Graveyard Keeper Went Free for a Weekend and Made $250,000 in DLC Sales. Here Is How tinyBuild Did It.

On April 10, 2026, tinyBuild made Graveyard Keeper completely free on PC and consoles. The timing was not random. That same day, Lazy Bear Games announced Graveyard Keeper 2 at the Triple-i Initiative showcase. Five days later, tinyBuild CEO Alex Nichiporchik posted the results on X: the free period generated over $250,000 in DLC revenue on Steam alone, and the sequel landed 450,000 Steam wishlists in its first week. A seven-year-old indie sim just became one of the most talked-about marketing stories of 2026.

The Numbers

Nichiporchik was unusually transparent about the results. Here is everything confirmed from his posts on X:

Metric	Result	Notes
Free period duration	April 10–14, 2026 (5 days)	PC and consoles simultaneously
New all-time concurrent player peak	46,305	April 12, up from original launch peak of 17,000
DLC revenue on Steam	Over $250,000	Steam only. Console figures not yet confirmed.
DLC units sold	Approximately 125,000	Across three DLC packs at $1.99 each (on sale from $9.99)
Graveyard Keeper 2 wishlists	450,000	Steam top 100 most-wishlisted games

Nichiporchik shared his conclusion directly on X: “Many are asking if it’s worth it, to give away a game like this for free. Outside of the currently 400k wishlists for the sequel, we’ve also made almost $250k from selling DLCs for the original. This is just on Steam. Haven’t gotten the console numbers yet. So it makes sense when you have a lot of DLC.”

Why the Strategy Worked

Graveyard Keeper has three paid DLC packs: Stranger Sins, Game of Crone, and Better Save Soul. The names are a nod to Stranger Things, Game of Thrones, and Better Call Saul respectively. Each normally retails at $9.99. During the free period, tinyBuild discounted all three to $1.99 each. According to PCGamesN, the combination of a free base game (normally $19.99) and heavily discounted expansions pushed approximately 125,000 DLC units sold in five days. New players who picked up the game for free converted into paying customers at an unusually high rate.

Three factors made this work together. First, the free period introduced a fresh wave of players to the game. Second, the DLC discount made upselling feel like a bargain rather than a full purchase. Third, tinyBuild announced Graveyard Keeper 2 on the exact same day the free period began. Players who discovered the original over the weekend had an immediate next step: wishlist the sequel. The result was 450,000 Steam wishlists in under a week, placing Graveyard Keeper 2 inside Steam’s top 100 most-wishlisted games, according to games.gg.

What Is Graveyard Keeper?

Graveyard Keeper launched on August 15, 2018 and quickly built a cult following as a darkly comedic management sim. Players run a medieval graveyard, manage corpses, build relationships with villagers, and gradually uncover why they ended up in this strange world. The game drew comparisons to Stardew Valley for its relaxed pacing and dense crafting systems, though its grim humour and moral ambiguity gave it a distinctly darker identity. The final DLC released in 2021, making the five-year gap before the sequel announcement a long wait for fans.

Graveyard Keeper 2: What We Know

Lazy Bear Games announced Graveyard Keeper 2 during the Triple-i Initiative showcase on April 10, 2026. According to G2A News and the Steam store page, the sequel targets a 2026 release across the following platforms:

PC (Steam)
PlayStation 5
Xbox Series X|S
Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2

No exact release date has been confirmed. The sequel expands on the original with deeper systems, expanded combat, a more dangerous world, and the same dark humour that made the first game a cult hit. Lazy Bear Games confirmed the same developer and publisher pairing from the first game will handle the sequel.

What This Means for Other Developers

The Graveyard Keeper free period is already circulating as a case study in indie game marketing. According to Polygon, the strategy works only under specific conditions. The game must have paid DLC already available. The base game must be old enough that most willing buyers already own it. A sequel or follow-up must be ready to announce simultaneously. Without all three elements in place, giving a game away for free simply reduces revenue rather than generating it.

For tinyBuild, all three conditions lined up perfectly. Graveyard Keeper is seven years old, has three DLC packs, and had a sequel ready to announce. The free period cost almost nothing in lost sales and returned $250,000 in DLC revenue plus a top-100 wishlist position for a sequel that had not shipped a single unit yet. As PCGamesN noted, most studios spend years trying to build that kind of launch momentum organically. tinyBuild built it in a single weekend by charging nothing upfront.

Bottom Line

Giving away a game for free and making $250,000 from it sounds like a contradiction. However, tinyBuild proved it is not, as long as the conditions are right. The Graveyard Keeper free period was not charity. It was a precisely timed marketing campaign that used a seven-year-old game to sell DLC, generate goodwill, and pre-load a sequel with 450,000 wishlists before a single copy sold. Graveyard Keeper 2 now arrives in 2026 with a head start that most indie sequels never get.