Eriksholm: Die Entwickler des Schleichspiels nehmen euch kurz vor Release mit hinter die Kulissen

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Das auch laut unseres Tests (Plus) kommende Story- und Stealth-Highlight Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream steht in den Startlöchern.

Kurz vor Release tauchen die Entwickler von Nordcurrent mit euch in die Entwicklung des Spiels ein. In achteinhalb Minuten verraten sie euch mehr zu den Hintergründen der Hauptfiguren, der grundlegenden Idee der Spielwelt und ihrem Setting. Außerdem gibt es einen tieferen Einblick in die Entstehung der Stealth-Mechaniken und die damit verbundenen Rätsel, die in jedem Level stecken.

Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream erscheint am 15. Juli 2025 für PC (Steam, Epic), PlayStation 5 und Xbox Series X & S.

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00:00I must find her.

00:03He's a lifeguard.

00:06Before he does.

00:11My name is Anders Haydenberg.

00:14I work as a creative director at River End Games.

00:17And we're currently working on our first game, Eric's Home, The Stolen Dream.

00:22Eric's Home is a game set in kind of a fantasy version of the early 1900s.

00:28And it has a kind of Scandinavian theme style to it.

00:33I would describe it as a stealth puzzle game with a very strong emphasis on story.

00:38Where you play up to three playable characters that you switch between.

00:42And they have their own special abilities that you need to use together to kind of solve situations and puzzles.

00:50In a kind of interlaced way where everyone's involved.

00:54You start the game playing as Hannah, who's the main character of the game.

00:57And she lives with her brother Herman in the Cutters Hill district of Eric's Home.

01:02Which is the poorest part of Eric's Home.

01:05And it used to be a really proud neighborhood of sailmakers and shipbuilders.

01:09But since the advent of steam power, it's kind of become this more downtrodden.

01:15And all the factories have moved and all of that.

01:17I think that we started with this game.

01:20We didn't start with the characters of the story.

01:23We started with the world.

01:24And once the world was taking shape, we started to create characters for it.

01:28Which we felt were interesting in some way.

01:31And then we picked the most interesting ones we'd come up with and wrote a story for them.

01:35And that way everything really ties together.

01:38But Hannah is very much someone who looks out for her brother.

01:41And she's very kind of honest and upfront of what everything she's doing.

01:47But that also gets her into a lot of trouble.

01:49Hannah, she is a feisty girl.

01:51She is a girl who knows what she wants.

01:53And she's not afraid to fight for it.

01:55She's not afraid to burn some bridges.

01:56Which is really cool.

01:57She's a very strong protagonist, to say the least.

02:00She is definitely the moral compass of everything that's going on in the game.

02:05I really love when games can throw you into the thing.

02:09Like you don't have to go through a lot of 10,000 years ago.

02:11This happened, you know.

02:13It's like you get this small cutscene.

02:15You understand where you are and what's going down.

02:18You're in action, right?

02:20I'm a big fan of stealth games.

02:22But I'm terrible at them.

02:23And one thing that I love the most is usually when I'm up on rooftops.

02:28kind of strategizing my next move.

02:30But once I get into it, I lose track of where everyone is.

02:35And I fumble and I feel incompetent.

02:37But sometimes those games deliver an experience where everything just fits perfectly.

02:43You execute the perfect plan and it all turns out nicely.

02:46So with Ericsome, I wanted to create a scenario or a gameplay where that's always possible.

02:51And the top-down camera allows you to be on the rooftops at all times

02:56and see everything that goes on and then figure out, based on what you see available to you,

03:02what character should I use and when and how to reach the results I want to reach here

03:07and then execute it perfectly like a heist.

03:10The further we get, you get a little bit more control of some other characters as well

03:15and they have different sort of ways of interacting with the world.

03:18In the get-go, you're just Hannah, you're just trying to sneak around, avoiding being seen, basically.

03:24In some parts, using your environment to distract or pull focus.

03:28There's a couple of places where you alert some birds, which then alerts a guard to that location,

03:34which makes you able to move around.

03:37It starts out small and simple, but then grows in complexity as the different characters come in

03:43and also based on the context of the situation and a lot of things like that.

03:48It's in this setting of a Scandinavian nature, which not only resonates with me,

04:03but with the rest of the world, because it's so unique.

04:05We've all seen these Victorian age games come in, we've seen Dishonored,

04:09and we've seen a lot of different games that's kind of done this before,

04:12but never in a Scandinavian setting.

04:13It's always nice to see something new that people can relate to.

04:18With writing, you usually say, write what you know, and for visual style,

04:24I think Paris and London and Vienna are beautiful cities, but we don't live in them.

04:30And having the inspirations and references right outside our door,

04:35it makes it a whole lot easier for us.

04:37And there's also the stories behind all of it that's so much more accessible

04:42if it's part of your language and your culture already.

04:46And there are so many stories from real life that have inspired the game

04:50and the visual aesthetic of it as well.

04:53I think that those small touches are so important in building something

04:57that just fits together in a way that's credible and believable.

05:01So I've worked a lot with lighting and 3D rendering, cinematic lighting, stuff like that.

05:05So Ander showed me the rendering of one of the movies and just floored me.

05:09I thought it was so beautiful.

05:10Then he said, okay, so Tio, what I want from you is I want you to make this look even better.

05:14What really sparked my interest in the game was that as a player,

05:17I've always been playing games with great cinematics.

05:20So this game really sparked my interest because I saw that there was a story

05:23and these small movie cutscenes in between that really felt genuine.

05:27The motion capture in our cinematics is amazing

05:31because we have great actors and we've had great technicians.

05:34We've had great animators who've been working on cleaning up that data.

05:37And then also the motion capture we have for the animation in the game

05:42is also really impressive.

05:43Like our in-game cutscenes are literally my colleague Lucas walking around in this room

05:49with his mocap suit, like reenacting a lot of the conversations,

05:53stitching it all together.

05:54It's, you will not find like these repetitive, simple little loops of talk animations, you know?

05:59It doesn't exist.

06:00There's so much unique content.

06:02It's, I think that is one of our biggest strengths.

06:05Since the camera is very far from the player,

06:07in order to feel the characters and feel the story,

06:10we wanted to have these close-up cinematics.

06:12And a big part of that is having a proper nice clothing and nice characters.

06:16Fairly early on, we settled on using scans.

06:19First, we worked with the concept artist who developed the first sketches.

06:24And then we talked with some costume designers

06:26and asked what the cost would be to create the clothing

06:30and sew the dresses from our concepts.

06:33But it was going to be way too expensive.

06:36And then we got an opportunity to work with a school

06:38that was looking for like a last year thesis

06:41to do.

06:42So we got an opportunity to work with them.

06:44We delivered concepts for the students

06:47and they had a couple of weeks to develop the clothing.

06:51Again, we looked at a lot of references

06:53from different military throughout the 1800s and 1900s.

06:57We also scanned boots

06:59that we found in vintage stores.

07:02They look great.

07:03One scanned.

07:04That's actually why I'm here.

07:05I respected your decision because I thought you respected me

07:08and my business and everything I've done for you,

07:10especially after your mum died.

07:12I do.

07:12Of course I do.

07:13But this isn't about me.

07:14Oh, it's always about you, Hannah.

07:16And now you've brought the police here.

07:17They're looking for Herman.

07:18We play tested the game a lot

07:22and what people usually say

07:24is that it feels like I'm playing a movie,

07:28but in a great way.

07:30River and Games was based on the idea

07:34that if you have the right mix of people,

07:37then perhaps a really small team

07:40can still make something that's actually pretty cool.

07:43How is this made by 16 people?

07:46Like, why is this quality so high?

07:49A little now and then,

07:50I sit down in the couch

07:51and I just enjoy a fresh build

07:54and I play and it all comes together.

07:56The story just gets to perform.

07:59You're just drawn right in.

08:00It's a magical feeling

08:01and I'm for sure the players are going to love that.

08:05That's going to be cool.

08:06I'm really excited for players

08:09to just discover this world.

08:11Eric's Home is coming to Xbox, PlayStation, Steam

08:15and Epic Games Store.

08:17So, wishlist it now.

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