If you were following the gaming scene back in the mid-2010s, you probably remember that one trailer. The one with the grainy, flickering film effect, the frantic jazz, and a character with a literal cup for a head. It looked like a lost 1930s cartoon that somehow became sentient and playable. But for a long time, that trailer was all we had. People started wondering if it was even real.
Cuphead was released on September 29, 2017.
That was the day the world finally got to play the "run-and-gun" masterpiece on Xbox One and Windows PC. But that single date doesn't really tell the whole story. Honestly, the timeline of this game is a chaotic mess of delays, massive risks, and a slow-burn release schedule that saw it land on different consoles years apart.
The Long Road to Launch
The brothers behind Studio MDHR, Chad and Jared Moldenhauer, didn't just wake up one day and ship a hit. They started working on this thing way back in 2010. For years, it was just a side project. They were literally working full-time jobs—one in construction, the other in web design—and then stayed up all night drawing characters on paper.
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Think about that. They didn't use modern digital shortcuts. Every frame of animation was hand-drawn, inked, and then painted with watercolors.
When the game showed up at E3 2014, the hype went through the roof. But there was a problem. The game was tiny. Originally, it was just a series of boss fights with almost no levels in between. Seeing the reaction from fans, the brothers decided to go big. They quit their jobs. They remortgaged their homes to fund a bigger team. It was a terrifying gamble. If the game flopped, they were basically losing everything.
Release Dates by Platform
Because the developers were a small indie team and had an exclusivity deal with Microsoft early on, the game didn't hit every console at once. It was a staggered rollout that kept the game in the news for years.
- Xbox One & Windows PC: September 29, 2017. This was the big one.
- macOS: October 19, 2018.
- Nintendo Switch: April 18, 2019. This was a shocker at the time because it meant Microsoft was playing nice with Nintendo.
- Tesla: September 26, 2019. Yeah, you can actually play this in a car.
- PlayStation 4: July 28, 2020. Sony fans had to wait nearly three years to get their hands on it.
Why it took so long to finish
You’ve probably heard people joke about "Cuphead time." The game was originally supposed to come out in 2014, then 2015, then 2016. Each time, the brothers had to post a "sorry, we're not done" update.
The reason? Quality.
They refused to cut corners. If a boss didn't feel right, they’d scrap months of hand-drawn animation and start over. That kind of perfectionism is rare. Usually, a publisher would force a game out the door, but since they were self-publishing (with some help from Microsoft), they stayed the course.
It paid off. Within just two weeks of the 2017 launch, the game went platinum. That's over one million copies sold in fourteen days. By 2026, the game has moved over 6 million units on Steam alone, and tens of millions across all platforms.
The DLC Saga: The Delicious Last Course
If you think the base game took a long time, the DLC was its own beast. The Delicious Last Course (or DLC—see what they did there?) was announced at E3 2018. Fans thought, "Oh, cool, maybe next year?"
Nope.
It was delayed. Then a pandemic happened. Then it was delayed again. Studio MDHR was very open about the fact that they didn't want to "crunch" their employees. They wanted a healthy workspace. The Delicious Last Course was finally released on June 30, 2022. It added Ms. Chalice as a playable character and some of the most complex animation the studio had ever done. Like the original, it was an instant hit, selling a million copies in its first two weeks.
What should you do now?
If you haven't played it yet, you're missing out on a piece of gaming history. But a fair warning: it is hard. Like, "throw your controller across the room" hard.
- Check your platform: You can get it on basically anything now. If you want the best experience, the Nintendo Switch version is surprisingly great for handheld play.
- Buy the bundle: Don't just get the base game. The DLC bosses are actually some of the best designed in the whole package.
- Watch the show: If the difficulty is too much, The Cuphead Show! on Netflix is a great way to enjoy the vibe without the stress.
The game is frequently on sale for around $13.99 on Steam and GOG, so there’s no reason to pay full price if you can wait for a holiday weekend. Just don't expect a sequel anytime soon—hand-drawn art like this takes years, and Studio MDHR hasn't even announced their next project yet.