It’s a double bill of sales announcements today. On their own, not so interesting, but considered together, I think today’s news shows that roguelike inspired games are part of the conversation now – the rogues are here to stay, basically.
First we’ve got the announcement that Dave the Diver has netted an impressive 3 million sales. This achievement was made possible thanks to developer MintRocket essentially being an in-house team within Nexon Korea. This powerhouse publisher of course made sure that this wonderful game had the marketing push that it most thoroughly deserved.
Well done to everyone concerned, especially when you consider that the game is only available on PC and Nintendo Switch! Naturally, it’s an achievement that was undoubtedly helped after Dave was included in my very own 2023 GOTY round-up.
Skul has absolutely nailed it, too
It’s a similar story over a Neowiz, another Korean publisher, who got behind Skul: The Hero Slayer. This well-made action roguelite platformer by Southpaw Games has been backed properly, and this resulted in the game reaching a deserved milestone of 2 million copies sold (as announced late last month on Steam)!
I think, based on these incredible results, it’s a great time to be making a polished roguelite game with proper backing and I for one am loving the different frontiers that the genre is exploring. This is even more so when you consider the news alongside high profile rogues such as BlazBlue Entropy Effect and The Last of Us: Part II – Remastered: No Return launching imminently, and considering that Hades 2 is one of the most anticipated games out there.
That said, we’ve also got to remember that for every well-supported team making a blockbuster, there are hundreds more solo developers making roguish games for us to enjoy. That being so, once you’re done playing either of the above, go find something off the beaten track. I’ve been playing Breakout Survivors a lot this month, for example.
