Dungeons of Hinterberg review: The ultimate slay-cation

Every so often, a game comes along that truly re-ignites that passion for gaming. Maybe you’ve explored one too many open-world-by-numbers or those late-night multiplayer lobbies just aren’t hitting like they used to. What you need is a game that totally blows your socks off to remind you that gaming isn’t a hobby you’re falling out of love with.

For me, that game is Dungeons of Hinterberg. Watering it down, if you take the social and lifestyle elements of the best Persona games and throw in some out-of-the-box thinking dungeons ala Tears of the Kingdom, you’ll probably land close to what Dungeons of Hinterberg resembles. However, to do so would rob this delightful game of its own lofty achievements.

While it might wear its inspirations on its sleeve, the team at Microbird has created something that’s elevated far beyond imitation. With heartfelt characters, inspired dungeon design, and a mystery-wrapped narrative that ties it all together, this game is one that I simply couldn’t put down once it sunk its magical claws into me.

Escaping the rat race

You play as Luisa, whom we meet at the beginning of our story as she enters the town of Hinterberg, situated high up in the Austrian Alps and depicted in a captivating comic-book crosshatch art style. She’s fleeing from her job in the city as a lawyer, in search of new meaning after suffering from intense burnout - a feeling that I’m sure many will resonate with in the current job climate.

Hinterberg isn’t your ordinary alpine village. It’s enveloped in mysterious magical energy that causes monsters to appear across its slopes, dungeons to arise from the ground, and powers granted to those who travel there.

In a refreshing twist, the occurrence of magick hasn’t sent the locals running scared. Instead, they’ve used the situation to their advantage, commercialising it into something of a theme park for budding adventurers to tackle. Touted as the ultimate slay-cation, wannabe heroes from around the globe travel to Hinterberg to take on its 25 dungeons in the hope of finding fame as the ultimate Slayer.

This commercialisation of magick in Hinterberg is ultimately what drives the plot, with a buried mystery to uncover at the heart of the village. While the town hosts plenty of quirky characters for you to interact with, there’s an underlying feeling among locals that the place isn’t what it once was - and not necessarily for the better.

Microbird poses some difficult questions about capitalism and consumerism in thoughtful ways through its many characters during the course of the game’s story. For example, there’s local shop owner Hannah, who finds herself under threat of being shut down due to commercial rezoning plans. You can choose to help her by lobbying the local government into overturning their plans, and doing so will net you a tangible reward of cheaper store prices.

Other characters ask you to assist in more personal affairs, like the lonesome and mysterious swordsman, Renaud. While he’s able to teach you a thing or two about slaying, diving deeper into his psyche after spending time with him helps him to realise how he can benefit from letting others into his life.

Time is a currency in Dungeons of Hinterberg, and you must spend it wisely. Each evening can only be spent doing one thing, whether that’s relaxing by yourself or hanging out with a particular NPC. Each person has different rewards for levelling up their relationship, and while it might be possible to please everyone, I certainly didn’t by the time I rolled credits.

This adds a level of intentionality and consequences to your actions and gives you real agency in how you interact with the inhabitants of Hinterberg. While you never really have any bearing on where the plot ends up, conversing with other folks on philosophical and political topics alike is done in a tasteful, meaningful manner, and is a delightful surprise for a game I thought would be mostly filled with combat and puzzle solving.

Idea overload

Speaking of combat and puzzle solving, that’s what you’ll spend the other two-thirds of your time doing in Dungeons of Hinterberg. Each day is split up into segments, with the morning spent travelling to one of the four different regions, each home to a unique visual style and collection of magical powers.

The first time you enter one of these areas, you’ll need to complete a skill shrine that will unlock two powers only usable in said region. One area provides you with a conjurable bomb, and pairs it with a mace that’s capable of hooking onto and pulling objects. Another snowy region equips Luisa with a magical hoverboard, and a powerful laser beam that emanates from her hand.

These powers form the crux of how you’ll tackle each of the puzzles inside the area’s dungeons, and consequently provide variety to each day, depending on which region you choose to visit.

Again, as time is constantly ticking down in Dungeons of Hinterberg, you can only tackle one dungeon per day. Alternatively, you can choose to spend the day meditating at rest spots, which increases one of your four basic stats and permanently bolsters your health bar. After all, this is meant to be a holiday!

Once you enter a dungeon, you’re met with a 20-30 minute puzzle that’s full to the brim with original ideas, and largely strikes the perfect difficulty balance without erring into frustration. The more basic of the bunch will have you performing some platforming while flicking a few switches in the correct order. More often than not, though, you’ll find yourself faced with a brand new idea a minute, with each not totally out of place in a different genre altogether.

An early dungeon sees you careering down mineshafts in a cart, hopping from rail to rail while dodging obstacles and incoming monsters. Another sees the camera perspective shift entirely to an isometric point of view, with the sections of the level pivoting like something out of Monument Valley. Perhaps my favourite of the bunch had Luisa grinding along rails as she travelled between planet-like orbs, each with their own gravity and mini-puzzle to solve, evoking nostalgic memories of Mario Galaxy.

You never truly know what you’re going to get when entering one of Hinterberg’s dungeons, which is another driving force behind never wanting to put this game down. With each dawn comes a new day, and another opportunity to add a dungeon stamp to your diary.

Slay your way

The last piece of the Hinterberg puzzle is combat, which is seemingly rather basic to begin with, but quickly evolves into another crowning jewel of the gameplay loop. Luisa is equipped with a sword that’s capable of a basic attack, suitable for quick flurries, and a heavy attack, intended for more deliberate strikes.

Before long, you unlock a couple of slots to equip Attack Conduits, which are magical abilities unlocked by exploring Hinterberg and building relationships with its residents. These are what end up diversifying the combat experience, letting you choose between a bunch of unique abilities that suit your playstyle.

My personal favourite was a deployable wind-up toy, which draws enemies towards it before exploding in a massive ball of purple fire. I’d then follow that up with a devastating meteor shower to deal some AoE damage, or by summoning a volley of explosive butterflies that divebomb nearby targets.

The magick abilities typically used to solve puzzles can also be used in combat, and are surprisingly competent. A synergy that proves immensely powerful is conjuring a green slime block to glue enemies in place, and then placing a lightning ball on top of them to deal massive amounts of damage.

Enemy diversity is a highlight here, too, with plenty of new enemy types and attacks thrown your way throughout the game’s roughly 18-hour runtime. You’ll often find yourself dodging spin-attacks from gnome-like gremlins, or narrowly sprinting out of the way of a charge attack from a long-knecked goat-like creature.

Each region also has its own boss dungeon, all of which put both your combat and puzzle-solving skills to the test in a last hurrah for the area. Combat plays out extremely smoothly, with visual elements like explosions and damage numbers popping off the screen in electric-neon fashion. Outside of a few frame rate stumbles during intense combat, it runs like butter - especially on the Steam Deck OLED which powered me through most of this review.

Things like gear upgrades, boosts to health and mana, and new Attack Conduits are all achieved by either opening chests around Hinterberg or bettering your connections with its residents. As such, the gameplay loop synergises perfectly, and you constantly find yourself in a state of flow where you plan out your days according to how you want to build out Luisa’s abilities, while also balancing her personal needs and relationships.

The Verdict

Put simply, Dungeons of Hinterberg is sensational. It distils its three gameplay pillars of thoughtful dungeon puzzle solving, snappy combat, and meaningful relationship building into a frightfully fun loop that I hardly ever wanted to put down throughout its runtime.

Much of the game is themed around what it means to take a break from the rat race, and in exploring its characters and connecting with its therapeutic routine, I almost feel as though it has offered me a similar mental refresh upon completing it.

A breath of fresh air and a genuine contender for one of 2024’s best games yet, Dungeons of Hinterberg is a no-brainer pickup - whether you’re subscribed to Game Pass or not.

5/5

Reviewed on PC. Code provided by PR.