For starters, Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is an isometric, narrative-driven puzzle game that is set to release on July 15, 2025, for PC (Steam, Epic Games Store), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S, and is currently running its demo version during Steam Next Fest. Set in the fictional Nordic-inspired city of Eriksholm in the early 1900s, the game follows Hanna, a young orphan, and her allies Alva and Sebastian, as they unravel the mystery behind her brother Herman’s disappearance.

The stealth gameplay is solid and enjoyable

The demo for Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream lets us play through the first two chapters, introducing us to Hanna. She’s a nimble, slender protagonist who can take down police officers with poison darts. With a freely adjustable camera for scouting, you have ample freedom to approach stealth scenarios and learn enemy patrol patterns. The game balances slow-paced stealth, allowing you to explore and find collectibles, with fast-paced moments that demand quick reactions.

Environmental cues are crucial in this game. Noisy grates, breakable lights, and loud doors all demand your attention, while character abilities are key to remaining undetected. Levels, though fairly linear, offer multiple solutions. Context-sensitive elements, like guard chatter, provide vital hints for stealth routes: you can eavesdrop to learn patrol patterns or create distractions, like scaring off birds from a specific spot. The game’s deliberate pacing rewards patience and planning over direct action, but it does occasionally stretch out, making some levels feel a bit sluggish.

Eriksholm is far more than just gameplay; its narrative and story take center stage. This is brought to life through pre-rendered cutscenes featuring motion-captured performances, complemented by engaging in-game NPC interactions and rich environmental storytelling. Even the clothing in the game is handcrafted, and every visual detail is rendered with such care that the game practically begs you to pause and admire its world. The subtle facial shifts and fluid, human-like movements are a clear testament to the quality of the motion-captured performances.

Visually stunning, thanks to Unreal Engine 5

In-game dialogue also integrates into exploration, with NPCs providing casual banter or subtle quest hints. Townsfolk might crack jokes or simply chat with Hanna, suggesting a world where everyone knows her. While dialogue choices are limited, you can dive deeper into the lore by reading scattered letters and checking your journal. The English voice acting is great too, offering believable performances, though some secondary NPCs could use more vocal variety.

The game takes an unforgiving, stealth-first approach: detection means instant game over. However, lenient checkpoints help mitigate frustration. While repeating certain sequences can be a bit annoying, the game is fair, quickly getting you back into the action and better prepared for the next attempt. Additionally, Eriksholm is surprisingly forgiving with its detection cues. It feels more like a real-world experience than a UI-clogged screen, allowing you to play and strategize in your own unique way.

Eriksholm is visually stunning, thanks to Unreal Engine 5’s MetaHuman technology and Lumen lighting, which create cinematic cutscenes and incredibly detailed environments. The game’s Nordic-inspired city, modeled after 1900s Gothenburg, Stockholm, and Malmö, truly shines with its streets, dreary undergrounds, and atmospheric lighting. This is where the game excels, even though I did experience some FPS drops from time to time so optimization is decent for now.

Reasons to be cautious

Despite its promising visuals and decent stealth in the demo, I’m still quite cautious about Eriksholm. My main concern is that the gameplay might become repetitive or overstretched. It’s also unclear how significant other characters will be, or if our choices will genuinely impact the ending. Also, I didn’t stumble upon on any bugs during my playthrough.

While the demo is an excellent test drive, I’m still wondering how Eriksholm will perform on a wider range of PCs. Playing on maximum graphical settings was stunning, but I suspect it might be a challenge for lower-end systems. Regardless, with its Nordic inspiration and Nordcurrent Labs as publisher, this game clearly has immense ambition. I can’t wait to see the full product.

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The story follows a lone fox and its loyal raven companion on a perilous journey across the vast Northern Isles. Their mission is to free the lost Guardians from the clutches of the dark shaman Grimnir, all while uncovering ancient mysteries and using magical abilities to cleanse the land of corruption. With over 16 hours of atmospheric gameplay, every decision and discovery will bring the heroes closer to their destiny.

Powered by Unreal Engine 5, Spirit of the North 2 will feature a breathtaking open world with diverse locations to explore. A dynamic soundtrack will accompany every step, while mystical powers gradually unlock to help overcome obstacles and defeat spirits.

For those looking to immerse even deeper into this journey, the Signature Edition includes exclusive collectibles such as an art & lore booklet, lanyard and metal badges, and unique rune cards. This special edition is already available for pre-order via the official Silver Lining Direct store.

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Norse places you at the heart of the Viking Age, where young warrior Gunnar embarks on an epic quest for vengeance. After the treacherous Steinarr Far-Spear kills his father, Jarl Grip, and seizes the throne, Gunnar’s path becomes clear: rebuild his settlement, forge alliances, and assemble a powerful warband to reclaim honor and justice. Every decision will shape the world around him, and turn-based tactical battles will put your strategic skills to the test.

Arctic Hazard, a studio based in Vestby, Norway, is known for its work on some of the most acclaimed AAA titles, including Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, Syndicate, Origins, World of Tanks, Metro: Exodus, and Age of Conan, making Norse a highly anticipated release. Additionally, the game boasts a rich, historically immersive narrative, written by Sunday Times bestselling and award-winning author Giles Kristian.

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Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel is a roguelike horde-survivor game set in the dark and brutal realms of Norse mythology. Like other games inspired by Vampire Survivors, you’ll face waves of enemies, but here you can earn divine blessings from ancient Viking deities, explore hostile worlds, and battle powerful bosses. The gameplay revolves around solving objectives you choose from a given set, forcing you to traverse the map from one side to the other. However, since the game is still in Early Access, it currently feels a bit barebones. With only two playable maps and repetitive objectives, it can become monotonous rather quickly.

Variety of skills and bonuses to experiment with

That said, despite its limited content, the game brings a fresh and unique twist to the genre. As you level up, you get to choose from a variety of skill, both active and passive, granted by the gods. Currently, you can align yourself with Thor, Odin, Loki, or Freya, alongside your class-specific abilities. This gives you plenty of options to experiment with different builds. If you’re not happy with your current skill selection or are trying to refine your build, you can reroll or banish certain abilities to get closer to what you’re aiming for.

However, not all skills and abilities feel perfectly balanced. It can also be a bit frustrating that you’re limited to five active abilities per run, with only two coming from a specific god or class. While this does help maintain balance, it restricts experimentation to some extent. Freya, for example, excels with active abilities like AoE damage and healing, whereas Thor’s passive abilities, like increased attack speed or lightning strikes, make him better for sustained combat. Thankfully, the variety ensures that you can find builds that suit your playstyle, so you won’t feel forced into using the same abilities every run.

The classes are unique and interesting

The gameplay itself combines skill usage with basic attacks, along with dodging and rolling to avoid enemies. Currently, there are four playable classes: Berserker, Revenant, Seerees, and Flame Sister, each with unique class skills and playstyles. They also come with three passive bonuses that synergize well. For example, the Berserker is great for longer runs due to his health regeneration and a Rage ability that boosts his damage. On the other hand, the Seerees excels at dealing damage to multiple targets and has a shield that offers extra protection.

At the moment, there are only two maps. Niflheim is a frozen area with minimal environmental hazards, making it a bit more straightforward. Muspelheim on the other side is a fiery region filled with spiky vines and cannons that shoot at you, adding an extra layer of challenge. While the worlds have different aesthetics, the enemy types are fairly similar, with skeletons populating Niflheim and horned demon-like creatures roaming Muspelheim. These enemies often feel like reskinned versions of the same archetypes, ranging from basic archers to larger elite enemies.

The game’s standout feature is the skill shop

Fortunately, the inclusion of challenging mini-bosses and a final boss at the end of each map adds some much-needed excitement and variety. One of the biggest positives of this game is its accessibility. The developers have truly made it user-friendly. You can choose how to attack, whether by controlling it manually, using smart attacks where your character automatically targets nearby enemies, or opting for fully automatic attacks. You can also customize the aiming system, switching between manual and automatic aiming. Essentially, you can play the game with minimal input, focusing only on selecting abilities, or you can dive in fully and control every aspect of the combat.

The game’s standout feature is the skill shop, which helps make your runs more manageable and rewarding. The shop offers upgrades like increased experience gain, higher damage output, or unlocking special tiers of abilities. These upgrades cost skill points, which you can buy with gold earned during runs. You can upgrade almost everything, from your class to each of the gods. Each god has valuable upgrades that make gameplay feel progressively rewarding, especially if you’re aiming to tackle higher difficulty modes.

Various difficulty modes can keep you going for a long time

Speaking of difficulty, the various modes were a major highlight for me. You can choose between multiple options: easy, normal, hard and insane. Hard difficulty is where the real fun begins, with more enemies spawning and additional mini-bosses creating a challenging but enjoyable experience. In general, it’s up to you decide how you want to approach the game.

Additionally, the game features modifiers that can affect your runs. For example, some make enemies weaker but reduce resource bonuses, while others make enemies turn into ghosts for a few seconds, increasing the loot you get. While these modifiers add some variety, they feel a bit lackluster overall, with only a few being truly impactful. To unlock modifiers, you’ll need to complete specific challenges, such as beating the game on hard difficulty or defeating a certain number of mini-bosses.

Ending thoughts

It’s worth mentioning that you can unlock different skins and weapons, each offering unique bonuses and class-specific skills. However, there’s little clear information on how to unlock these weapons. What we do know is that you need to use gems, which are earned by completing successful runs, to acquire them. Aside from that, Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel features beautiful graphics that are visually appealing without being overwhelming, paired with a great soundtrack that perfectly complements your runs.

Overall, this was a fun experience. The game offers multiple classes to experiment with, a wide variety of skills, and an engaging Norse mythology setting. However, the Early Access version does fall short in terms of content. While the gameplay loop is solid, and the skill shop provides plenty to tinker with, there’s not much to keep you engaged beyond the different difficulty settings.

That said, the game has a lot of potential. You’ve got nothing to lose by giving it a try, and since it’s still in Early Access, it’s bound to improve over time. The game is already polished, as I encountered no bugs or glitches during my playthrough, but it’s missing a bit of depth to make it feel more complete.

Review copy provided by the publisher

3.8

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Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream follows Hanna, a young orphan searching for her missing brother in a city riddled with corruption. Joined by allies Alva and Sebastian, Hanna faces challenges and mysteries as she uncovers the truth. The trailer teases the game’s stealth mechanics and detailed environments, offering a look into the city’s struggles and beauty.

Set in a richly detailed world inspired by early 1900s Nordic cities, you navigate Eriksholm’s streets and underground through a top-down 3D perspective. The game features three playable characters, you can switch between Hanna, Alva, and Sebastian, each with unique skills and tools to solve puzzles and access new areas.

Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream will release in 2025 on PC (Steam and Epic Games Store), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. An extended gameplay trailer is expected this week, promising a deeper look into this exciting adventure.

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Avatar Frontiers of Pandora is set in the same universe as James Cameron’s films but follows a different storyline. You play as a Na’vi child, kidnapped by the RDA, who escapes and must relearn the ways of the Na’vi to unite the clans and fight back against the RDA. This first-person action-adventure RPG explores themes of being alien in your own land and living in harmony with nature.

“One of our major design challenges was to create a harvesting system that respects the Na’vi’s symbiotic relationship with nature, avoiding the exploitative patterns typical in many games. We established three guiding principles: quality over quantity, power from nature, and effort in harvesting.”

“While working on Avatar’s harvesting mechanics, I found inspiration in a new hobby—plant dyeing. My wife, a fashion designer, began practicing plant dyeing, and I joined her, learning the craft and foraging for materials. This experience gave me a new perspective on being in nature with a purpose,” said Korsgaard.

Korsgaard explained that plant dyeing involves collecting plants, boiling them to extract dyes, and dyeing textiles. He described the process as almost magical, transforming simple materials into beautiful, colored fabrics. This hands-on, purposeful interaction with nature influenced his approach to game design, emphasizing a deeper connection and respect for the environment.

“In Avatar, we implemented a system where players use their Na’vi senses to identify and learn about plants. This knowledge enriches the player’s experience, much like learning about plants in real life. We wanted players to feel a sense of purpose and adventure when foraging, making each journey meaningful and rewarding.”

The final crafting system allows players to trace the materials they collect all the way to the finished product, giving each item a story and a connection to the player’s journey. This approach encourages players to be mindful and respectful of their environment, aligning with the Na’vi ethos.

To conclude, Korsgaard stated, “The journey from indie development to working on major titles has taught me the importance of holding and defending the experience goals in game design. As game designers, our role is to ensure that every mechanic and decision supports the overall experience we want to deliver.”

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