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Harold Halibut

Release Date: April 16, 2024
Platforms: PlayStation 5 | Xbox Series X|S | PC (Steam)

Overall Score:

Description

Harold Halibut is a handmade narrative game about friendship, and life on a city-sized spaceship submerged in an alien ocean. Join Harold as he explores a vibrant retro-future world in his quest to find the true meaning of ‘home’.

It’s been 250 years since your home – an ark-like spaceship – fled an Earth on the verge of cold war to find a habitable planet to preserve the human race.

You are Harold, a young lab assistant for the ship’s lead scientist, Jeanne Mareaux. While most of the ship’s inhabitants have reconciled themselves to a life lived aboard the sunken ship, Mareaux still works tirelessly to find a way for the ship to leave the planet and find a new, dryer home.

But the weird, wonderful and diverse people of the FEDORA I keep Harold busy too… Until one fateful encounter plunges Harold into a world no one could have imagined – and one that may hold the key to Mareaux’s re-launch plans.

Join Harold as he explores a vibrant retro-future world in his quest to find the true meaning of ‘home’.

History

Harold Halibut started life in 2012 as a conversation over dinner about our love of stop-motion and story games.
It wasn’t long after that we started building dollhouse sized sets and puppets in our bedrooms.

The result is a cross between game and stop motion film.

Welded metal, textiles sewn against tiny wooden floorboards and clay faces the size of walnuts immerse the player in Harold’s tactile world.

Features

  • Unique Stop-Motion Aesthetics:
    Every element in Harold Halibut is a tactile and meticulously hand-crafted using traditional sculpting and model-making techniques.
  • Full Voice Acting:
    All of the Fedoras’ wonderful inhabitants come to life with full English voiceover, elevating the game’s narrative to cinematic proportions.
  • An expansive Character Ensemble:
    Meet a variety of unique characters and get to know their personalities, quirks and stories through meaningful conversations.
  • A riveting cinematic storyline:
    Journey through a captivating narrative, underscored by a carefully orchestrated script that blends drama, humor, and suspense.

Videos

Review ★ Roundup

85 – Playstation Universe

Though plaudits will be rightly levelled at its appearance, Harold Halibut is equally as impressive when it comes to its narrative, world-building, and how both are realised.

80 – gamesradar+

Harold Halibut's sunken spaceship adventure on an alien planet is a stop-motion-style delight filled with meticulously crafted models and surprisingly moving writing, but awkward controls and occasionally clunky animations mar an otherwise excellent title.

80 – IGN

Harold Halibut is a wholesome, handcrafted adventure with plenty of heart.

80 – The Gamer

One thing’s for certain: you’ve never played a game like Harold Halibut before. You may have played cinematic narrative adventure titles before, but none offer up such a striking stop-motion style and thought-provoking narrative, especially when paired with a winning combination of mystery, heartfelt character relationships, and quirky artistic flair.

80 – Pure Xbox

Harold Halibut is a heartfelt and handcrafted tale of human existence, delivering charming, profound, and deeply funny writing guaranteed to put a smile on your face. What Slow Bros has managed to achieve with its visual style is masterful and, for our money, it's now one of the best looking games on Xbox.

70 – Gamespot

Harold Halibut is a triumph in its characters and visuals but struggles to stay afloat under its own scope and ambitions.

70 – God is a Geek

There are some great moments in Harold of Halibut, even if it takes a while to get going, and the art style is stunning in every way.

68 – Xbox ERA

Whether you’ll enjoy your time with Harold Halibut and the various Fedorans you’ll meet really comes down to what kind of person and gamer you are – if you enjoy deeply narrative games where the focus in more on story and a sense of place, with a very simple gameplay loop, then you’ll fit right in -and I suspect come to adore your time aboard the Fedora.

60 – PC Gamer

A great artstyle and flashes of brilliance never truly make up for a meandering, risk-averse plot.

60 – Eurogamer

A visually arresting, warm-hearted tale of a gofer searching for his purpose, Harold Halibut flounders amongst endless fetch-quests and waffle.

50 – Push Square

We really wanted to love Harold Halibut, and there are some redeeming qualities. Its wonderful aesthetic is unique and detailed, it has a great sci-fi hook, and there are some good moments throughout the story. Unfortunately, these aspects depreciate due to a prolonged runtime, most of which is filled with slow, repetitive treks from one scene to the next.

Developed by: Slow Bros.
Published by: Slow Bros.
Rating: E for Everyone 10+
Genre: Adventure
MSRP: $34.99

Where to buy

Screenshots

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Harold Halibut Screenshot 1

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