11 January 2026

Steam RPG with ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ Reviews Hits Major Milestone for Solo Developer

By newsgame

Elin, an open-world RPG with “Overwhelmingly Positive” user reviews, has surpassed 350,000 sales on Steam. In doing so, it cleared a(nother) major commercial milestone just over a year following its Steam Early Access launch.

Elin is a prequel-sequel to the cult-classic 2D open-world sandbox RPG Elona, originally released in 2007. While its predecessor was a freeware title (with a mobile version supported by microtransactions), Elin is a premium offering, priced at $19.99 since debuting as an early access title in November 2024. Its secretive solo Japanese developer Noa—also known as Lafrontier and Rfish—previously said the price might increase once the game leaves early access in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime, however, Elin appears to be selling exceptionally well.

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Elin Surpasses 350,000 Sales After 14 Months

Speaking to Automaton West, Noa recently confirmed that Elin surpassed 350,000 sales as of early 2026. While Elona‘s success was largely driven by a loyal Japanese audience, the sequel appears to be decently diversified, with the developer sharing that its home country accounted for only 35% of overall sales to date. Fans from the United States are estimated to be the game’s second-largest audience, with a 24% share of global sales.

Elin Nearly Doubled Its Lifetime Sales in the Last 12 Months

Throughout its first 14 months on the market, Elin established itself as one of the best overlooked indie games on Steam, to the point that it is no longer considered that overlooked. Looking at its user reviews on Valve’s storefront, they are 90.82% positive as of early 2026, based on nearly 3,200 player impressions. That is just enough to qualify for Valve’s “Overwhelmingly Positive” label. The contents of these reviews reveal that Elin is praised for similar things its predecessor was: incredibly engaging base building, well-realized rougelite elements, decently in-depth farming, and a huge variety of secondary mechanisms and vocations that open up a world of role-playing possibilities.

What Players Really Love About Elin

Chief among its top qualities is the fact Elin does not impose its will on players. It is possible to play it as Harvest Moon, a dungeon crawler, or an experimental genre hybrid combining management sim and pixel CRPG elements the way some beloved Kairosoft games do. It is possible to run a fishing market, a hotel, or a tavern. It’s equally possible to become a thief or an assassin, a traveling merchant, or an alchemist. Maybe a thief masquerading as a traveling merchant doing some alchemy as a side hustle. Building a village or razing a town is always on the cards as well. This immense level of freedom is central to Elin‘s roguelite sandbox identity and thus a big part of the reason why players keep returning to it, much like they have been returning to Elona for years.

Elin‘s early access launch was preceded by a successful Kickstarter campaign raising the equivalent of nearly $416,000 (¥63,505,185) over a month-long period mostly contained to May 2023. It is unclear whether Noa is counting the game’s 5,925 backers among its 350,000 sales. Elin has been receiving regular content updates, averaging roughly one major release per month since launch, since late 2024. The December 2025 patch—identified by version number 23.247—introduced a new quest, map, and over 150 other changes. Like its versioning suggests, this was the game’s 247th patch since the original beta build from 2024.

Elin 1.0 Should Happen by the End of 2026

Following its Early Access debut, Elin was promised to stay in active development for between one and two years. Based on that timeline, developer Noa has approximately ten months remaining to meet the original projection as of this writing. Meanwhile, Kickstarter backers can still submit their NPC rumor dialogue blurbs for inclusion in the game. Submission details are available on Elin‘s Kickstarter page. With 1.0 on the horizon and early access traction consistent and meaningful, Elin appears posed for a spike in player numbers whenever it does manage to hit a feature-complete state. For now, its all-time concurrent Steam user peak sits at 18,239 players, reached in late November 2024.