American vacation culture doesn't really exist. Lacking affordable options with any sort of appeal, and with work culture continuing to de-emphasize the life half of work-life balance, vacations aren't really a focus for most of us. In Europe, it's the exact opposite. Paid vacation is required for many companies, taking weeks off at a time is far from a rarity, and with places like Paris and Germany just a quick bus or train ride away from many major hubs, it's easy to stumble into a life-changing vacation over there.
Well, while I might never have the real thing, I think I know what that kind of vacation feels like after spending some time with Dungeons of Hinterberg, a game that blends Persona-like social sim systems and Zelda-like combat and dungeons in such a satisfying way that it easily slots in as one of my favorite games of the year.
Just the Facts |
Developer: Microbird |
Publisher: Curve Games |
Platform(s): PC* and Xbox Series S/X *denotes platform reviewed on |
Price: $29.99 |
Release Date: July 18, 2024 |
Review key provided by publisher. |
Hinterberg's refreshing narrative
Bringing us to Hinterberg is Microbird, an Austrian indie development studio who used their roots to inform and build out a magical take on the region in their debut game. Having formed in 2020, this small but mighty ten-person team (and their teams of collaborative contractors) has spent the last four years crafting this dungeon-crawling puzzler with social sim aspects that combine beautifully and meld to make something truly special.
In Dungeons of Hinterberg, lawyer-in-training Luisa is tackling her incredible burnout by embarking on the vacation of a lifetime in the magical hills of Hinterberg. This fictional town in the Alps is home to magic — literal, tangible magic — that manifests in the form of gateways that pop in and out of existence across Europe and give tourists access to "dungeons" and the sport of "slaying." Rather than face the demons of daily life in the capitalist hellscape that is her workplace, Luisa decides to face monsters of a different sort: the literal ones that populate these dungeons. Better than the usual burnout spiral, I'd say.
Soon after getting there, Luisa finds herself staring down the barrel of something truly dangerous and unwieldy, wondering if she signed up for more than she bargained for. The region is a bit more unstable than expected, and her life is in peril immediately. This tourist trap is a lot more serious than she thought. But through the help of some locals, some fellow slayers, and the slightly sketchy tourism-brained local government, Luisa perseveres and ends up uncovering lots of interesting details about Hinterberg and the magic that surrounds it.
The way its narrative unfolds and the surprisingly mature approach to storytelling make it one of my favorite stories in gaming this year.
Dungeons of Hinterberg has a lot to say about tourism, about what it brings to a community and what it takes away. It's a fascinatingly complex narrative, especially when you consider where it starts, almost like the traditional farming sim setup — corporate life drains you, so you head to the hills to try something new. While the story does eventually reach a predictable place, the way its narrative unfolds and the surprisingly mature approach to storytelling make it one of my favorite stories in gaming this year. And a big part of that comes through in the game's relationships.
Small town issues and genuinely adult troubles are at the forefront of Hinterberg's relationship storylines. Unlike its clear inspirations, Microbird shows a way forward for relationship-building in games that doesn't have to revolve completely around romance. In the friendships Luisa forms with people like Marina, the Spanish student who works at the ice cream shop over the summer and struggles with self-worth, and Jae, a pro slayer and DJ who is dealing with extreme levels of burnout, Hinterberg offers some unique maturity that the genre can sometimes lack. And it manages to do so without diving into darkness or otherwise edgy material. It keeps a hopeful and playful tone all throughout and offers relatable stories for the 30-and-above crowd.
It's so refreshing to see adult friendships portrayed in this way, and Hinterberg goes out of its way to promote players to chase down the social links they desire rather than the friendships that give you the most statistical benefit.
Dungeons of Hinterberg is punchy; it's mature, but not dark or brooding. It's full of great writing nuggets that sent me spiraling about my own life. It's special. And that's just one part of the vacation, folks. Let's flip over the brochure and learn about how this thing plays already.
We enjoyed our slay to the fullest
Luisa's stay in Hinterberg is structured for her to get the most she possibly can out of her vacation, with every day broken into three parts: morning (planning), midday (dungeoning), and evening (social and shopping). Spend the morning picking what dungeon to go to and grabbing some quests, spend the middle chunk of your day getting to the meat of your vacation by hopping into dungeons and completing them, and spend the night chatting with pals and gearing up for the next day of adventuring. Do this across 25 dungeons, over 20-25 hours of playtime, and your vacation is over.
Hinterberg's routine is satisfying in the way it so strictly delineates its unique systems into these times of day. It makes it enjoyable to play whether in bite-sized chunks or for longer binge sessions where you plow through 3-5 dungeons at a time. I can see this being a great Steam Deck game that you'd play one in-game day at a time.
Dungeons of Hinterberg's core systems are all fairly simple, but it's the way Microbird structures those systems and constantly refreshes them in small genius ways that makes it truly stand out.
Combat is simple, light and heavy attacks, simple combos, but it has a surprising heft and finds complexity in the blend of unique spells that each region offers you. Although, the deeper you go, it starts to feel pretty standardized as new enemy types and moves fall away. Puzzles are fun and clever enough to keep your brain churning end-to-end but are ostensibly the same: an environmental focused affair that has you hitting triggers to unlock doors and keep pushing forward. And the individual dungeons offering smaller 20-25 minute experiences, not unlike but vastly better than Breath of the Wild's shrines, keeping the pace light and never letting any one style overstay its welcome.
Dungeons of Hinterberg is punchy; it's mature, but not dark or brooding. It's full of great writing nuggets that sent me spiraling about my own life. It's special.
The way the game constantly reframes itself and inherently builds variety into its playstyle elevates the entire package to new heights.
For starters, each of Hinterberg's four unique regions has its own set of magic spells that affect both traversal and combat in unique ways. There's one major gimmick spell, one ranged spell. They can only be used in that region and offer the kinds of tools Zelda games offer for puzzle-solving: bombs, ranged tools that activate triggers in puzzles, and slime blocks to help get to higher places, for example. By locking these tools in specific regions, it allows the game to really home in on the unique aspects of each spell set and to give focused dungeon experiences that keep each spell relevant in the long run.
And then there's the dungeons themselves. Each one is so distinctive. No two dungeons ever felt the same or derivative. Sometimes it's because of a major perspective shift, with a few dungeons offering a top-down angle reminiscent of Hades, instead of the game's usual third-person perspective. Other times it's a unique dungeon-spanning concept, like snowboarding through large open spaces, mazes that mess with gravity in M.C. Escher-like ways, or a minecart puzzle system that has you riding alongside monsters that you eventually end up fighting.
They mix and match concepts and constantly ask you to try new things, with the game forcing you at times to head to new regions — which means new spells, new dungeons, and new playstyles. And the connective tissue of each region's dungeons make them feel like greater pieces of one whole, rather than the relatively bland and disconnected feeling of those same BOTW shrines they remind me of.
Simply put, Dungeons of Hinterberg maximizes and prioritizes fun by not making any one part of its experience overbearing, instead focusing on doing the most it possibly can with the simple toolset it lays out for you.
Not quite perfect, but damn close
Before I wrap up talking about the gameplay, we have to talk about that final phase of the day and what it brings with it: the social sim features. Microbird's approach to the social systems here is clearly inspired by Persona, with the day-to-day time management, the statistical benefit of leveling up certain relationships, and unique vacation-based statistics that level up based on what you do in your downtime.
What I find most interesting about Hinterberg's take is how entire gameplay mechanics are locked behind building out your relationships. You've got to befriend the edgy pro slayer to unlock a combat-modifying combo system. Spend time with a local blacksmith and get access to special attacks and sword and armor enhancements. It's bold to lock these upgrades away behind these hangouts — which are simple narrative-heavy scenes — and require players to spend time with specific characters to unlock layers to various systems.
I both loved and was frustrated by this. As I said, the game openly encourages you to spend time with whoever you vibe with, and by doing so, I only unlocked some of the game's most interesting modifiers toward the very end. Depending on how much you dedicate time to the relationship stuff, you could end up having a vastly different play experience in the dungeons, and that'll be very hit and miss for folks.
In a similar vein, by echoing Persona so closely, I half expected there to be some amount of actual time management here: deadlines to meet to add some tension, both narratively and in the gameplay, or relationship moments I could miss out on if I didn't meet with someone on a specific day. Hinterberg leans into this — characters talking to Luisa imply as much, eventually starting to hurry her. But for all their talk, the stakes seemingly didn't exist in the end. The hourglass never ran out of sand.
To test that theory, I went back after beating the game by Day 29 to see how many relationships I could develop before the game made any of those ominous warnings a reality. I reached Day 51 with no consequence.
Neither of these "negatives" — the relationship blockades and the false sense of urgency — really hurt my experience on the whole. I ultimately see them as a bolder take on genre convention and as a gentler take on something that is usually frustrating, respectively. But, if anything, they were just baffling and unexpected considering they went against what the game was actively telling me.
The Alps are stunning this time of year
We can't finish talking about Dungeons of Hinterberg without talking about how it looks — its alpine scenes painted with vibrant colors, bold lines outlining elements and cross-hatched shading bringing forth a comic book aesthetic. It captures the beauty of its real-world European inspirations to make Hinterberg truly feel like the idyllic kind of place you'd get whisked away to for a life-changing vacation.
The entire outdoorsy/sportswear aesthetic of these slayers is such a fun twist on the traditional hero. Monsters are born out of European creature culture, giving that extra bit of close-to-home cultural representation from the Austrian team. And the adventurous soundtrack from Wobblersound adds that extra bit of oomph needed to take its most interesting dungeons and moments into the stratosphere.
Dungeons of Hinterberg is a looker, and for the most part it runs stable at 60 FPS (though it did dip at times in some of the more hectic combat encounters toward the end of the game), and when you consider the team's size, that's not to be taken for granted here.
Hinterberg offers some unique maturity that the genre can sometimes lack. And it manages to do so without diving into darkness or otherwise edgy material. It keeps a hopeful and playful tone all throughout and offers relatable stories for the 30-and-above crowd.
Dungeons of Hinterberg was an incredible escape, and like any good vacation, we'll always have the memories. When you play it, you can just feel it. It's a perfect blend of magic portal fantasy and quaint tourist-trap reality, of thwacking monsters and meeting eccentric people. It's made memorable by the perfect synergy of its unique systems, the love and care of a dedicated team, and, quite simply, just the fact that it basically plays like the 3D Zelda game we've all wanted to return to for years.
Microbird can be proud that they've got one of the truest must-play indie releases of the last few years and one of the best games of 2024. Action adventure games are so back.
Happy slaying.
Video Games Are Good and Dungeons of Hinterberg is . . . REALLY GREAT. (9.5/10)
+ a mature narrative that maintains a playful, hopeful tone, simple gameplay systems that synergize into one deeply fun package, clever aesthetic decisions that lean into the beauty of its European inspirations
- combat can grow stale, gameplay systems can be lost in relationships you don't follow, time management is mainly implied
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