Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream

Entry-level stealth paired with high-end period drama

- Dominic Tarason

Sometimes a game represents more than just another product on the horizon to consume. In the case of Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream - an upcoming stealth adventure from small Swedish studio River End Games - it feels like a glimpse at the future of mid-budget games, and a potential intro to stealth for genre newcomers, too.

With the game due for launch before the year's end, River End Games let me have a poke around a polished but short preview build as well as a chance to sit down and have a chat with creative director Anders Hejdenberg, front-man for this newly formed studio of just 17 full-time industry veterans, working on a budget that he described as, "Quite cheap, compared to other mid-range productions," in lieu of divulging actual figures.

STYLE IS SUBSTANCE

Eriksholm is a character-driven drama about a gang of likeable rogues and street urchins stumbling onto a political conspiracy in a familiar-but-fictional Nordic city deep into its industrial revolution. Mechanically, it's a line-of-sight dodging stealth game, like the Commandos series boiled down to basics. Perhaps a case of style over substance, but as you can see from the screenshots here, Eriksholm is a very stylish game.