Dungeons of Hinterberg is quick to make a first impression, its lush, vibrant colors almost popping off the screen as you snowboard through its alpine glaciers and dense forests. Blending Zelda-like combat with elemental powers, incorporating world-bending puzzles, and now showing off its social side where you meet the locals, make friends, and go on coffee dates by the lake, this is a standalone, single-player RPG in the style of Genshin Impact but with a contained story that you can see through to its end.
Dungeons of Hinterberg became one of our most anticipated upcoming games here at PCGamesN when we saw it at Gamescom earlier in the year. Its stunning art style makes even its dungeons pop with rich color, making exploration a true delight. Within these, you’ll have to solve a variety of head-scratching puzzles akin to those you’d find in a Genshin, or in Nintendo’s recent The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
The combat, which sees you employ various elemental abilities to tackle all manner of demonic beasties, is somewhat reminiscent of the way you can utilize such powers in Genshin – or for those old-school RPG fans among us, Capcom’s Okami leaps immediately to mind. In fact, if you still think back on that particular wolf-led JRPG as fondly as I do, the beautiful environments and curious characters of Dungeons of Hinterberg might be exactly what you’ve been looking for.
Speaking to those characters, a new Dungeons of Hinterberg trailer showcases the game’s other key aspect – its social side. Your time in Hinterberg is broken up into days based on your story progression or personal choice to rest for the evening, and those nights can be spent with the various residents of Hinterberg in a manner similar to the rhythm of a Persona game.
Making friends will earn you special rewards, which can even help you to further your adventuring skills. If you’re struggling to track down a hidden dungeon, you might be able to find someone who’s been there to guide you. Or how about befriending a tough warrior and training with them to learn new special moves? Of course, on top of this, you’ll also just learn about the history of the town and its people as you go, and sometimes that’s reward enough by itself.
Dungeons of Hinterberg is currently scheduled for early 2024, and will be launching on both Steam and the Xbox app. It’ll also be part of Microsoft’s PC Game Pass library on day one, so if you’re a subscriber you’ll be able to go on this gorgeous adventure for yourself at no additional cost.
While you wait for that, we’ve rounded up our picks of the best indie games that you don’t want to miss. You can also go on plenty more memorable journeys with the best action-adventure games on PC in 2023, which should keep you plenty busy until Dungeons of Hinterberg arrives.