Just saying the title “Harold Halibut” makes me smile. There’s something special about it, something past alliteration. Maybe that’s just because I’ve been watching it progress through trailers for years now and I find the game looks downright charming. The game began with a dinner table conversation about games played as children. That conversation ended with the creators physically crafting dollhouse-sized building sets and characters with heads the size of walnuts. And over a decade later, voilà: a game is ready to be birthed! Harold Halibut looks as though it’s made with stop-motion, but instead starts at the same place then veers off wildly: the creators handcrafted every item and 3D scanned it, making it become a digital asset. Players will finally be able to get their hands on Harold Halibut next month, which is in line with the previous early 2024 release window.
One playthrough of Harold Halibut should take about 12 hours, though completionists may need up to 18. The game’s narrative is described as captivating, complimented by a carefully-orchestrated script that blends humour, drama, and suspense. It is set underwater, in an ark-like spaceship called the FEDORA I that fled Earth when it was on the verge of the cold war 250 years ago.
The player takes on the role of Harold. He is a young lab assistant for Jeanne Mareaux, the ship’s lead scientist. Most people on the ship are resigned to the fact they’ll live their lives aboard the sunken ship… but not Mareaux, who works endlessly trying to find a way off the planet it is on to find a new (and much drier) home.
Life isn’t only work for Harold, of course. The weird and wonderful people of the FEDORA I keep him busy until a fateful encounter puts him into a world nobody could have imaged. A world that may hold the key to Mareaux’s plan. Harold will explore the retro-future world, and maybe even find the meaning of the word “home.”
The team at Slow Bros. shared a statement in a press release, saying, “Having a release date is incredible and surreal to us! It represents the end of an era: The marathon of bringing this dream of ours to light. Now we can’t wait to see how it stirs players, what it makes them feel, reminds them of in their lives and maybe inspires them to do. Everyone finally gets to puppeteer Harold through this miniature world that shows our literal fingerprints which we built for them.”
Developed and published by Slow Bros., Harold Halibut will be released for PC via Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series on April 16. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One releases are expected later on.
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