Herdling Review

There’s something special about a compact video game with a singular vision, especially one that paints adventure or lore through the lens of a mundane or seldom-explored trade. Herdling is one of these games, a short and sharp walk through a world steeped in equal parts modernity and mysticism, and one where your role is that of an amateur (see: accidental) shepherd. Your quarry – a pack of peculiar beasts known as Calicorns – needs deliverance of a biblical flavour, prompting a rescue expedition where you’ll collect a stable of strays and steer them to salvation.

This all-important act of herding, your primary means of interaction and progression, is mercifully simple once the muscle memory of “go left to steer the herd right” kicks in. There’s not much to it besides guiding your ambulant animals’ direction of travel, slowing or stopping them for safety, and sporadically inciting a stampeding gallop to get them through thick brush or across soft ground.

The Calicorns are curious beasts with some pretty unique physiology. They loosely resemble wild yak but with bigger and funkier antlers, and bioluminescent coats that glow vibrant blues, reds and golds to indicate their state. They come in a number of sizes, silhouettes and shades, but all are equally charming, and as events unfold, they prove to have a deeper relationship to the world and its history than is first apparent.

Most of the game’s runtime is spent calmly guiding your quadrupedal mob through natural environments, occasionally coming up against obstacles that can be puzzled out with a bit of solo exploration and a helping horn or two. None of it is especially taxing, but it all keeps things interesting. As you quest further and further from the manmade city that your story breaks in, you’ll go from shunting rail carts and lowering bridges to interacting with increasingly peculiar and arcane constructions.

There are also genuine dangers along the road home for these gentle giants, though. Dormant roadblocks might be forged in iron and stone, but unkempt nature can be far more ruthless. Your skill at directing the herd is put to the test in a number of perilous circumstances including giant, predatory birds that awaken by the sound of their totems trampled, or cliff edges and ice that break underfoot. It’s almost cruel that the game allows you to name and adorn your developing flock, given they’re at very real risk.

But for these tense, fraught moments, there are also times of freedom and calm. The opportunity to chase through beautiful fields and dales, or to rest the herd by a roaring campfire. The importance of meeting these creatures’ emotional and intellectual needs, as much as their straightforward survival, is illustrated wonderfully as you’re guided to feed them, groom them and even play with them before the group is ready to settle down for a night.

It’s a brief migration in all, clocking in at around the four-hour mark, but I soaked those four hours up in one sitting, entirely enraptured and unblinking. Despite the temperate climate of its setting, there’s a warmth here that embraces and welcomes you in, until you feel yourself just as much a party in this growing herd.

It’s a keen presentation that keeps Herdling’s thrills thrilling and its highs soaring, through sweeping vistas and ornate formations both natural and relict. It’s all stunning to behold – distracting performance issues in the PS5 build I played notwithstanding – and backed by a gorgeous, Hisashi-esque musical score rationed economically through reactive, staccato string hits and timely bursts of uproarious orchestral accompaniment.

Final Thoughts

Herdling begins its journey in an unexpected place – curled up on a soiled mattress underneath a city overpass. But rather than ask the player to reckon with their nameless, faceless avatar’s initial plight, this opening scene serves to further the game’s actual themes – of survival as an act of rebellion, and leadership not as an act of dominion, but of wholly unselfish service.

Those keen for a lazy afternoon spent wrapped in an emotive and enchanting jaunt, one with a mission to heal the heart just as much as warm it, will absolutely find that in Herdling.

Reviewed on PlayStation 5 Pro  // Review code supplied by publisher

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