What could only be described as the surprise hit video game of 2026 (as of yet), Mewgenics has sold over a million copies in merely a week after its initial release on 10 February. The game also managed to dethrone last year’s contender for Indie Game of the Year Hades II with over 100.000 concurrent players on Steam.
One of the developers, Tyler Glaiel said that they got blindsided by the numbers. After the release, it only took 3 hours for the game to sell enough copies to cover the entirety of the development costs, which is unprecedented with indie games. Glaiel also said that Steam wishlists of the game were around 400.000 before the reviews of it came out, after which they shot up to around 600.000. He added that generally, sales in the first few weeks are merely a fraction of the wishlists, so seeing that they already reached a million was a surprise for the developers.
The success of Mewgenics sets a similar precedent as last year’s game of the year, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 did. It is another passion project, made by developers who deeply care about their game and audience, delivering a quality product that rivals massive studios with exuberant funding.
In the current gaming environment, content creators play a huge role in the success of newly released video games. Balatro and Megabonk for example are both games with a rather simple gameplay loop and premise, and they could have fallen through the cracks, if popular streamers did not spend an absurd amount of hours playing them.
Mewgenics and its developers played this angle intelligently from basically the start. The game features meows (yes, they voice cats) from popular public figures. There are a total of 183 voice cameos in the game, including David Harbour, MoistCr1tikal, Emiru, Logic, Markiplier and Northern Lion.
Other than big names meowing in the game, developer Edmund McMillen sat down with a number of content creators before the release of the game, guiding them through the gameplay, answering questions about development, essentially promoting the game. Thus, the developers created a perfect marketing environment for their game, strategically thinking (as one would need to when playing the game) even before release. The success is not as surprising if one considers all the effort that went into the promotion, even before people got their hands on the game.
Glaiel and McMillen are not done yet, however. In one of his streams previously, McMillen mentioned that they are planning for at least two DLC’s in the future, and many updates. According to Glaiel, the first update is right around the corner, and one DLC is already confirmed.
Another part of their success could be attributed to the amazing soundtrack, provided by the band Ridiculon. In my initial review of Mewgenics, I mentioned that I have hopes they will release the soundtrack in some way. I can gladly say that they did. The entire OST (Original Soundtrack) of the game is available for purchase on Steam for 9.3 dollars, or accessible on any streaming platforms. Many players, including developer Edmund McMillen are also voicing their desires to see Ridiculon perform the soundtrack live during this year’s Game Awards at the end of the year. Whether these wishes become a reality, only time will tell, but I personally support the agenda wholeheartedly.
Other than the updates and DLC, the team is also working on localization for different languages. Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Russian are already being worked on, with more coming seeing the success of the game.
On a personal note, I am glad to see the success of a passion project at least seven years in the making. Mewgenics is great, as I already said in my review. I can honestly only recommend it. So if you are reading this, go play Mewgenics. If gaming is not your cup of tea, go listen to the incredible, 28 song soundtrack.
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