Herdling Review | No One Come Near My Babies

I’ve always wanted a big herd of yack-like creatures to hang with. That’s a lie, I’ve never wanted that but that’s definitely something I want now that I’ve played Herdling.

Herdling from developer Okomotive is a story-based adventure game where you play as a young person who discovers a beautiful animal called a calicorn one day while sleeping under an overpass. As you explore more of the area, you find another calicorn until, eventually, after traversing mountainscapes, forests, snowy fields and more, you gather a whole herd of these loving creatures. 

Herdling contains no dialogue so you’ll be guided by the game’s paths in order to progress through a variety of locations. You are equipped with a wooden staff that allows you to control the direction that your herd moves as well as telling them to stop or perform other actions. During areas where there is more room for your herd to move, you can also instruct them to run and they’ll be adorably excited to do so. 

The controls for the game are a bit funky and hard to get used to, and even towards the end of the game I still struggled with it. In order to control your herd you must stand behind them and use the functions of your staff to direct them. You can see an indicator that shows you which direction your staff is pointing to make sure that your calicorns are going to go the right direction, but because they all go at different speeds and they don’t exactly walk in a straight line, you’ll likely often get stuff and have to redirect to get everyone together on the right path again. 

And not having control of your horde can actually prove lethal. Yes, your calicorns can die if you don’t take care of them. Thankfully, I only lost one of my precious babies on my journey, but I was frustrated because they were lost due to the game's wonky control mechanics. You can instruct your calicorns to move slowly and, during a particularly treacherous climb on a snowy mountain, my beloved Neve slipped to her death before I even got the chance to save her life. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, when you lose a calicorn, their ghost will follow you around for the rest of the game as a reminder of your failure. 

When you’re not simply traversing the dangerous environment, you’ll have to avoid predators of the calicorns, large birds with unsettling white faces. You’ll have to use stealth to avoid them, carefully maneuvering around objects that will alert the birds and cause them to steal one of your calicorns if you aren’t careful. Many of these stealth sections are repeated multiple times throughout the game so it can get a bit repetitive after a while. 

During the slower moments of the game you can spend time bonding with your herd. You have the option to name all of them so you’ll likely feel a kinship with them. You can find decorations scattered around the world that you can hang on your calicorn’s horns as decoration. You can also clean them when they get dirty, heal them if they get hurt and pet them just for fun. 

It would be a mistake to not mention Herdling’s incredible soundtrack. The game features beautiful orchestral numbers that perfectly immerse the player in the game. Because the game has no dialogue, the music helps to tell the story and tell the player what emotions they should be feeling and it’s done brilliantly here. In the game’s 3-4 hour run time, the music truly keep players glued to the adventure ahead of them. 

Herdling may be quite simplistic with repeating stealth sections and puzzles that aren’t very difficult to solve, but its story and soundtrack are enough to impress. Controls are a bit strange and clunky, but don’t do much to pull you away from your enjoyment of the game. By the time the credits roll you’ll be absolutely in love with your new calicorn family just as I was with mine. 

Breakdown

Game: Herdling

Developer: Okomotive

Publisher: Panic 

Availability: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

Game Length: About 4 Hours

Reviewed on PC

Final Thoughts

Herdling is an adorable adventure that I believe is about found family and how a found family can help you, comfort you and be exactly what you need in your hardest moments. While I struggled with the unique controls throughout the game, nothing was going to rip me away from my beautiful calicorns. The soundtrack is absolutely stunning and is the perfect way to narrate a story with zero dialogue but lots of heart. 

In loving memory of Neve, the only calicorn lost on our journey :(