When Hollow Root Games launched "Ashenveil" on Steam and PlayStation on April 12, co-founder Lena Vasquez hoped for 50,000 sales in the first month. Instead, the studio sold 4.2 million copies in 14 days, driven almost entirely by organic TikTok and YouTube clips that racked up hundreds of millions of views.
The game, a hand-painted action RPG set in a world where forests are slowly consuming abandoned cities, struck a nerve with players tired of formulaic open-world games. Its distinctive visual style — described by reviewers as "Studio Ghibli meets Dark Souls" — made every frame a natural screenshot for social media.
Ashenveil's art direction has been widely praised for its hand-painted environments."We spent four years making something we loved," said Vasquez, who previously worked at Naughty Dog before leaving to start Hollow Root with college friends. "We had zero marketing budget. The game marketed itself."