Steam RPG with ‘Overwhelmingly Constructive’ Critiques Hits Main Milestone for Solo Developer

Elin, an open-world RPG with “Overwhelmingly Constructive” person evaluations, has surpassed 350,000 gross sales on Steam. In doing so, it cleared a(nother) main industrial milestone simply over a yr following its Steam Early Entry launch.

Elin is a prequel-sequel to the cult-classic 2D open-world sandbox RPG Elona, initially launched in 2007. Whereas its predecessor was a freeware title (with a cellular model supported by microtransactions), Elin is a premium providing, priced at $19.99 since debuting as an early entry title in November 2024. Its secretive solo Japanese developer Noa—often known as Lafrontier and Rfish—beforehand stated the worth may enhance as soon as the sport leaves early entry within the not-too-distant future. Within the meantime, nonetheless, Elin seems to be promoting exceptionally properly.

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Elin Surpasses 350,000 Gross sales After 14 Months

Chatting with Automaton West, Noa lately confirmed that Elin surpassed 350,000 gross sales as of early 2026. Whereas Elona‘s success was largely pushed by a loyal Japanese viewers, the sequel seems to be decently diversified, with the developer sharing that its house nation accounted for under 35% of general gross sales up to now. Followers from america are estimated to be the sport’s second-largest viewers, with a 24% share of world gross sales.

Elin Almost Doubled Its Lifetime Gross sales within the Final 12 Months

All through its first 14 months available on the market, Elin established itself as one of the best overlooked indie games on Steam, to the purpose that it’s not thought-about that missed. Taking a look at its person evaluations on Valve’s storefront, they’re 90.82% constructive as of early 2026, based mostly on practically 3,200 participant impressions. That’s simply sufficient to qualify for Valve’s “Overwhelmingly Constructive” label. The contents of those evaluations reveal that Elin is praised for comparable issues its predecessor was: extremely participating base constructing, well-realized rougelite parts, decently in-depth farming, and an enormous number of secondary mechanisms and vocations that open up a world of role-playing prospects.

What Gamers Actually Love About Elin

Chief amongst its high qualities is the actual fact Elin doesn’t impose its will on gamers. It’s attainable to play it as Harvest Moon, a dungeon crawler, or an experimental genre hybrid combining management sim and pixel CRPG elements the way in which some beloved Kairosoft video games do. It’s attainable to run a fishing market, a resort, or a tavern. It is equally attainable to turn out to be a thief or an murderer, a touring service provider, or an alchemist. Possibly a thief masquerading as a touring service provider performing some alchemy as a facet hustle. Constructing a village or razing a city is all the time on the playing cards as properly. This immense degree of freedom is central to Elin‘s roguelite sandbox identification and thus an enormous a part of the explanation why gamers hold returning to it, very similar to they’ve been returning to Elona for years.

Elin‘s early entry launch was preceded by a successful Kickstarter campaign elevating the equal of practically $416,000 (¥63,505,185) over a month-long interval largely contained to Might 2023. It’s unclear whether or not Noa is counting the sport’s 5,925 backers amongst its 350,000 gross sales. Elin has been receiving common content material updates, averaging roughly one main launch per thirty days since launch, since late 2024. The December 2025 patch—recognized by model quantity 23.247—launched a brand new quest, map, and over 150 different adjustments. Like its versioning suggests, this was the sport’s 247th patch because the unique beta construct from 2024.

Elin 1.0 Ought to Occur by the Finish of 2026

Following its Early Entry debut, Elin was promised to remain in energetic growth for between one and two years. Based mostly on that timeline, developer Noa has roughly ten months remaining to fulfill the unique projection as of this writing. In the meantime, Kickstarter backers can nonetheless submit their NPC rumor dialogue blurbs for inclusion within the recreation. Submission particulars can be found on Elin‘s Kickstarter page. With 1.0 on the horizon and early entry traction constant and significant, Elin seems posed for a spike in participant numbers each time it does handle to hit a feature-complete state. For now, its all-time concurrent Steam person peak sits at 18,239 gamers, reached in late November 2024.