“Dungeons of Hinterberg will make you think differently about how you behave on your next vacation.”
- Nuanced, weighty story
- Excellent dungeon design
- Unique spells
- Deep RPG hooks
- Strong social link systems
- Combat gets repetitive
Luisa is on the vacation of a lifetime. After walking away from a career in law, the red-haired hero of Dungeons of Hinterberg decides to solve her quarter-life crisis with a trip to the Alps. She settles into a mountainside town, a small village that’s become a hot travel destination after a series of magical dungeons appeared out of thin air one day. It’s on that trip that Luisa is determined to find herself, finding her true calling and rediscovering the magic in her life. Sound familiar?
You don’t have to look far to find media with this kind of premise — minus the dungeons, of course. There’s a long tradition of works that romanticize travel and its healing powers, from Under the Tuscan Sun to the appalling Sex and the City 2. But Dungeons of Hinterberg is different. This isn’t another simple story of a woman finding her second act in a foreign country; it’s a much-needed deconstruction of that narrative told in a way that could only be done in a video game.
Dungeons of Hinterberg is a razor-sharp debut from developer Microbird that tackles the complexities of the tourism industry from every angle. From its impact on politics to how it backs local businesses into a corner, the action-adventure game delivers a nuanced dissection of a quiet town turned global attraction. And like any good tourist trap, it hooks players in with wondrous entertainment, from ingeniously designed dungeon puzzles to magical powers that turn its natural landscapes into amusement parks. It may not be the slickest action game, but it contains one of 2024’s most vital stories.
Tourist trap
Dungeons of Hinterberg takes place in a magical realist version of the Alps rooted in folklore. After 25 dungeons suddenly pop up around town, as well as regional magic spells that any visitor can harness, Hinterberg’s mayor seizes the opportunity and turns the town into a tourist destination. That draws the attention of Luisa and other “slayers” who travel from afar to complete each dungeon. It’s advertised as a once-in-a-lifetime experience that makes visitors feel like heroes as they solve puzzles, harness abilities, and slay monsters just like The Legend of Zelda’s Link.
An engrossing mystery that’s finely threaded throughout the adventure.
In reality, the situation is much more complex. Dungeons of Hinterberg’s narrative success comes from how deftly it deals with that premise across a 20-hour runtime where not a second of dialogue is wasted. Right from its opening tutorial dungeon, it’s clear that something’s not quite right about the dream scenario. A rogue earthquake makes it clear that the magic may have brought some side effects with it. Local leaders work to underplay those problems all to protect the town’s bottom line. That sets the stage for an engrossing mystery that’s finely threaded throughout the adventure.
While the premise deals in supernatural problems, those are clever stand-ins for more grounded issues surrounding the tourism industry. Locals feel their quiet way of life changing as influencers flood into town for photo ops with gaudy new landmarks. Small businesses are driven out of town as foreign-backed megastores open. There’s even an environmental consequence of it all as sudden earthquakes and magical pollution rock the town with increasing frequency. Each twist brings a new layer to Hinterberg’s mounting problems.
Luisa finds herself at the center of that conflict, and her situation is just as complex. As a tourist, she’s part of the problem. As she eats breakfast at her quaint inn and spends her days traveling to dungeons clearly marked out for her in a cutesy stamp book, locals mourn as their old way of life slips away to commercialization. But Dungeons of Hinterberg isn’t out to scold people like Luisa; it’s entirely understanding of her perspective. She’s a woman in need of a life-affirming moment, and the town holds a special power. Is it fair to shut it all down when so much healing comes from it? Is she wrong for wanting that experience?
Those questions get even more tangled when it becomes clear that Hinterberg relies on tourism to survive. The influx of visitors resulted in a boon to the town’s economy. Local businesses were formed around it that sell adventuring gear. Hotels and restaurants are able to thrive thanks to well-off tourists coming in and out of town. Without the dungeons, Hinterberg might collapse. Can a town like this ever go back to normal once the genie has been let out of the bottle? Those knotty questions had me absorbed throughout Dungeons of Hinterberg as I struggled to unravel a web of complicated moral threads alongside Luisa.
Into the dungeons
What’s remarkable about Dungeons of Hinterberg is how well it uses the medium to reinforce its weighty themes. It’s a confident action-adventure game that pulls clear inspiration from The Legend of Zelda and Persona. Each day I spend in Hinterberg is split up into four parts. Mornings give me a bit more story over breakfast, while the afternoon is where I trek out to one of four biomes to hunt for dungeons. Evenings are spent in town buying gear and sharpening my social relationships, while nighttime has me deciding if I want to stay up late to boost my stats even more at the expense of having less health the next day. It’s a rigid itinerary, as if it’s been mapped out for me by a travel planner. Dungeons of Hinterberg always keeps players in the headspace of a tourist.
The heart of that experience comes in the afternoon when I choose my field trip for the day. After picking a location, I’m dropped in a small open area dotted with convenient trail makers pointing me to landmarks, dungeons, and each area’s magical power that I’ll need to learn. Scenic landscapes (painted in a colorful pop art style that works much better for scenery than the toy-like characters) turn into playgrounds. It feels like I’m free, but I’m always being led around by the nose; even secret chests hidden around or relaxing spots that’ll boost my stats if I choose to spend my day there feel like they were carefully constructed to maximize my amusement.
Each dungeon delivers an ingenious set of puzzles.
The main attraction is the 25 dungeons, which feel like a midpoint between The Legend of Zelda’s full dungeons and Breath of the Wild’s bite-sized shrines. Each one contains a combination of arena battles against folklore-inspired monsters and puzzle solving. The latter is where Dungeons of Hinterberg excels. Each dungeon delivers an ingenious set of puzzles that takes each area’s two magical spells and finds no shortage of ways to twist their utility. In one area, I’m able to summon a gooey cube and shoot a magic energy ball that stops on command. Initially I think that the cube simply lets me get up to high ledges and the ball powers on electric switches. That’s just the start. By the end of that region, I’m using the cube to block lasers, hold down switches, lift up heavy gates, and even freeze enemies in place. One puzzle has me shooting the energy ball into a pipe and reflecting it off movable surfaces to reach a door switch. Microbird flexes some impressive puzzle chops here that should make it a prime candidate to revive the classic Zelda formula if Nintendo ever needs help.
Each dungeon is a distinct attraction, putting my powers to good use. In one, I’m grinding down a rail on my magical snowboard as I fight off a giant moth’s projectile blasts with my ranged laser. In another, I’m dropped in a spin on Monument Valley as I rotate pieces of a level to navigate a brain-bending maze. It’s like I’m experiencing everything a resort has to offer, keeping myself entertained in new ways each day. And that entertainment is wildly effective thanks to sharp puzzles that are always gratifying to solve. I can feel the draw of a tightly designed vacation like this, made to make me feel like the main character in an unfamiliar location.
The second part of that comes through action-RPG battles against weird Alpine critters, the one area where Dungeons of Hinterberg’s magical appeal loosens. Combat itself is perfectly fun; I can hack at enemies, use some special abilities on cooldown, and even use each area’s magic spells as weapons. One area lets me summon a tornado to sail over thorns and reach high platforms, but I can also whip that out in battle to sail through enemies. Since regional spells can only be used in their respective area, combat feels a little different in each area. Strong RPG hooks pump it up too, as I can collect resources that strengthen my gear and customize my loadout with perk-granting charms (those present their own storage puzzle, as I only have a set number of slots and each charm takes up a certain amount).
Like a college graduate on vacation, battles eventually overstay their welcome. The enemy variety dries up too early, and I’m almost always thrown into a round arena where I just have to implement the same strategy. There’s a bit of experimentation to be done with my loadout, but I find myself on auto-pilot by the end save for struggling with some lock-on camera issues and some jerky animations that make abilities like my whirlwind strike a bit difficult to tame. Some days, I just wish I could skip fighting entirely and spend time doing what I actually want to be doing.
There’s an honesty to that flaw, even if it’s an inadvertent one. There always seems to be that point in a planned vacation where you just get bored of what’s been laid out for you. Don’t like the daily activity on a cruise? There’s not much you can do in such a controlled space. The claustrophobic, unskippable nature of combat reflects that, always reminding me that there’s something mechanical about my stay in Hinterberg. I’m never allowed to go off the rails, skip a dungeon, or disengage with anything that’s been laid out for me. Luisa isn’t meant to be a hero in her vacation, even if that’s how it’s advertised to her; she’s a cog. Without her, the tourism machine stops producing profits. Keep on slaying until it’s time to go home.
A good tourist
While Dungeons of Hinterberg acknowledges the exploitative nature of a lucrative vacation industry, its lasting message is a constructive one. Luisa’s journey is about more than self-discovery; it’s about learning the difference between being a tourist and a visitor. It isn’t just about what she can take from Hinterberg but what she can give back to its community during her stay. That’s the bit of nuance that makes Dungeons of Hinterberg a critical work in a lineage of “life-affirming vacation” media.
I leave Hinterberg with a desire to be more respectful of my surroundings …
That’s also represented through gameplay in the form of a Persona-inspired social link system. Each evening, Luisa chooses to spend the night out with someone in town. It’s a strong progression system, as deeper social bonds grant her bonuses that range from increased HP to armor blacksmithing (befriending a local dog even unearths a hidden dungeon). But the more effective rewards are the personal ones these scenes offer. Each character has their own short story that deepens Luisa’s understanding of Hinterberg and what its residents are going through.
One strong bond links me up with a local artist who turns his feelings into statues. He tells me about one piece, an incomplete cube meant to represent how misshapen his town has become. Another arc has me aiding a small business that’s being pushed out by an American-financed shop that’s hurting local stores. The deeper I get into each story, the more I understand the ways that I can help instead of hurt. I leave Hinterberg with a desire to be more respectful of my surroundings, polite toward the residents welcoming me in, and supportive of their businesses. I can’t just slay monsters all day, declare myself a hero, and leave. An Alpine village isn’t my own personal theme park.
It’s through that nuanced journey that Luisa truly finds the evolution she seeks by the end of Dungeons of Hinterberg. A quest for cheap thrills in a pretty town blossoms into a series of life lessons about the ways we engage with the world outside of our comfort zones. It’s not that she needs a temporary distraction from her dull job that’ll live on in an Instagram feed; she needs to remember that there’s magic in real human connection. Puzzles are meant to be solved, monsters to be slain, and dungeons to be cleared, but Hinterberg isn’t a conquest for a bored traveler. It’ll only heal you if you’re willing to listen and learn.
Dungeons of Hinterberg was tested on PC and Steam Deck OLED.
