Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream Preview

I’m always up for a bit of stealth gameplay, be it first or third person, or indeed in isometric form. It’s the latter we get to experience in Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream, and from my time with the preview build I can safely say I’m eagerly awaiting more come the full release in a few months.

The story follows that of Hanna and her brother Herman in an oppressive world where police rule with an iron fist and those less fortunate are seemingly at the mercy of those in power. We start the game with Herman looking after Hanna; she’s contracted the often deadly Heart Pox going around, and so is mostly bed-ridden. Herman announces he’s off to work in the mines, and the next thing Hanna knows is the police are knocking at her door the following morning looking for Herman. After being coerced into agreeing to come to the station for questioning, quick-thinking Hanna escapes via a ventilation duct hidden behind a changing wall, and so begins her hunt for Herman, the truth, and avoiding being caught at all costs.

Played from an isometric viewpoint, we control Hanna as she moves through the various locales, keeping out of sight and eventually using various tricks to get by guards unnoticed. The opening level sets the scene well, teaching us the mechanics in a mostly organic way. Hanna is – being both ill and only a teenager – weak and unable to fight. As such, she makes use of her environment to survive, from peeking through windows to crouching behind boxes, crawling through vents, or carefully disturbing birds to draw guards away from key pathways.

It’s fairly simple on paper, but even though the opening level is fairly linear we still get a decent amount of freedom to experiment. Guards follow patrol routes and so we could disturb the birds to distract them, or we could try and time our movements to get by completely silently. I’ll be very interested to see how this expands in the full game though, as the latter part of the preview gives us more tools to play with in a blow dart that allows us to knock out enemies and then drag their bodies to hide them. 

We also get access to the second of three playable characters here in Alva. She is a sort of Mother figure to Hanna and Herman, and when she learns he’s in trouble offers some assistance to Hanna, though the preview here slipped over just how that comes to be. She’s older and wiser, and so her skill set shows that, in that she is better at distracting the guards from a distance by throwing pebbles to make a sound or set off a flock of birds. She can also climb drain pipes to access areas Hanna can’t, and combined with the fact we can switch between them at any time means the level scope really opens up. The short part I got to play had Hanna and Alva skulking around an island as giant searchlights lit up the area, hopping from one bit of cover to another and using their skills to help each other along. 

This little slice is where Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is really going to win us over I think.With a promise of a third character down the line, I can only imagine the multitasking we’re going to have to do to get them safely through. Even in this small section there were moments where we’d need to quickly swap back and forth, so adding one more in should ratchet the tension up pretty well indeed. 

Tension is exactly what I felt throughout this preview session. Even in the more brightly lit areas, it was still nerve-wracking when we had to expose ourselves knowing the guard could turn and see us at any moment. The latter part of the preview especially so, with some tight guard formations and that aforementioned big spotlight really tripping me up a few times.

Playing on PC as I did for this preview, we have a few control options which I hope will be present on the console version too. Plugging a pad in means we control Hanna and co. directly using the sticks for movement and camera rotation. It works well, and will be a fine way to play it for sure. But, using mouse and keyboard turns it into a more tactical game. Here, we click a location for Hanna to move to, and she moves on her own while we can then freely move the camera around to plan our next move. I flicked back and forth between control schemes throughout the 2 hours I played the preview, and I definitely prefer the mouse and keyboard method so far, so I really hope Xbox players get a chance to play this way too.

One final thing is that this is an incredible looking game. Using UE5 seems to be a great choice for smaller devs today, with the recent Clair Obscur bringing AAA-like production values thanks to it. And Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is no different. The cutscenes, where we’re up close with the characters, look incredible, with some stunningly realistic faces and animation to enjoy. The main game is a more zoomed out affair, but that just lets the environments shine instead. And the latter part, with wet ground glistening under the large spotlights looks excellent. 

I’ve come away from Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream’s preview pretty optimistic about the final game as a whole. I really hope the levels continue to open up and let us get really creative with solutions, but even if it remains somewhat linear there’s still some excellent stealth gameplay to be had.

This game was previewed on PC (via Steam). All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by the publisher.