Steam’s Biggest Hit In June Was Made By Just 2 People In Only 2 Months

The biggest blockbusters of AAA game development have been approaching a crisis. When developing a single game takes the better part of a decade or more as games continue to grow more sophisticated, what are development studios to do if or when it becomes unsustainable? The question only becomes more complicated when the best-selling brand-new game on Steam in the month of June was made exceedingly quickly by a comparatively tiny team.

Meccha Cameleon is a multiplayer hide-and-seek game where the hiders, embodying little characters that would be right at home on a restroom sign, paint their bodies in order to blend in with their surroundings. The seekers then have a set time limit to find their camouflaged prey and blast them with a paint-shooting shotgun. After being released on June 9, Meccha Chameleon became a viral sensation, which propelled it to the top of Steam‘s Top Sellers chart after moving more than 10 million copies.

Meccha Chameleon is the work of only two developers, Haganeiro and Lemorion. The former designed the gameplay systems, while the latter is responsible for creating the maps and character models, per IGN. Following Meccha Chameleon‘s 10-million-sales milestone (announced by the developers on Steam), Haganeiro posted about its short development time, saying the game was completed in just two months.

Even when taking into account prototype systems made in the development of other projects before being adapted into Meccha Chameleon, Haganeiro estimates that the full production cycle would only amount to four or five months. Meccha Chameleon can be considered adjacent to the so-called friendslop genre, which has been producing viral hits on Steam for the last few years. More broadly, low-budget games from small developers have been making waves; just last year, Schedule 1 was Steam’s highest-rated game of 2025 when it came out.

Indies bursting onto the scene is nothing new, but two months is an incredibly fast turnaround for a game that has resonated so well. For comparison’s sake, ConcernedApe’s Haunted Chocolatier has been in development for six years, and shows no signs of releasing soon.

The current go-to example for long, expensive, labor-intensive development is, of course, Grand Theft Auto 6, which began very early preproduction in 2014. AAA games are also often a product of truly massive teams. Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced recently made headlines for being developed by a conglomerate of 15 Ubisoft studios (according to Insider Gaming). It’s a fascinating juxtaposition to see just two developers make a hit so quickly.

Meccha Chameleon has remained admirably popular throughout the month, and Haganeiro and Lemorion are hoping to keep its momentum with regular updates, bringing new maps, bug fixes, and more to the game. Watching Meccha Chameleon take off has been delightful but not necessarily surprising. Hide-and-seek is universal, and the opportunities for clever, hilarious strategies in Meccha Chameleon are immediately obvious. Still, this Steam top seller was made impressively quickly.

Systems

Released

June 10, 2026

Developer(s)

lemorion_1224

Publisher(s)

lemorion_1224

Multiplayer

Online Multiplayer

Number of Players

2-10 players

Steam Deck Compatibility

Playable

PC Release Date

June 10, 2026