One Of My Most Anticipated Games Just Got Indefinitely Delayed

October was going to be a special month. For the first time since Shovel Knight came out over a decade ago, Yacht Club Games was going to release a new game that had nothing to do with its hit 8-bit platformer. It’s a Link’s Awakening-sized adventure called Mina the Hollower. Unfortunately, it also just got indefinitely delayed.

“This week, our team made a tough decision: we decided to delay Mina the Hollower,” the studio wrote in a new blog post on Monday. “The entire crew has been working tirelessly day and night to finish development for release on Oct 31st, but we’re just not quite there yet.  This isn’t a major delay, it’s just a stretch of time to apply some final polish and balancing to make the game truly shine.”

Unlike its 2D side-scrolling predecessor, Mina the Hollower is a top-down action game that focuses a bit more on puzzles and combat. Think Castlevania if it fell on the ground with a Zelda-inspired interconnected map. It has all the signs of becoming another clever, charming retro homage if Yacht Club can deliver. Apparently, it still needs more time to cook. There’s no new release date yet, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily far away from finally coming out.

“We don’t want to announce another release date until it’s submitted to platforms, so please hang tight as we reach the finish line,” Yacht Club wrote today. “The game is so close to being done- we’re playing it from start to finish every day.” In the meantime, the developers say they’re working on finalizing design, art, sound, game balance, localization, and QA.

Mina the Hollower is the third notable game to drop out of the busy October release calendar lineup. Roguelike dungeon game Moonlighter 2 moved to November and Kingmakers is missing its Early Access date this week with no new date announced yet. Mina the Hollower is the one I was looking forward to most, however. I’d love to be spending my end-of-year travel season cozied up to my Switch like it’s 1998 again and the Game Boy Color just came out. We’ll see if it still ends up arriving in time for the holiday.