It seems to me that people tend to misuse terms like “hidden treasure” when referring to indie games that actually have a significant amount of reviews and solid sales behind them. However, I think that the term is more than justified when we talk about the Northern Journey case, given that the title went on sale in 2021, but only now, in early 2023, that I’ve learned of its existence thanks to a brilliant resetera- threads. It has almost a thousand user reviews on Steam, and with a quick Google search we can confirm that there aren’t more than a few critical reviews and videos. Now it’s my turn to convince the folks at GR that it really is worth 10 hours of your life and, while we’re at it, support a Norwegian studio that’s extremely talented.
How can I describe Northern Journey? One random user summed it up when he described it with these words: “It’s like David Lynch directed an Elder Scrolls game.” And that’s right, Skyrim is probably the first game you’ll get into comes to mind when you start playing Northern Journey, which basically consists of exploring a world with a clear Nordic inspiration: dark forests, murky caves, murky swamps, deep fjords and mist-shrouded mountains. It’s a world that seems cold, hard and oppressive, but at the same time melancholic thanks to a soundtrack that creates a fantastic and sometimes dark atmosphere and includes different songs for each of the game zones. It gives the impression that the project was created in the Elder Scrolls Creation Engine, although it seems like it was in Unreal Engine 4, and yet everything has a more “artisanal” style.
I think we can all agree that the latest Elder Scrolls games, with their huge open worlds, rarely offer very exciting and challenging level design from one area to another. Instead, Northern Journey succeeds in this area due to its well-focused and linear design (there are semi-open areas, but there’s always a path to follow), something that seems inspired by both Zelda and Souls. In the former, because you often have to find keys, wheels, hand swings, and the like to unlock locked areas, and in the latter, because you come across doors that can only be opened from the opposite side; You are constantly creating useful shortcuts between zones by lowering levers, launching elevators, using zip lines, etc. Also because from time to time you have to go back through areas with worn platforms and because the characters in the title are both in the way they speak and are also cryptic in their clues and their motivations.
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For that reason, it makes a lot of sense that the aforementioned Steam user enlisted David Lynch as the project manager. Northern Journey is amazing, thanks in part to those cryptic characters, the game’s dark humor and its very small and spooky atmosphere, but also because the world is shrouded in both mystery and mist, as the studio draws heavily from Norse folklore ( witches), goblins and the like).
So is the game a “perfect” masterpiece? Not at all. Not all areas of the game are of the same quality, boss fights can be very frustrating and the overall combat system could be described as “crappy”. You run in first person and use weapons like slingshots, bows and axes to take down all sorts of creepy crawlies (if you have a phobia of them, this is NOT your game). The combat system is very reminiscent of Doom, Quake, Unreal Tournament and similar games due to the speed of the player’s movements and the life and ammo chargers scattered around. But the enemies are also lightning fast, jumping like frogs and sucking your life out in the blink of an eye, so many times you have to desperately sprint from one place to another while giant bloodthirsty mosquitoes, leeches and other wonders are chasing you away give away your life. , so after just a second you have to turn around to try to hit the target with a very small and unreliable crosshair.
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For this reason, I would also advise you to save the game constant. The game does not save automatically, the player must remember that, but fortunately it is very easy and fast to save the game with the 5 key. The title, by the way, is very well optimized and runs great on older devices or those that don’t you are suitable.
Northern Journey isn’t just a souped-up version of Skyrim. While the inspiration is evident, from my point of view the game mechanics create a very compelling identity. The world is intriguing and the level of design that goes into most of the adventure is so immersive that you may overlook the half-finished combat system to study. The founder of indie studio Slid Studio, a Norwegian named Øystein, is certainly someone to watch out for in the future, and he deserves a lot more attention for this little diamond in the rough he’s released on Steam. It’s the perfect title to play with a cup of coffee next to you on a rainy day.
