Shovel Knight has sold 1.5 million units since release & new standalone prequel announced.

Yacht Club Games has announced a new standalone prequel to Shovel Knight called Specter of Torment which will be free for those who already own the game.  The reason it’s being pushed as a “standalone” experience is so casual observers understand that it’s more than a simple reskin with a new character—something that developers had trouble with the last expansion.

In a recent interview with usgamer.net, Yacht Club Games developer Nick Wozniak said – “It’s important that people relate to it [as a new adventure], That’s also why we give each of these updates own titles. We could have said this was Update 1 or Update 2.6, but by giving it the gravitas of a title and its own trailer, its own personality, it makes it all different. It’s all about making it its own thing.”  Specter of Torment will let players choose any level they want explaining – “All of the boss battles have been redone. (…) would say that it’s similar to Mega Man in that there are harder and easier stages,” D’Angelo continued. “It’s not like Mega Man where you have to do it in this order, but it definitely has this feeling that some are more difficult than others.”
This crowdfunded game was able to sell one million and a half units since 2014, and they’re still going strong.
Read the full interview here.