How many copies has Cave Story+ sold?

indielist estimates Cave Story+ has sold between 278,424 and 649,656 units (median 464,040), derived from its 5,156 Steam reviews with the white-box Boxleiter v1.0 method. The full breakdown is shown on the page.

Who developed Cave Story+?

Cave Story+ was developed by Nicalis, Inc. and published by Nicalis, Inc..

Who published Cave Story+?

Cave Story+ was published by Nicalis, Inc., developed by Nicalis, Inc.. See Nicalis, Inc.'s full catalogue and submission status on indielist.

When was Cave Story+ released?

Cave Story+ was released in 2011.

How many reviews does Cave Story+ have on Steam?

Cave Story+ has 5,156 Steam reviews, of which 93% are positive.

Is Cave Story+ worth playing?

Steam players rate Cave Story+ 93% positive across 5,156 reviews. indielist doesn't score games editorially; it surfaces public review sentiment and a white-box sales estimate so you can judge reception and reach yourself.

Cave Story+

Nov 22, 2011 Action $14.99

Developer Nicalis, Inc. Publisher Nicalis, Inc.

Profile updated Jun 2026

This action platformer, a Metroidvania with pixel graphics and a great soundtrack, launched in 2011. Developed and published by Nicalis, it has garnered 8,062 Steam reviews with a 93% positive rating.

Cave Story+ is a 2011 Action game developed by Nicalis, Inc. and published by Nicalis, Inc.. On Steam it has gathered 5,156 player reviews, 93% of them positive, which counts as a very positive reception among indie titles in the Action category. The game is available on windows, and launched at $15. The pairing of developer Nicalis, Inc. with publisher Nicalis, Inc. is one of the studio-publisher relationships indielist tracks, letting players find comparable games and letting developers and investors study how Action projects reach the market. indielist's white-box method estimates its lifetime sales at roughly 278,000 to 650,000 units, with the full Boxleiter factor breakdown shown on this page rather than a single black-box figure. Within indielist's catalog of indie games mapped to their studios, publishers, and funding, Cave Story+ can be compared against similar Action titles and benchmarked on review counts and estimated sales.

Reviews

5,156

Positive

93%

Steam appid

200900

Engine

Unknown

Players (snapshot)

Unavailable

Sales estimate

v1.0

278K to 650K

units (median: 464K)

≈ $2.4M to $5.6M modeled net revenue (fixed store-cut, refund, and regional-price assumptions applied)

278K median 650K

+ How is this calculated?

5,156 reviews × NB(90) = 464,040 median units

Factor	Adjustment
base	+50
year_2011	+30
price_$15	0
positive_93%	+10
final NB	90

Heuristic display range: median × [0.6, 1.4]. Boundary protection: NB ∈ [15, 150].

Methodology & limitations

Sales estimates use an additive Boxleiter-derived heuristic against public Steam review counts. They are not authoritative sales data, and the fixed display range is not a statistically validated confidence interval. Actual results may fall outside it, especially for deeply discounted or bundle-heavy titles. Algorithm version v1.0. Read the exact method and validation status.

indielist estimates lifetime unit sales for Cave Story+ at roughly 278,000 to 650,000 copies, with a median around 464,000, derived from its 5,156 Steam reviews using a multi-factor Boxleiter method (version v1.0). That median maps to approximately $4.0M in net revenue after Steam's 30% cut, regional pricing, and refunds. Unlike black-box trackers, the full calculation is shown on this page: a base review-to-sales multiplier is adjusted for release year, launch price, review sentiment, studio size, and genre, and every adjustment is listed so developers, publishers, and investors can audit exactly how the figure was reached. The range itself reflects genuine uncertainty — review-to-sales ratios vary widely between games — so indielist publishes a low, median, and high band rather than a false-precision single number, and treats free-to-play, heavily discounted, and bundle-distributed titles as having wider error margins still.

Price history

51 observed days · window low $1.49

Across 51 observed UTC days from 2026-06-03 to 2026-07-25, the daily lowest tracked USD price across stores ranged from $1.49 to $14.99. The tracked-window low was $1.49 on 2026-06-26.

Real store observations · daily lowest tracked USD price across stores · missing days are not filled.

Where to buy

Affiliate disclosure

Steam reference

$14.99 Buy
GOG.com

$14.99 Buy
Green Man Gaming

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Fanatical

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Humble Store

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Latest tracked store observations (2026-07-25 05:22 UTC), cheapest first. Prices may have changed since observation. Some are affiliate links — we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more.

Platforms

windows

Frequently asked questions

How many copies has Cave Story+ sold?: indielist estimates Cave Story+ has sold between 278,424 and 649,656 units (median 464,040), derived from its 5,156 Steam reviews with the white-box Boxleiter v1.0 method. The full breakdown is shown on the page.
Who developed Cave Story+?: Cave Story+ was developed by Nicalis, Inc. and published by Nicalis, Inc..
Who published Cave Story+?: Cave Story+ was published by Nicalis, Inc., developed by Nicalis, Inc.. See Nicalis, Inc.'s full catalogue and submission status on indielist.
When was Cave Story+ released?: Cave Story+ was released in 2011.
How many reviews does Cave Story+ have on Steam?: Cave Story+ has 5,156 Steam reviews, of which 93% are positive.
Is Cave Story+ worth playing?: Steam players rate Cave Story+ 93% positive across 5,156 reviews. indielist doesn't score games editorially; it surfaces public review sentiment and a white-box sales estimate so you can judge reception and reach yourself.

Players looking for games like Cave Story+ can compare it on indielist against semantically similar Action titles such as Celeste, Hollow Knight, SANABI, CrossCode, ranked by shared tags and genre rather than by ad spend. On the developer side, Nicalis, Inc.'s other releases and Nicalis, Inc.'s wider catalog are one click away, letting developers benchmark where Cave Story+ sits among a studio's body of work and how its publisher's portfolio performs. Because indielist maps studios, publishers, games, and funding into one connected graph, the same Cave Story+ page serves three audiences at once: players hunting their next Action game, developers studying how comparable projects were positioned and what they sold, and investors tracing which teams and labels are active in the space. A machine-readable markdown mirror of this page is published at the same path with a .md suffix for AI assistants, and its review, price, and sales-estimate figures are refreshed on a schedule rather than frozen at launch.

Matched from shared Steam tags and primary genre. Review count breaks ties; it is not a personal recommendation score.