According to PLAYISM, the indie roguelite mech game Metal Bringer has seen strong sales since its launch on March 12, 2025. So strong, in fact, that it has surpassed cumulative sales of its predecessor title Samurai Bringer by a large margin. This comes as a big relief and pleasant surprise given that Metal Bringer’s price is twice that of the first Bringer title.
Disclosure: The game publisher PLAYISM is part of Active Gaming Media Inc., the owner of this website.
Metal Bringer is a roguelite action-adventure game available for the PC (Steam) and PS5. It takes you to a retro-style science fiction world where you build and control android soldiers, customize mechs and battle it out horde-style.
Developed by Japanese indie developer Alphawing, Metal Bringer is the successor to 2022’s Samurai Bringer. As the new entry in the series takes graphics and game mechanics to the next level while incorporating more content than before, it is appropriately listed for $19.99, which happens to be double that of Samurai Bringer’s price.
While you’d expect this steep increase in price between the two releases to impact Metal Bringers’s performance – especially in terms of number of units sold, it turns out this is not the case at all. PLAYISM told me in an internal meeting that the game is not only selling smoothly, but at an even faster pace than its predecessor. At the time of writing, Metal Bringer is “Very Positive” on Steam, with 88% of 560+ reviews being positive. So in terms of critical reception, it’s doing just as well or even slightly better than Samurai Bringer.
As for what people like about it – reviewers praise Alphawing’s high-quality voxel-style graphics, as well as the new hybrid blend of hack-and-slash, roguelite and mecha customization mechanics. Interestingly, PLAYISM told me that nearly 80% of sales come from outside of Japan, with US players contributing to sales the most. There’s been a vague idea in the Japanese industry that mecha games don’t sell in the West, but based on recent hits in the genre – I think we can agree that’s a thing of the past now.
I asked PLAYISM why they think Metal Bringer is selling so well despite being double the price of Samurai Bringer, and they told me that they’ve recently started to worry that the first game’s price might have been set too low to begin with. The price at the time was decided on with the idea of making the game easy to pick up for those seeking a casual experience, but it seems Metal Bringer’s steeper price is not a hurdle for players either.
Metal Bringer is out now for the PC (Steam) and PS5 for $19.99.
