Co-op roguelite Heroes of Hammerwatch II hits 300k copies sold on Steam in less than two months

Last month, indie team Crackshell released a sequel to its successful roguelite Heroes of Hammerwatch. Here’s some fresh data on the game’s sales and its performance on Steam.

Heroes of Hammerwatch II is a co-op action roguelite (can also be played solo) with Diablo-style hack and slash elements and town-building mechanics. It expands on the first game and is also a new entry in the Hammerwatch franchise, which includes two action RPGs and the first HoH title.

Developed by Swedish indie studio Crackshell, Heroes of Hammerwatch II currently has a “Very Positive” (85%) rating on Steam based on more than 3,600 reviews. The game also peaked at over 21k concurrent players at launch.

Crackshell co-founder Jochum Skoglund shared data with GameDiscoverCo, revealing that Heroes of Hammerwatch II sold 302k units on Steam in about six weeks, from its launch on January 15 to the end of February.

• Refunds amounted to 21.3k units, or 7.1% of the game’s life-to-date sales.
• Heroes of Hammerwatch II has already grossed nearly $4 million on Steam (before the platform’s 30% cut). According to GameDiscoverCo, its lifetime revenue is “likely to be ~3x this figure or more, just due to ‘long tail’ sales and discounts.”
• The US accounts for 49% of copies sold, followed by Canada and Germany (7% each), the UK and Australia (4% each), and Russia (3%). It is worth noting that the game currently only supports English language, so its sales could increase if Crackshell localizes the game into more languages in the future.
• Heroes of Hammerwatch II has the median playtime of 10 hours and 13 minutes, which is quite impressive.
• For comparison, GameDiscoverCo estimates the sales of the original Heroes of Hammerwatch at around 850k units.

According to Skoglund, Crackshell had to let some team members go before the launch of Heroes of Hammerwatch II. “The team was around 9 people, but was gradually decreased to become only one developer the last few months up until release,” he said. “We said we’ll make one last game. After 12-13 years, it felt like a good time to take a break.”

Luckily, Heroes of Hammerwatch II turned out to be a commercial success. Skoglund noted that all developers who worked on the game as Crackshell wound down “got rewarded for their staying onboard for the release.”

More data on the game and its performance can be found in the full GameDiscoverCo newsletter.