Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream

Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is a wonderful adventure in a gorgeous world, and deserves to put River End Games well and truly on the map.

Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is a thrilling stealth game in which you creatively combine the abilities of up to three active characters. Fair puzzles and a great story make this game a real insider tip.

A gorgeously crafted stealth adventure that’s full of mood, momentum, and mystery. Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream falters slightly when it loses tension, but remains a memorable, artistically distinct journey worth experiencing.

Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is not just one of the best stealth games of recent years; it's an artistic statement about what the genre can achieve when deep narrative, exceptional technical design, and refined mechanics are combined to perfection. River End Games has created something that honors the legacy of the classics while establishing new standards for the future. It's the type of game that makes you remember why you fell in love with tactical stealth in the first place, but with an emotional depth that the genre rarely reaches. For anyone who has enjoyed Commandos, Shadow Tactics, or Desperados, Eriksholm represents the natural evolution of the genre. For new players, it's the perfect introduction to what stealth can offer when executed with absolute mastery.

Beautifully presented story game with strictly linear sneak puzzles that only rarely cause frustration.

Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is a narrative-driven isometric stealth game set in an early 20th-century Nordic country. It stands out artistically for its excellent character acting and magnificent environmental representation. Gameplay revolves around infiltration, noise management, and cooperation between three characters with unique abilities. The lack of traditional cones of vision makes for a more realistic approach, but the instadeath mechanics hinder improvisation. The level design is vertical and labyrinthine, with paths that are often linear but full of secrets and micro-puzzles.

This is a unique, puzzle-like stealth adventure with beautifully designed environments, well-integrated character abilities, and a charming story, though it offers limited freedom and some small quality-of-life issues that slow down certain moments.

Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream delivers a captivating experience with heartfelt storytelling, memorable atmosphere, and strategic gameplay. While it suffers from repetitive tutorials and weak AI, the overall quality is impressive, especially considering its small team and modest budget.

Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is a good game that works within the confines of the stealth genre and doesn’t aim to innovate much. The city itself is well-designed and fun to explore, but the mechanics don’t evolve much and can become frustrating if players aren’t interested in the story. The cutscenes and the voice work contribute to immersion and create emotional connections with the characters. Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream will not challenge stealth veterans but creates a balanced mix of gameplay and narrative with a few great moments.

If you’re still asking yourself: should I play Eriksholm, hear me out – it is definitely worth it. Even if stealth games are not your cup of tea, the cut-scenes alone (all the way to a very satisfying finale) are worth the price of admission. And we will definitely hear more about the talented crew at River End Games.

Eriksholm is a stealth game with a strong focus on storytelling, a truly unique experience with a distinct and irresistible charm. It looks great, sounds great, and plays well too, but it’s not without flaws. Some sections work better than others and there are moments when the solution feels reachable only through a string of failures, rather than through player intuition, as it ideally should be.

The main character, Hanna, with her friends is doing well in the town of Eriksholm and, thanks to her cleverness and stealth techniques, she will win you over.

Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is a little gem of indie games. It has amazing visuals, cleverly designed levels with challenging gameplay, and the real star of the game is its main character, Hanna.

Eriksholm is a great puzzle game under the guise of a stealth adventure, utilizing the mechanics of the latter to create the pieces for the former. With a focused cast, three playable characters that synergize harmoniously, and a world whose nooks and crannies beg to be seen (with collectibles to reward your efforts), I’m left wanting more. Eriksholm, for the most part, avoids the critical error of stealth puzzles that grow beyond complex into frustrating, and turns in a series of challenges that are almost always fun and, in the final handful of hours, brilliant. I just wish the rest of the game matched its later heights.

Eriksholm is a tough game to fully review, as giving away the gameplay mechanics and plot elements that made me enjoy it should be experienced without spoilers. If you have the time, in this never-ending deluge of excellent games, consider adding this one to the backlog. It’s fun and not frustrating stealth and shockingly high production values make this one of my favorite surprises of the year.

Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is a tightly crafted real-time tactics game that blends stealth, puzzle-solving, and emotional storytelling. Set in a beautifully rendered, dystopian city, the game follows a trio of characters with complementary abilities who must work together through intricately designed missions. With its smart level design, intuitive isometric controls, and a surprisingly personal narrative, Eriksholm stands out as a hidden gem in the genre. Minor frustrations aside, it’s a strong debut from indie studio River End Games.

The key to enjoying Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is to think of it not as an open-ended sandbox, there for you to discover all kinds of secrets, but as an intricate diorama, just waiting for you to set things into motion. You may not get the same kind of satisfaction of figuring out inventive ways to solve problems, but you will get to look at a game that’s simply beautiful – and all things considered, it’s a fair trade.

Eriksholm trades freedom for thoughtful storytelling, where each scene unfolds like a puzzle. What I enjoyed most was simply immersing myself in the beautiful early-20th-century Scandinavian setting, carried forward by the music, dialogue, and gameplay itself, proving that even bite-sized games with just a few mechanics can be pretty good when they do exactly what they’re supposed to.

Rarely did I enjoy getting to know the numerous facets of a vivid world as much as I did here. And rarely did I miss in-depth systems as little as in this cleverly constructed stealth puzzler - in which sneaking, puzzling and quiet exploration come together in pleasingly varied situations.

A short but intense adventure. Eriksholm shows how a small studio can do what the big ones do. Beautiful and touching, it's an excellent surprise.

Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is a competent game in its simplicity. It's not particularly innovative in its gameplay or narrative, but its mechanics are good enough to entertain and please fans who are missing out on stealth games.

Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is a good game despite some design choices that can lead to moments of frustration. The viewpoint feels fresh since so few games use it, but the game's various indicators even things out when you compare it to other stealth titles. The strict failure conditions and seemingly rigid process for stealth puzzle-solving can be an annoyance, but it is helped by the game's fast load times and generous checkpoints. The use of team play keeps things interesting. For genre fans, Eriksholm is a good game to check out.

Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream won't offer anything that stealth aficionados haven't seen before, but its world-building and gameplay execution make it worth a look.

Narratively fantastic, it is clear that there are veterans from large studios involved because beyond a notable technical section, gameplay-wise it is capable of hiding many mechanics that we discover little by little, and that are sufficiently exploited.

Beautiful and stacked with excellent performances, but Eriksholm's stealth feels too much like being led around by the nose to reach greatness.

Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is the debut work of a promising studio, demonstrating clear vision in terms of art direction, writing, and worldbuilding. The form is there, and so is the substance when it comes to storytelling. The gameplay isn't quite as well-rounded, and while it's built on solid foundations, it settles for a reassuring simplicity, preventing River End Games' title from taking that extra step it needs. Despite this, anyone looking for a narrative-driven stealth game should give it a try. The city of Eriksholm will certainly welcome you.

Despite its isometric perspective and slower pace, Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream stands out thanks to a strong narrative foundation, excellent voice acting, and clever stealth mechanics rooted in environmental design. While some visual segments feel less polished than others, the overall artistic consistency and smart level construction keep the experience engaging. It's a thoughtful, well-crafted stealth adventure that avoids overpromising, offering a grounded and emotionally resonant story through a carefully paced journey. Not perfect, but definitely one of the most intriguing indie titles in its genre.

Eriksholm shouldn't be approached as a Commandos-style experience since it's primarily a puzzle game with stealth elements, not the other way around. In that respect, it delivers plenty of cleverly designed environmental challenges, appealing visuals, and an engaging setting. If only its story and characters were as well written as its impeccably crafted cutscenes, Eriksholm could have been something truly special.

Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is a fun, narrative-led stealth game that doesn’t demand too much of you. Stealth game veterans are unlikely to find a challenge in these common mechanics, but the beautiful details built into the world of Rosmark make up for it. The character-driven story is supported by great vocal performances and cutscenes that would fit in alongside any modern triple-A.

Yes, the ideas are simple and well-worn, but they're treated with care and elegance, with a shimmer of luxury sprinkled across the top. [Issue#414, p.110]

For a stealth-themed game, it's a bit too straightforward, but overall, it's quite an enjoyable experience.

The more focused second half saves Eriksholm from oblivion. For a game clocking around 10 hours, it takes too long to get going and put all its cards on the table.

Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is a beautiful-looking, but ultimately uninspiring stealth game that falls back on predictable gameplay. It's perfectly fine to sneak through in a weekend if you're really into stealth, as it's never unbearably bad or distracting. Perhaps Eriksholm is simply a little too good at what's expected of you as a stealth player: remaining inconspicuous.

An elegant narrative stealth adventure takes you to a fascinating world, but doesn't revolutionize the genre and railroads player tightly.

Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream offers luxurious cutscenes and a focused twist on stealth by remaining intentionally inflexible, but doesn't quite pull it all together.