As a general rule, stealth games rely on the enemy AI to be total dunderheads. Gun-toting grunts can only search for an imposter for about thirty seconds before inexplicably stating, “Well, I guess they’ve gone,” before resuming their patrol without a care in the world. Even worse, what about all those times they find the dead corpse of one of their allies, search briefly for the culprit, before returning to their daily tasks, presumably then stepping over their dead colleague as they continue to meander around the place? It’s all very silly, and leads to the player – well, me at least – fundamentally not believing in the digital world they are inhabiting. Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream smartly avoids every single one of these aforementioned issues and, in doing so, has become one of the genre-defining stealth games of this generation.
Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream doesn’t mess around when it comes to getting the player stuck into the action. A short, but brilliantly captured and performed cutscene introduces us to Hanna, a young orphan who has just recovered from a mysterious illness that is plaguing the citizens of Eriksholm. Her brother, Herman, has disappeared and the police, outlaws, slaves, and various other dubious factions are all after him. It’s up to Hanna to find her sibling and discover what he’s done to attract so much dangerous attention. She’ll do this by sneaking through a multitude of stealth-playgrounds; each contained – and beautifully rendered – environment is filled with foes to creep past and puzzles to solve. Played from a top-down isometric perspective, the first thing you’ll notice is that the AI you face isn’t made up of a collection of faceless idiots with the memories of a goldfish. Instead, these enemies feel like living, breathing beings, with their own agendas and concerns. Very cleverly, by listening into the conversations they have with one another, you’ll be able to put together a cunning plan to sneak past them.
As an early example of this, you’ll find two police officers patrolling in a loop, returning to their sergeant on a regular basis. Thing is, every time they return to their boss, the sergeant berates them. When the officers are on their own, they discuss how much they dislike the sergeant. So, you take out the sergeant with a sleeping dart and hide his body. When the officers return, they immediately notice and react to the fact that the sergeant is missing, should they go looking for him? “Nah” one of them remarks “he’s a pillock.” Then they just take the time to go and relax without their overbearing boss making their lives a misery. Rather than going back to their patrol like brainless morons, their understandable reaction feels real. It feeds back into the believability of Hanna’s surroundings, and there are numerous moments like this throughout the game, each of which makes you further invest in the characters and the world the developer has so meticulously built.
With such tight scripting, each location reacts and responds in an authentic way to your actions, which in turn enables the player to use that to their tactical advantage. A bunch of guards blocking your path? Take out one of them and the others will notice their missing comrade and go looking for them, allowing you to creep past. Just make sure you hid the body of their snoozing pal well, as it’s game over if you haven’t. In fact, it’s game over an awful lot in what can be a very challenging, but eminently fair, game.
The isometric viewpoint definitely helps with this, allowing you to assess everything going on around you, even if on occasion a big building or tree can briefly block your view. It would certainly be easy for the screen of Eriksholm to become very cluttered, covered with enemy view cones. Instead, view cones only appear when relevant, when your character gets near to an enemy who might spot them. When spotted, the controller rumbles to make you aware and an arrow points to you and slowly fills, giving you a brief opportunity to hide before you are discovered. Meanwhile, in darkness, your player character is highlighted to show they are hidden, a simple but highly effective means to avoid the annoyance of being unsure if the enemy can see you or not.
Precise timing is required to avoid patrols, with the correct approach often requiring trial and error to uncover. Thankfully, generous check points and rapid respawning negates any frustration, leaving you instead eager to give it another go, as you’re pretty sure, on this occasion, you’ve definitely cracked the stealth puzzle before you. Certain challenges really ramp up the pulse-pounding tension. One set-piece moment that stands out in the memory takes place whilst Hanna is hiding in a carriage as police search along the train. The player must observe the environment, noting the movements of all the enemies to spot one brief moment in which they can make their desperate escape. Thrilling stuff!
Wonderfully, the game gradually builds this complexity, rather than overwhelming the player from the start, introducing new mechanics during each stage to keep things fresh. Soon you’ll be balancing the abilities of several player characters, using one to disturb some pigeons to distract the nearby guards and allow your ally to sneak past, as well as utilising shadows and several new special abilities to your advantage. Every time you think you have the measure of Erikshom, it throws new ideas your way to keep you hooked.
Visually, Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is gorgeous, like a sublime and intricate painting, the level of detail that suffuses each area is something to behold. Despite the majority of the game taking place in a city, there’s a huge variety of locations to explore to, from slums to underground mines, shipyards, prisons, and fortresses. Voice acting and scripting is top-notch throughout, creating eminently believably personalities.
Even if all you can see of them is the top of their head and shoulders, each person you encounter is presented like a fully rounded character. The plot is brilliant, both engaging and well-paced, I found myself totally involved in Hanna’s plight from beginning to end. Indeed, clocking in at around twelve hours, Eriksholm isn’t a big game, but it is a near-perfect one. With content that is all killer, this is a compelling experience welcomingly free of the pointless busy-work that pads out many games.