Action roguelike Skul: The Hero Slayer has sold more than 2M copies

Skul: The Hero Slayer has sold 2 million copies since release, putting the sidescrolling action roguelike in that top tier of multi-million-selling games. Skul's Dead Cells-esque and Hollow Knight-like action never had a huge single spike in popularity, but has steadily grown in sales since its January 2021 release alongside pretty regular large additions and patches.

"We are beyond excited to announce that Skul: The Hero Slayer has surpassed 2 million copies in sales. This is another huge record achieved since we announced that Skul sold 1 million copies last year. We would like to express sincere gratitude to everyone for playing Skul and giving tremendous support up until now," said developer Southpaw Games in an announcement.

Skul is the story of a little skeleton who battles the forces of humanity in order to save his master, the demon king.

This year saw two big updates to Skul, one adding an extra-hard story-extending dark mirror mode and another adding a new chapter to the story, the Demon King's Castle Defense. This year also saw the release of Skul's first paid DLC, the Mythology Pack, that added a bunch of new skulls and items to collect.

Skul is at its core an action platformer that focuses on its hero, the last skeleton left after all of the other forces of evil have been wiped out. Skul can swap his head around with the heads of other things, their skulls, allowing him to gain new attacks with new speed, range, and power. User reviews often compare it to Dead Cells in some aspects, Hollow Knight in others, and often call it—only somewhat jokingly—"roguelike Maplestory."

You can find Skul: The Hero Slayer for sale on Humble, Steam, Epic, and Microsoft for US $20. It's 50% off on a few of those for the various winter sales, and the 2M copies sold announcement says that discount will be preserved until January 18.

Skul the Hero Slayer 2M copies sold announcement graphic — (Image credit: Southpaw Games)

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.