Rain World
Game
Documents about Rain World
Article
Metroidvania Ecologies: Exploration and the Environmental Imagination in Hollow Knight and Rain World
"Metroidvania Ecologies" argues that the Metroidvania genre, and specifically Hollow Knight (2017) and Rain World (2017), deserves a central place in ecogaming scholarship, which has so far concentrated on titles such as SimCity, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Kentucky Route Zero.
- The report argues that the Metroidvania genre, particularly Hollow Knight (2017) and Rain World (2017), deserves a central place in ecogaming scholarship, which has so far focused on titles like SimCity, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Kentucky Route Zero.
- The authors contend that the genre's interconnected, gated level design, with recursive exploration, backtracking, and gradual unlocking of space, parallels Gibsonian ecological relations between organism and environment.
- Gated progression, punishing traversal, and opaque maps are read as resisting the colonial "direct use-value" ideology of exploration, making the environment refuse the player's command.
Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game CultureDec 2025
Article
Wuchang, Grounded 2 Lead July's New Steam Hits
July 2025 saw a relatively quiet period for new game releases on Steam, with only three titles surpassing $10 million in gross revenue compared to six in the previous month.
- July 2025 Steam revenue for new releases slowed significantly, with only three titles surpassing $10 million in gross revenue compared to six in June.
- Wuchang: Fallen Feathers led July's new releases with $19.1 million in gross revenue and achieved strong cross-platform performance with over 400,000 paid units on PlayStation 5.
- Grounded 2 generated nearly $16 million in gross revenue on Steam despite being available on Game Pass from day one.
GameDiscoverCoAug 2025
Article
Rain World: How UGC Headlined a Big Sales Comeback
This analysis explores the resurgence of the 2017 ecosystem simulator Rain World, highlighting how a strategic approach to user-generated content (UGC) drove record-breaking financial performance six years after its initial release.
- Integrating community-created mods into the $15 'Downpour' DLC drove record financial performance for Rain World, resulting in 280,000 base game sales on Steam between March 2022 and February 2023.
- The 'Downpour' launch triggered a significant sales spike of 82,000 units, demonstrating that official Steam Workshop support and integration can effectively bridge the gap between niche modding communities and the mainstream market.
- Akupara Games successfully professionalized community contributions by hiring over 30 top modders and a dedicated community manager to coordinate the transition of fragmented, third-party content into an official expansion.
GameDiscoverCoMar 2024