Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream overview for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X

Platform: PC
Also on: Xbox Series X, PS5
Publisher: Nordcurrent Labs
Developer: River End Games
Medium: Digital
Players: 1
Online: No
ESRB: T

Sometimes it’s essential to begin off a overview by stating the plain factor: Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is completely gorgeous to take a look at. Whatever else there may be to be mentioned concerning the sport, its visuals are merely beautiful. Whatever we’re speaking concerning the cutscenes, the place the sport appears like a well-shot live-action film, or the gameplay bits, the place the sport’s world is proven in insane element regardless of being having a top-down view, I don’t bear in mind the final time I performed a sport that seemed pretty much as good as Eriksholm.

It’s virtually a pity that at a sure level, you need to cease taking a look at Eriksholm and begin enjoying it. That’s to not say it’s a foul sport – it’s not. It’s simply that the visuals are so spectacular, it’s onerous to not want that Eriksholm had equally excellent gameplay to match.

The downside – to the extent it’s even an issue – is that Eriksholm’s stealth gameplay is loads much less memorable than its visuals. The sport is concentrated on telling a decent, linear story a couple of woman looking for her brother, and to that finish it delivers tight, linear gameplay: you begin off at one level in a stage, and you must determine how the sport needs you to get to the tip of it with out being noticed.

I used that phrase – “you need to figure out how the game wants you to get to the end” – deliberately. It’s as a result of the stealth puzzles on the coronary heart of Eriksholm usually have one resolution, and one resolution solely. Even if the sport’s world could also be rendered in beautiful element, the sport’s builders had a really agency concept of how they need you to get via it. Fail to do precisely as they need you to do and also you’ll fail the extent and be despatched again to the final checkpoint.

It’s an annoying method exactly as a result of Eriksholm appears so nice. It’s onerous to take a look at this world and not need to discover, to seek out your individual path via the extent to get to the tip. Instead, the sport ensures that there are at all times police standing wherever it doesn’t need you to go, or partitions blocking your manner with no manner round them.

To be truthful, it’s additionally an method that ensures that you just’re continually shifting Eriksholm’s story ahead – and if I have been the builders, I’d additionally need folks targeted on the story. Not solely does the sport look nice, it additionally options some fairly strong voice appearing. What’s extra, Eriksholm’s world is stuffed with all types of particulars that push the story alongside, so I can perceive why they’d need to preserve folks shifting quite than risking that they’ll discover a shortcut and miss an essential piece of the story.

In different phrases, the important thing to having fun with Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is to consider it not as an open-ended sandbox, there so that you can uncover all types of secrets and techniques, however as an intricate diorama, simply ready so that you can set issues into movement. You could not get the identical type of satisfaction of determining creative methods to unravel issues, however you’re going to get to take a look at a sport that’s merely stunning – and all issues thought of, it’s a good commerce.

Nordcurrent Labs offered us with an Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream PC code for overview functions.

Score: 8

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