Bellwright, an open world survival action RPG, has reached a new milestone in less than two weeks after its Early Access launch. According to Polish developer Donkey Crew, it has already sold over 150,000 units.
Donkey Crew shared the news in a post on Steam, saying that Bellwright took only 12 days to cross the 150k mark. The studio thanked players for their support, promising to keep improving the game with further updates.
“You have taken away the anxiety and replaced it with motivation, encouragement and even trust. We understand what this means, and we will not disappoint you,” the studio said. “The message is clear: Bellwright is ambitious and unique, but it’s also early, raw, and needs more work. And work, we will.”
Launched on April 23, Bellwright peaked at 15,263 concurrent players (via SteamDB). This is already the 5th best result in the portfolio of publisher Snail Games USA, behind Last Oasis (33.2k CCU), ATLAS (58.9k CCU), ARK: Survival Ascended (98k CCU), and ARK: Survival Evolved (248.4k CCU).
Bellwright is expected to stay in Early Access for the next three years. It currently has “Mostly Positive” rating on Steam, with 77% of 3,481 reviews being positive. Many players say the game is still very raw and unpolished, and some users worry about its future given the fate of the developers’ previous projects.
The history Donkey Crew is truly a roller coaster. In 2016, indie studio Warlock Wireless released medieval combat game Of Kings and Men, which was delisted from Steam due to lackluster sales. As the team said in a statement, the game “has not attracted a large enough audience to sustain further development.”
Several key developers then left the studio, including lead designer Florian Hofreither. In 2018, he registered Donkey Crew in Poland. The studio, which originally started as a modding group, turned into a professional development team.
Donkey Crew gained recognition for its survival MMO Last Oasis, which was published by Snail Games USA and launched in 2020. However, its development was ceased last year. As Hofreither told PC Gamer, the game “sold initially okay, but after a while, with the reviews going down and playerbase going down, it made no money anymore.”
Last Oasis currently has a “Mixed” rating on Steam (63% positive), and Donkey Crew decided to move on to its next project, Bellwright. According to Hofreither, there were two options — “start a new game, which then has the hopes of bringing in further money” or simply shut down the studio.
With over 150k copies sold in less than two weeks, Bellwright has a chance to live up to its 1.0 launch. But players are still concerned, given the studio’s history of previous Early Access attempts.