Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream assessment
Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream will dupe you. Bamboozle you. Lead you up the backyard path. An isometric stealth sport that places you accountable for a number of characters who every have their very own talents? You understand what that is, certainly? You will assume to your self: ‘it is a Commandos, it is a Desperados, it is a sport about combining and making use of your characters’ skillsets to creatively overcome obstacles.’
NEED TO KNOW
What’s it Isometric stealth, Swedish-style.
Launch Date 15 July, 2025
Developer River Finish Video games
Writer Nordcurrent Labs
Reviewed on RTX 4080, AMD Ryzen 3700x, 32GB RAM
Multiplayer No
Steam Deck Verified
Hyperlink Official website
And you will be fallacious. Regardless of appearances, Eriksholm is a strict, tight, and largely linear factor. There’s extra in frequent with Hitman Go than Shadow Techniques right here: the job earlier than you is just not determining your personal options to its artisanal, bijou stealth encounters—it is poking at them till you determine the exact options the devs supposed. Making an attempt to cheese them invariably means a swift finish and a return to a beneficiant checkpoint.
So it is extra stealth puzzle than stealth sandbox, however inside these confines it is often satisfying to determine what every encounter desires from you, even when it would not really feel particularly artistic. And gosh, what a looker. By no means earlier than have Scandinavian cops been so lustrously lit, their twitches and grimaces so minutely animated.
Mix the glittering Unreal Engine 5-ness of all of it with some genuinely spectacular voicework—particularly by the sport’s predominant playable trio—and you’ve got a triumph of presentation if not gameplay: one thing that all the time seems to be its finest even when what you are doing feels overly prescriptive.
Fairly Sneaky Sis
For its first few chapters, Eriksholm has you play solely as Hanna, a Dickensian orphan lady who has not too long ago recovered from the Heartpox, the plague that is ravaging the sport’s pseudo-Sweden and bringing distress to an already-miserable working class, who have a tendency the dirty looms and levers of its Nineteenth-century setting.
Hanna’s convalescence was overseen by her brother Herman, and the 2 get all of 5 minutes collectively earlier than they get separated and the neighbourhood finds itself completely infested with cops. Herman’s been as much as one thing whereas Hanna’s been in her sickbed and the gendarmes aren’t pleased about it, and now it is on her to determine what and reunite with him. So off she goes.
These earliest chapters are the strongest, narratively. All Hanna can do is sneak, disguise in shadows (which each character you finally get can do), and use a blowpipe to knock foes out. Her superpower, actually, is her natural ties to and data of her group. She is aware of the shortcuts and secret passages, and her neighbours look the opposite means as she scurries over their rooftops.
She is aware of the shortcuts and secret passages, and her neighbours look the opposite means as she scurries over their rooftops.
In the meantime, the cops are an alien and unwelcome presence, infuriating the locals whereas Hanna breezes simply over, underneath, and previous them. It is an amazing native story—informed as a lot by means of gameplay as it’s by means of the dialogue you overhear from the city’s alcoves—of a form of pure group solidarity.
It is the later chapters, whenever you escape the neighbourhood, add extra characters to your roster, and the scope broadens out, that the story falters somewhat. The antagonism between a group and an invading drive of cops is traded out for a extra private battle between Hanna (and comrades) and a singular, moustache-twirling villain. It is much less plausible and fewer fascinating, whereas the sport feels prefer it by no means fairly grasps the fascinating concepts it touches on with the readability that it did in these first couple of chapters.
However fret not, as a result of the sport doles out new gameplay components neatly because it goes on, and even because the story misplaced me I discovered my curiosity not less than piqued by the brand new abilities I used to be getting. Including Alva to your crew permits you to smash gentle sources and clamber up drainpipes, whereas the late addition of Sebastian lastly provides you the flexibility to simply straight-up choke out guards from behind. Virtually each new chapter—of which there are eight—provides some new gameplay wrinkle, difficult you to combine a brand new talent into your toolbox to beat the ever-more advanced stealth puzzleboxes it units earlier than you.
Maintain my hand
Which made it all of the extra irritating that I by no means felt like I had a lot say over how these abilities have been used. Greater than something, my main gripe with Eriksholm was its linearity: the truth that I solely ever felt like I used to be discovering predestined options to predestined issues.
It by no means completely misplaced me. Like I mentioned, it does really feel good to lastly discover the answer to an issue, to search out the proper key in your ring and listen to it click on within the lock, however it could actually get fatiguing to poke at issues simply ready to search out the reply the devs supposed.
New mechanics ameliorate {that a} bit and maintain your curiosity, however as issues go on—and challenges get extra advanced—it will get fatiguing to poke at issues simply ready to search out the answer the dev crew supposed, particularly when the skills your crew has really feel like they ought to be capable to be used creatively.
However each encounter feels fine-tuned to foil any try at outside-the-box pondering (or cheesing, admittedly). Tightly honed patrol patterns imply you possibly can’t fairly get our bodies into cowl earlier than being noticed by a guard who spins round on the final nanosecond earlier than you are secure; Alva can distract guards together with her slingshot, certain, however she will’t make them transfer utilizing it until the extent is explicitly designed to permit it.
When it comes to decisions made, I solely ever felt like I had actual enter on how the sport performed out once I was deciding whether or not to go on the odd detour to choose up a collectible.
Gripping stuff
These limitations imply that, whereas I loved my time with Eriksholm, solely the performances and presentation ever felt actually nice. The precise enjoying of it by no means transcended a hobbled form of good: some fascinating concepts and tight encounter design that by no means relaxed their grip on the participant sufficient to really feel correctly particular.
It is an nearly Name of Obligation-ish strategy to stealth sport design that does not 100% work. By its nature, stealth precludes the form of bombast that may hold you engaged by means of a CoD taking pictures gallery.
However do not get me fallacious, good is, effectively, good, and there is nonetheless lots to love in Eriksholm even when most of it by no means suggestions over into excellence. If nothing else, you possibly can really feel the bones of a particular Eriksholm 2 in there, simply beneath that sun-starved Scandinavian pores and skin.