Cuphead is a 2017 independent action game created and published by Studio MDHR. The game follows Cuphead, a character with a teacup-shaped head, and his brother Mugman as they make a deal with the Devil to repay their casino debts by collecting the souls of people who owe money. In the game, two players can control Cuphead and/or Mugman to complete levels and battle bosses. The story is not told in a strict, linear way. As the game progresses, the main characters gain more abilities and power, eventually facing the Devil. However, players can only use a limited number of these abilities at any one time.
The game’s creators, brothers Chad and Jared Moldenhauer, were inspired by the rubber hose animation style from the early years of American animation and the surreal elements found in works by Walt Disney Animation Studios, Fleischer Studios, Warner Bros. Cartoons, MGM Cartoon Studio, and Walter Lantz Productions. The game’s visual style and music reflect the look and feel of the 1930s and the Jazz Age. All in-game visuals were made using traditional animation techniques, intentionally including small human-made flaws. The music was composed and recorded by a full big band.
Cuphead was first announced in 2013, shown at E3 2014, and released in 2017 as a limited-time exclusive for Microsoft Windows and Xbox One. Later, the game was made available on other platforms. It became very popular, selling two million copies in two weeks and six million copies in two years. Critics praised the game for its art, gameplay, music, and difficulty. Many described it as one of the best video game soundtracks ever, one of the hardest games ever made, and one of the best games of 2017. It won several awards, including three Game and D.I.C.E. Awards and a British Academy Games Award. A downloadable content expansion, Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course, was released on June 30, 2022. An animated series adaptation, The Cuphead Show!, began airing on Netflix in February 2022.
Gameplay
Cuphead's gameplay focuses on repeated battles against bosses, mixed in between action-packed levels where players move and shoot. Each level takes place in one of four worlds, with the final battle against the Devil having three stages. Each boss fight offers simple, regular, and expert difficulty settings, except for the last two bosses, which only have regular and expert modes. To advance in the game and unlock expert mode for a level, players must defeat the boss on regular difficulty. Most boss fights happen on land, but some involve flying in airplanes and playing like side-scrolling shoot 'em up games. The game includes role-playing features and levels that can be played in different orders. Player characters never lose lives and keep all their equipment after dying.
Weapons and special abilities, called Charms, can be bought from an in-game shop called Porkrind's Emporium using coins collected during levels and the overworld. Players can use a parry attack on pink-marked objects to gain effects, including filling a special energy bar called the Super Meter, which allows stronger attacks. The Super Meter is shown as a row of five playing cards and can also be filled by attacking or using Charm effects. A powerful attack can be used by spending one card, with the attack type depending on the equipped weapon. The strongest attacks, called Super Arts, require the Super Meter to be fully filled and will empty it when used. Three Super Arts are available, one in each of the first three worlds. To earn each Super Art, players must enter a special underground room and parry a group of ghosts to stop them from reaching a central urn.
After completing a level, players receive a grade based on their performance. The grade considers how long it took to finish the level, how much health remained, the number of parried attacks, and how often the Super Meter was used, along with the level's difficulty. Levels are explored through a top-down map with hidden areas.
The game includes a two-player cooperative mode where either player can return to the game after dying if one player parries the other's soul before it disappears from the screen. Cuphead's brother, Mugman, can be used as an alternate character or co-op partner. The DLC expansion, The Delicious Last Course, adds a new area with its own story, new bosses, weapons, and Charms. It also introduces a third playable character, Ms. Chalice, who replaces Cuphead or Mugman when using the Astral Cookie Charm. Ms. Chalice has unique moves, including a double jump, an invincible roll, and a parry dash.
Plot
On Inkwell Isle, the game follows Cuphead and Mugman, two playful brothers who live under the care of Elder Kettle. Despite Elder Kettle’s warnings, the brothers visit the Devil’s Casino and begin playing a game called craps. When they win several times, the Devil appears and offers them all the money in the casino if they win the next roll. If they lose, the Devil threatens to take their souls. Cuphead agrees to the deal but rolls snake eyes, losing the game. As they beg for mercy, the Devil offers them a new challenge: if they collect "soul contracts" from the Devil’s debtors by midnight the next day, he might spare them. After returning home, they tell Elder Kettle about their problem. He gives them a potion that lets them fire energy blasts from their fingers and warns them that the debtors may resist giving up their contracts.
The brothers travel across Inkwell Isle, fighting the debtors to collect the contracts. When they reach the second part of the island, Elder Kettle notices they are growing stronger from their battles and urges them to make the right choice when they meet the Devil. In the third sector, King Dice, the Devil’s top helper, reports the brothers’ progress to the Devil. He expresses suspicion, but the Devil insists he will be ready if the brothers try anything.
After collecting all the soul contracts, the brothers return to the Devil’s Casino. King Dice stops them, claiming their success made him lose a bet. In revenge, he sets up a long battle in a casino-style setting. After defeating King Dice, the brothers confront the Devil, who offers them a deal: if they hand over the soul contracts, they can join him. If the player chooses this, the brothers become the Devil’s demonic helpers, and the game ends. If they refuse, the Devil becomes angry and fights them. The brothers defeat the Devil, burn the contracts, and return home. The debtors, now free from fear, honor the brothers for their bravery as everyone celebrates.
After freeing a spirit named the Legendary Chalice from a tomb on the island, Cuphead and Mugman receive a message from her to visit a distant island called DLC Island. There, Chalice shows them an "Astral Cookie" that lets her switch places with the brother who eats it, turning him into a spirit and giving her a temporary young form. The cookie’s creator, Chef Saltbaker, reveals a recipe for a dessert called the Wondertart, which could give Chalice a permanent body. Saltbaker explains that ingredients for the Wondertart are held by hostile islanders, and the brothers set out to collect them with Chalice’s help.
When the trio returns to the bakery with the ingredients, they find Saltbaker in the cellar. He admits the Wondertart requires a living soul to work and reveals he has kidnapped one of them in their spiritual form, planning to use the Wondertart to take over the astral plane. The remaining two brothers fight Saltbaker, defeat him, and destroy the bakery, stopping the Wondertart’s creation. Chalice decides not to let anyone else give up their soul for her and chooses to stay in her spiritual form until she finds a way to return to life without sacrifice. She agrees to help Cuphead and Mugman when needed using the Astral Cookie.
In the end, Saltbaker is arrested for his crimes and given a sentence that requires him to help DLC Island’s inhabitants with their problems. As his sentence ends, he rebuilds his bakery, makes pastries for everyone, and apologizes. It is implied that Chalice has found a way to return to life permanently.
Development
Cuphead is a video game created by Studio MDHR, an independent game studio based in Canada. The studio was founded by brothers Chad and Jared Moldenhauer. Evan Skolnick wrote the game, and Jake Clark helped with animation. Tony Coculuzzi led the programming. Development started in 2010 using the Microsoft XNA system, and later switched to the Unity game engine in 2014. The game was made from the brothers’ homes in Oakville, Ontario, and Regina, Saskatchewan. It was inspired by cartoons from the early golden age of American animation, including works by Disney and Fleischer Studios, as well as artists like Ub Iwerks, Grim Natwick, and Willard Bowsky. Chad Moldenhauer said Fleischer Studios influenced his art style the most, especially their creative and unusual elements.
As children, the Moldenhauer brothers watched many old cartoons from the golden age of animation, often from VHS tapes their parents provided. They shared an interest in video games with other siblings in their Regina home. In 2000, they tried making a game similar to Cuphead but lacked the tools to continue. After the success of the indie game Super Meat Boy in 2010, they decided to try again. The character Cuphead was based on a character from a 1936 Japanese animated film that had a teacup for a head. The brothers liked the unusual design and chose it as their main character. Before selecting Cuphead, they created many other character designs, such as a kappa wearing a top hat and characters with plates or forks for heads.
The animation style of Cuphead is similar to the cartoons that inspired it. Chad Moldenhauer, who had experience in graphic design, hand-drew the animations and painted the backgrounds with watercolors, then added color in Photoshop. The game’s gameplay runs at 60 frames per second, while the animation is at 24 frames per second, the standard in American films. Chad said the small imperfections in their art were intentional, as a contrast to the perfect style of modern pixel art. Jared Moldenhauer worked on other parts of the game, and the brothers collaborated on gameplay design. Studio MDHR hired a Romanian developer, a Brooklyn animator, and an Ontario jazz musician for the project. They used recording methods from the same era as the cartoons. The music was composed by Kristofer Maddigan and features 51 tracks performed by jazz and big band musicians.
The Moldenhauers described Cuphead as having a “retro game” focus, emphasizing gameplay over story. Kill Screen, a gaming publication, said the developers were very focused on the basic mechanics of run-and-gun games, such as movement, attacks, and collision detection. They revised many gameplay details, including how actions feel on the edges of platforms and how long players are unable to move after taking damage. They planned multiple difficulty levels and avoided a traditional “damsel in distress” story, instead making Cuphead the one causing trouble. The developers aimed to break the Guinness World Record for the most boss battles in a run-and-gun game, planning more than 30, compared to the previous record of 25 in Alien Soldier. The game’s complexity and limited team size were the biggest challenges, so the Moldenhauers used money from their home’s mortgage to fund the project.
Release
At the Xbox press event during Electronic Entertainment Expo 2014, the game was shown to an audience that liked it. However, it was not available to play at that time and was about 40% complete. The game was expected to be expanded with additional content called expansion packs, each containing 10 to 15 bosses, similar to how Sonic & Knuckles added content to the Sonic series. Cuphead was officially released on September 29, 2017, for Windows and Xbox One. It supports Xbox Play Anywhere, which allows players to use their game purchase on both platforms. King Features Syndicate holds the rights to create merchandise and other items related to the game.
The Delicious Last Course is extra game content that adds a new island, new boss battles, and a third character named Ms. Chalice. It was first shown at E3 2018 and was planned for release in 2019. However, the release was delayed until 2020 to give the development team more time to work on it without too much pressure. The release was further delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic and was finally released on June 30, 2022.
A version of Cuphead for macOS was released on October 19, 2018. It was promoted with an animated short called Crisp Apples. A version for the Nintendo Switch was released on April 18, 2019. This happened after Microsoft contacted the development team about creating a Switch version. A version for PlayStation 4 was released on July 28, 2020.
In June 2019, a version of Cuphead for Tesla, Inc.'s Linux-based operating system used in some of its cars was announced by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. He said he enjoyed the game. The version was released in September 2019 as part of Tesla's software update 10, but only the first level of the game was playable at that time.
Reception
Ben Kuchera of Polygon wrote that Cuphead was one of the five most interesting new games shown at Microsoft's E3 2014 press conference, even though he knew little about the game except for its art style. He said the game "stood out immediately" and that everyone in the press room had strong reactions to the trailer. Cuphead won the IGN Best Xbox One Game at E3 award in 2015 and the "Best Indie Game" award at the Gamescom 2015 Awards. It was also nominated for "Best Independent Game" at the E3 2016 Game Critics Awards.
Cuphead received "generally favorable" reviews, according to Metacritic, a website that collects game reviews. Its difficulty was noted by several media outlets. Destructoid's Brett Makedonski welcomed the game's high difficulty, calling it "tough but fair." He said the game relied on muscle memory, not quick reactions, and praised the boss battles for being unique and memorable. He also called the 1930s-style visuals and jazz soundtrack "fabulous." However, he said the eight-direction firing system was "clunky and awkward."
Ray Carsillo of EGMNow said he was not frustrated by the game's difficulty, even though he died 188 times during his playthrough. He praised the "gorgeous" hand-drawn visuals and said the gameplay went "beyond pattern recognition." Peter Brown of GameSpot said fighting enemies was rewarding and called the cartoon style "charming." He also liked the quick loading times, which helped with trial-and-error play. However, he said the game did not clearly show progress or abilities.
Lucas Sullivan of GamesRadar+ said Cuphead is one of the best 2D shooters ever made. He praised the detailed watercolor backgrounds and said the game's difficulty was not frustrating but rewarding. Ben Pack of Giant Bomb called the game one of his most enjoyable experiences, noting the challenging platforming and art style. Joe Skrebels of IGN called every scene a "masterwork" and praised the sound design. He said the platforming battles were imaginative, but criticized the lack of enemy health bars and the control scheme.
Chris Schilling of PC Gamer liked the reliable jump and dash controls. He said the game's random elements meant players could not rely only on memorizing patterns. Chris Plante of Polygon said the game teaches strategy through trial and error. He praised the parrying system but said the final bosses made the difficulty "too far." Colm Ahern of VideoGamer.com said the game's visuals and sound are excellent and called defeating bosses "glorious." He criticized the final bosses for making the challenge too difficult.
In the first two weeks after its release, Cuphead sold more than one million copies worldwide. Sales reached four million by July 2019 and five million by its second anniversary. By July 2020, when it was released for PlayStation 4, sales had reached six million.
Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course sold one million copies in less than two weeks. In December, the developers said it sold over two million copies.
Entertainment Weekly ranked Cuphead fifth on its "Best Games of 2017" list. GamesRadar+ ranked it ninth on its list of the 25 best games of 2017, and Polygon ranked it 14th on its list of the 50 best games of 2017. Cuphead won "Best Microsoft Game" and "Best Co-op Multiplayer" in Game Informer's Reader's Choice Awards. It also won "Best Microsoft Exclusive" and "Best Bosses" in other awards. EGMNow ranked it #2 on its list of the 25 best games of 2017, and The Verge named it one of its 15 best games of 2017.
Cuphead was nominated for "Breakout Game of the Year" in PC Gamer's 2017 awards and won "Best Xbox One Game" in Destructoid's 2017 awards. It won "Best Xbox One Game" and "Best Art Direction" in IGN's 2017 awards, and was nominated for other categories like "Game of the Year" and "Best Original Music." It also won awards for "Best Looking Game" and "Best Style" in Giant Bomb's 2017 awards.
At the 17th Annual NAVGTR Awards, Cuphead won six awards, including "Animation, Artistic" and "Art Direction, Period Influence." The Delicious Last Course was nominated for several awards at the 22nd Annual NAVGTR Awards and won three.
In September 2019, the Cuphead soundtrack album Selected Tunes from Cuphead topped the Billboard Jazz Albums chart. It was the first video game soundtrack to reach number one on a Billboard chart. The album also ranked #1 on the Billboard Traditional Jazz chart and #6 on the Billboard Vinyl chart that week. The game received a Guinness World Record for being the first video game to reach first place on a Billboard chart.
Legacy
Since it was first released, Cuphead has grown into a larger brand with many types of licensed products, such as accessories and collectibles. In 2019, McFarlane Toys created a series of Cuphead-themed building sets. In 2020, Arby's offered limited-edition toys and papercrafts featuring characters from the game in some locations. In 2022, Youtooz released a collection of limited-edition Cuphead figures. That same year, Studio MDHR partnered with Zara to produce a clothing line inspired by the game. In 2023, Good Smile Company made Nendoroid figures of Cuphead and Mugman.
Cuphead has been included in other video games. In 2018, one of the creators of Bendy and the Ink Machine mentioned wanting to make a crossover with Cuphead during an interview. In 2018, the fighting game Super Smash Bros. Ultimate added a Cuphead Mii Fighter costume through downloadable content in January 2020. This update also included the boss level theme "Floral Fury." Four Cuphead-themed "spirits" were added to the game in February 2020. In 2021, Fall Guys released costumes based on Cuphead and Mugman. In 2022, a costume featuring Ms. Chalice was also added to the game.
Cuphead has been shown in exhibitions and promotional materials. In 2021, a 3D-printed zoetrope inspired by the game was displayed at The Story of the Moving Image exhibition in Melbourne, Australia. The exhibit, made by Studio MDHR, used flashing lights to animate individual character models, showing scenes like Cuphead jumping into a paint bucket, King Dice dancing, and Mugman and Ms. Chalice dodging attacks from the Devil. In 2022, Cuphead appeared in a GEICO advertisement. The physical version of Cuphead released in April 2023 in Japan had cover art by Yoshitaka Amano, who created an original drawing of the game's characters in his unique style. This release was praised by fans online.
Cuphead has influenced other creative works and helped bring back a type of animation called rubber hose animation. This style, which features loose, flexible limbs and exaggerated movements, was popularized by Fleischer Studios during the Great Depression. GamingBible's Sam Cawley said Cuphead was one of the games that helped make this style popular again. The Michigan Daily's Isabella Casagrande noted that rubber hose animation became more common in the late 2010s after games like Cuphead gained popularity. Boing Boing's Grant St. Clair described Cuphead as inspiring a wave of games using this animation style. Enchanted Portals (2023), made by Xixo Games Studio, is a game influenced by Cuphead. Mystic Clockwork Studio's upcoming game Exil was also inspired by Cuphead during its development. Other games, such as Acecraft (2025), Bad Cheese (2025), and Mouse: P.I. for Hire (2026), have been compared to Cuphead.
Other media
In 2021, a tabletop game called Cuphead: Fast Rolling Dice Game was released. It includes a companion app for iOS and Android devices. The app plays music and keeps track of the score.
Dark Horse Comics has been creating Cuphead graphic novels since 2019. The first book, titled Cuphead Volume 1: Comic Capers & Curios, came out in August 2020. Cuphead Vol. 2: Cartoon Chronicles & Calamities was released in March 2021. In August 2024, the third graphic novel, Cuphead Volume 3: Colorful Crack-Ups & Chaos, was published. A novel written by Studio MDHR was released in March 2020.
The Cuphead Show!, an animated series based on the game and made by Netflix Animation, was announced in July 2019. Unlike the game, which uses traditional hand-drawn animation, the show uses digital animation techniques. Chad and Jared Moldenhauer are executive producers, along with CJ Kettler from King Features Syndicate. The series first aired on February 18, 2022. The second season, with 13 episodes, was released worldwide on August 19, 2022. The third season, containing 11 episodes, premiered on November 18, 2022.
On May 5, 2025, Studio MDHR announced on Twitter that they were looking for senior Unity programmers with game development experience. This led to discussions about making a sequel or a new game inspired by Cuphead.