indielist (beta)

Dead Cells vs Hollow Knight

Reviews on Steam

Hollow Knight

3.2× more reviews

Critical reception

Hollow Knight

1pp gap

Cheaper at launch

Hollow Knight

$10.00 cheaper

Estimated sales (median)

Hollow Knight

3.6× more units (white-box estimate)

More recent

Dead Cells

1 years apart

A

Dead Cells

2018 · Roguelike Metroidvania

Motion Twin · self-published

Reviews
220,000
Positive
96%
Launch price
$24.99
Engine
haxe
Sales (median)
17.6M
Net rev
$251.2M
B

Hollow Knight

2017 · Metroidvania

Team Cherry · self-published

Reviews
700,000
Positive
97%
Launch price
$14.99
Engine
unity
Sales (median)
63.0M
Net rev
$539.4M

Tag overlap

50% shared — 2 shared tags, 2 only on Dead Cells, 2 only on Hollow Knight.

Only Dead Cells

RoguelikePixel Graphics

Shared

Metroidvania2D

Only Hollow Knight

Souls-likeAtmospheric

Sales estimates

Both estimates use the same vv1.0 multi-factor Boxleiter method. Click "How is this calculated?" on either to see the per-factor breakdown.

Sales estimate

vv1.0

10.6M24.6M

units (median: 17.6M)

$150.7M$351.7M net revenue (Steam cut + refunds + regional discount applied)

10.6Mmedian24.6M

Sales estimate

vv1.0

37.8M88.2M

units (median: 63.0M)

$323.7M$755.2M net revenue (Steam cut + refunds + regional discount applied)

37.8Mmedian88.2M

How comparison pages work

Verdicts are objective — they call out which game scores higher on a single measurable axis (reviews, price, sales estimate, recency). They don't claim "better." Tag overlap is computed from the public Steam tag list. Sales estimates use a multi-factor Boxleiter method whose formula is shown in full on each game's page.

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