GAME · released

Cuphead

Studio MDHR Entertainment Inc.

Quick read

Cuphead is a boss-rush cartoon: patterns, parries, and a run that is a level someone painted rather than a seed you reroll. A song is a boss, and the letter is the only meta.

What kind of game is it?

Authored bosses. Local co-op exists. The mountain of patterns is the point. A metroidvania map would give you a region; this one gives you a song you have not yet parried clean, and the next sitting is the same cartoon cruelty.

Who is it for?

For players who crave a boss they retry until the pattern sits in their hands.

With friends

You have Cuphead and nobody to play with?

Send a link to your friends. You see who already owns it, and the other multiplayer games you all have.

How it plays

Loop: Action combat
Sessions: Short sessions
Progression: Campaign
Players: Solo or co-op
Structure: Linear
Tone: Comedic · Brutal

Game DNA

What playing it feels like, out of 100. Our reading, separate from Steam reviews.

Progression80
Estimate
Social55
Estimate

Key Steam facts

Steam store figures, checked 17 Aug 2026.

Release

released

2017-09-29

Review score

96.2%

Checked 17 Aug 2026.

Steam positive percent.

Review count

219,510

Checked 17 Aug 2026.

Store price

€19.99

Checked 17 Aug 2026.

Languages

Demo

Early Access

Players

Single-player and co-op

How many people play Cuphead?

Estimates from public Steam data, not figures from the studio. Ranges, not exact numbers.

Estimated copies

5.5M – 12M

Steam reviews × 25 to 55. For a free game: players, not sales.

All-time peak players

19,076

Most people playing at the same moment, per SteamCharts.

Average players, Aug 2026

2,492

Peak that month: 3,915.

Median playtime

21.7 h

Half of 300 recent reviewers played 10.3–40.2 h. 2% under 2 h.

Players over time

Sept 2023Aug 2026

Where the players are

Languages of the last 300 Steam reviews. A proxy for regions, not a country split.

English31%
Russian20%
Portuguese (Brazil)14%
Spanish (Spain)13%
Simplified Chinese9%
Turkish3%

Cuphead players also play

Games played for more than an hour in 35 public Steam libraries of recent reviewers. Each one is played by at least 4 of these players and is more common here than across all libraries we read (× how much).

Hollow Knight49% · ×3.5
Hollow Knight: Silksong34% · ×4.5
Geometry Dash37% · ×3.2
Sonic Adventure DX14% · ×17.2
Hello Neighbor17% · ×10.3
Muck31% · ×3.3
Undertale34% · ×2.8
Terraria57% · ×1.8
Bendy and the Ink Machine14% · ×9.9
Cult of the Lamb23% · ×3.6

Steam data checked 4 Oct 2026

What makes it different?

A boss is a song.

Core mechanics

Similar games

Full games-like page →

Blasphemous

Blasphemous is a grim, religious-horror metroidvania with deliberate combat.

Open →

Celeste

Celeste is a precision climb: a mountain of authored rooms, cheap deaths, and a panic you manage as carefully as a dash. Assist mode is there; the mountain is still written.

Open →

My Friend Pedro

My Friend Pedro is a 2D gun ballet with a banana coach. A level is choreography you slow down, and the rank is whether the kick still looked like a joke.

Open →

Pizza Tower

Pizza Tower is a Wario-like score attack through kitchens that collapse into a joke. A rank is a lap you ran, and the building falls when you finally leave.

Open →

Related games

Nearby games. Not always a direct substitute.

Shared: Souls like, Parrying, Mastery, Action combat

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is an authored turn-based RPG with spectacle combat. A painted campaign. The party walks a France that is already fading, and a parry is a brushstroke.

Open →

Shared: Mastery, Action combat

Rhythm Doctor

Rhythm Doctor is a timing hospital: hit on the seventh beat or the patient dies as a joke. A level is a chart, and the editor is how the night continues.

Open →

Genre / subgenre

Steam genre: platformer.

Related rankings

Best co-op indie games on Steam →

Sources

Store price checked 17 Aug 2026.

Are you the developer of this game? Claim this game. Missing a game? Submit a game.