th-century island where animals, humans, and monsters share a power grid.
Key facts
- Release: 2026
- Developer and publisher: Yacht Club Games
- Platforms: Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, PC, Linux, Mac
- Copies sold: more than 500,000
- OpenCritic: 9.1/10
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