I think the last time I herded a bunch of animals it was for a side-quest in one of the Red Dead Redemption games, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t like it. It felt like a slow, irritating chore, dealing with a bunch of dumb, slow animals who took every opportunity to break from the pack and make the job I didn’t want to be doing even harder.
But what if they made a whole game out of the herding? And what if the developer was Okomotive, maker of Far: Lone Sails and Far: Changing Tides? And what if the trailer was drop-dead gorgeous? Take a look and tell me you don’t want to drive a herd of… of… well, whatever those big monsters are, across a big and mysterious world.
This is a departure for Okomotive, trading in the side-scrolling nature of the Far games for… I don’t know what you’d call it when you’re going toward the center of the screen instead of sideways across it. Horizon-heading? Middle-moving? Depth-delving?
But you can definitely tell it’s still Okomotive. There are environmental puzzles to solve in Herdling while driving your pack of beasts along trails and through the mountains, and while the world looks quite different than the decaying realms of the Far series, there’s still the same sort of ominous beauty to it.
“With Herdling we wanted to start a new kind of adventure, not only for the players, but also for us,” said Okomotive. “To create the herd of beasts and their mountainous world was an ambitious challenge for us and we enjoyed every step of that journey.”
If the trailer got you interested, you can find out more about Herdling at the Panic Games Showcase on August 27.
