Nowadays, a lot of the games I complete are pulled from the ever-evolving Xbox Game Pass library. If recent reports are to be believed, I’m one of many Game Pass subscribers discovering a lot of games through the service.
High-profile additions to Game Pass may attract the most attention, like Hollow Knight: Silksong or upcoming launches like The Outer Worlds 2, but it’s the indie games like Herdling that make me appreciate the popular subscription service the most.
Leading your furry friends home
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You wake up alone in the slums of a rundown city. There is no guiding voice, no clear direction for your life to take. All you have? A mysterious urge to befriend and aid the fluffy creature trapped nearby.
Herdling’s narrative is as soft-spoken as its gameplay. You will travel great distances, rescuing and taming these “Calicorns” as you go. Each will have a unique name, a unique appearance, and a unique personality — but all are seeking the same place of safety, and they trust you to guide them.
It’s never made completely clear why you were chosen for this task or even how you know what to do; all that matters is your quest. With spirited gestures and brisk whistles, you can command your herd of Calicorns to march, stampede, or stop, and it’s up to you to navigate them past any dangers you may encounter.
Herdling’s art style and direction are phenomenal, a perfect match for the story it’s telling.
You will encounter danger, too. Herdling takes you through some of the most breathtakingly gorgeous vistas I’ve seen in a video game, with verdant forests dense with trees, barren glaciers torn by windstorms, sweeping countrysides painted in colorful flowers — all dotted by strange ruins and enigmatic paintings that hint at past journeys not alike your own, a troubled history for the peaceful creatures you guide, and a very strange power that borders the magical.
As beautiful as the surrounding landscapes are, though, you will have to take care of your Calicorns. They will need food, affection, and even stimulation, but they will also need guidance to avoid pitfalls and predators — with each new region introducing fresh hurdles. It takes care to avoid losing a Calicorn, and even more so if you wish to find all the Calicorns waiting for their shepherd to rescue them.
There are certainly tense and emotional moments to be discovered in Herdling, and while each journey a player takes will follow the same path, it’ll ultimately tell a different story.
A lovely way to spend an afternoon
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Allow me to introduce you to my herd: Appa, Momo, Pabu, Cabbage, Naga, Oogli, Ori, Caterpillar, Foofi, Bumbli, and Balto. Yes, I personally named each one (you can probably guess the theme), and I did so based on their appearance and the circumstances of our meeting.
I’m also proud to say that I didn’t lose a single one of my furry friends to landslides, glacier crevasses, or angry bird monsters (I won’t say any more than that), but I sadly failed to find every Calicorn in need of rescuing (I’d wager I missed three, but I’m not sure exactly how many there are).
Each Calicorn is visually distinct and boasts subtly different personalities, and you can even find decorations and harnesses to further personalize them along the way. It took me around five hours to complete Herdling in a leisurely fashion (you could finish the game in three if you wanted), and I still managed to become attached to every single Calicorn I tamed.
A bad day and a worse storm didn’t prevent me from feeling the warmth of Herdling’s final campfire.
In a short period of time, I became engrossed in this world. It eased the sorrows and tensions of a very long day out of my shoulders and head — despite the cryptic secrets entwined within the story and the homebound path fraught with peril for my furry friends.
The ending left me wholly satisfied, content I had found a home for me and my Calicorns free from those challenges at the end of the treacherous road that seemed to have brought many others there before me. My personal tragedies of that day were embellished by a rather persistent storm outside my windows, but I still felt the warmth of the final campfire I lit for my herd.
Herdling is only $24.99 at Xbox.com, but you don’t even need to pay that if you’re looking for a slower game to occupy a few hours. It’s on Xbox Game Pass, and it’s also part of the Xbox Play Anywhere program. I actually installed Herdling on my ASUS ROG Ally X with intent to play it during my upcoming business trip, but ended up finishing the game before I even packed.
