Mewgenics: The Cat-Breeding Tactics Game That Took 14 Years and Earned $23 Million in a Week

Some games are made in a month. Some take a decade. Mewgenics took fourteen years, survived a cancellation, changed genres and studios, and then sold more than a million copies in a single week. It is also, by design, a game about breeding cats and sending them to fight.

Created by Edmund McMillen and Tyler Glaiel, Mewgenics launched on Steam on 10 February 2026 at $29.99. It sold 150,000 copies in its first six hours, enough to recoup its development costs, and more than 1 million in its first week, reportedly generating over $23 million in revenue. Console versions for Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S followed on 8 September 2026.

From Team Meat to cancellation

Mewgenics was first announced in October 2012 by Team Meat, the studio McMillen co-founded and best known for Super Meat Boy, as its next game. It was originally planned as a multi-platform release, with an iOS version announced first.

What followed was a textbook case of feature creep, when a project keeps growing new ideas faster than it can finish old ones. Team Meat even shelved Super Meat Boy Forever to prioritise it. The game was shown at PAX East in April 2014 with a target release that year, but in August 2014 development was paused so the team could rethink the gameplay. In 2016, McMillen confirmed that Mewgenics had been cancelled, and he left Team Meat.

What the game became

The version that finally shipped was settled in 2020, when a turn-based tactical RPG prototype became the final design. The Steam page went live in October 2022, describing a "turn-based roguelike legacy game".

Mewgenics is set in Boon County. You breed cats, each with inherited stats and equipment, and send them out on combat runs across procedurally generated isometric grids, a little like a chess board seen at an angle. Cats can be knocked out, injured or killed. They age and die over in-game time. Breeding carries real risks: inbreeding can cause defects, and cats pick up random daily mutations, some useful and some deeply strange.

The result is a strategy game with a family tree. A great run is not just about winning fights; it is about building a bloodline that will carry the next generation further. Losing a favourite cat hurts, because you raised it.

The game runs on Glaiel's own engine, the Glaiel Game Engine. On PC, McMillen and Glaiel published it themselves; Nicalis handles the console versions.

Critics and awards

Mewgenics was the first game of 2026 to earn OpenCritic's "Must-Play" badge. It scores 88 on Metacritic, and 94% of critics recommend it, with a top-critic average of 89. IGN and GameSpot each gave it 9/10, PC Gamer 92/100 and The Guardian 4 out of 5. Critics praised its depth, soundtrack and humour, though some found the humour, and the randomness, too much.

It is nominated in three categories at the 2026 Golden Joystick Awards: Best Indie Game (Self-Published), Best Soundtrack and PC Game of the Year.

Why it matters

WGC's take: Mewgenics is the ultimate "never give up on a good idea" story. The concept of breeding cats with inherited traits survived years of turmoil because it was genuinely original. What changed was the game wrapped around it: once McMillen and Glaiel found the right structure, a tactical roguelike, the idea finally had a home.

It is also a reminder that the indie scene's veterans are still among its most daring creators. McMillen, also the creator of The Binding of Isaac, has spent his career making games that are weird, funny and uncomfortable in equal measure, and audiences have followed him every step of the way.

Mewgenics is available on Steam for Windows, and on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2. For more roguelikes with a strategy brain, read about Slay the Spire 2 (here) and Ball x Pit (here).