Harold Halibut review

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

Our Verdict

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

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Need to knowWhat is it?A claymation-y narrative adventure set on a stranded spaceship.Release dateApril 16, 2024DeveloperSlow BrosPublisherSlow BrosReviewed onRTX 4080, Ryzen 3700x, 16GB RAMSteam DeckVerifiedLinkOfficial site

Need to know

What is it?A claymation-y narrative adventure set on a stranded spaceship.Release dateApril 16, 2024DeveloperSlow BrosPublisherSlow BrosReviewed onRTX 4080, Ryzen 3700x, 16GB RAMSteam DeckVerifiedLinkOfficial site

What is it?A claymation-y narrative adventure set on a stranded spaceship.

Release dateApril 16, 2024

DeveloperSlow Bros

PublisherSlow Bros

Reviewed onRTX 4080, Ryzen 3700x, 16GB RAM

Steam DeckVerified

LinkOfficial site

Harold Halibut’s most enduring running gag is about Sonsuz Ask, a Turkish soap opera that seems to be the only TV series the game’s space-based denizens thought to take with them into the stars. Problem is, Sonsuz Ask is a real bumpy ride. Its most ardent fans will try to sell you on it—just wait for it to really pick up in season 22—but the hard truth is that you’ll have to endure a lot of long, barren stretches before you get to the good stuff. Even in space, you probably have better things to do with your time.

Harold Halibut has a lot in common with Sonsuz Ask. There are parts of it that are truly worth loving: Clever dialogue, bold set pieces, gags that actually make you laugh out loud, but they’re brief moments of excitement before the game returns to a ponderous baseline. And while that baseline lasts for about 13 hours rather than 20+ seasons, I still don’t think I can fully recommend it.

(Image credit: Slow Bros)

A mugshot of Harold Halibut.

Engineer ingénue

You are Harold, the unsophisticated, sincere, and (literally) wide-eyed handyman aboard the good ship Fedora I, which has been stuck at the bottom of an alien ocean for 50 years after a solar flare knocked it out of the void. Harold is a dreamer and an optimist—the kid at the back of class staring out of the window, always willing to help the rest of the ship’s citizens with problems both technical and emotional, an open and honest soul who people naturally confide in.

Which they do regularly. The game is a strictly narrative affair: Most of your playtime is spent walking between conversations, and most of those conversations consist of one character or another unloading their burdens onto poor Harold’s shoulders. The owner of the ship’s general store needs someone to talk to about his marriage, the ship’s captain feels unprepared for his role, someonesimply mustrepair the relationship between a quartet of middle-aged receptionists who I can only describe as possessing a ‘bus conductor genotype.’

On and on it goes as you, the player, guide Harold between chats in which the Fedora I’s many quirky inhabitants choose to make their neuroses the plumber’s problem. It’s not without charm: Slow Bros clearly has a great deal of affection for its characters. Combine that with the game’s unique style of presentation—the game has an impressive handmade claymation-esque artstyle that dovetails nicely with its deliberately school-play-like delivery—and you have a recipe to pique my curiosity if not my outright investment.

(Image credit: Slow Bros)

A quartet of men stands on a stage, three of them in bus conductor uniforms and one in a hot dog vendor outfit.

But those chats often have the feeling of an afterschool special: Sweet, simple themes and morals, delivered clearly. It gets fatiguing, and all the stranger because you catch occasional flashes of a more daring game hidden underneath.

… that bolder game is only glimpsed; it’s never on screen for long.

Some of those chats are optional, which leaves open the possibility of a determined player simply mainlining the game’s central plot and ignoring its more sentimental side-roads, but the issue there is that Harold Halibut’s story seems almost determined not to start. The pacing is just off, and would be that way even if you didn’t take an hour to go do the optional task where you read a bunch of people’s private letters with the postman.

Harold Halibut consists of six chapters, and I spent the first two—several hours of real-life time—waiting for something to happen. Plenty of thingscouldhave happened. The game lays down track for all sorts of interesting plots, from the sinister corporation that runs the ship to the underground cell of rebels that operates like an aquatic Silhouette from Deus Ex, but the game too often shies away from making any of its characters seem too villainous or putting any of them in too much danger.

(Image credit: Slow Bros)

A minigame in Harold Halibut, in which you have to put plugs in the right sockets.

For instance: Without spoiling too much, there’s a point at which the sinister corporate CEO uncovers a big secret Harold and co have been keeping, a potentially pivotal plot moment that seems like a real threat. And then it all just kind of works out for the best, because even Harold Halibut’s grasping capitalists seem to fundamentally have their hearts in the right place.

It’s frustrating and fatiguing in equal measure, and a shame, because there are things to like here. The hand-crafted artstyle is an untrammelled success, and the game’s ’70s British kids TV show aesthetic almost manages to justify how sweet and safe the entire thing feels. Almost.

(Image credit: Slow Bros)

Harold engages a snail creature in polite chit-chat.

The Verdict60Read our review policyHarold HalibutA great artstyle and flashes of brilliance never truly make up for a meandering, risk-averse plot.

The Verdict

60Read our review policyHarold HalibutA great artstyle and flashes of brilliance never truly make up for a meandering, risk-averse plot.

60Read our review policy

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

Harold Halibut

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

More about harold halibutHarold Halibut, the stop-motion-style story about life at the bottom of an alien ocean, gets a big new trailer and an April release dateHarold Halibut, the game about making friends while trapped in a giant spaceship stranded at the bottom of an alien ocean, now has a demo on SteamLatestSorry everyone, Minecraft 2 is cancelled, and it might be our faultSee more latest►

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Harold Halibut, the stop-motion-style story about life at the bottom of an alien ocean, gets a big new trailer and an April release dateHarold Halibut, the game about making friends while trapped in a giant spaceship stranded at the bottom of an alien ocean, now has a demo on Steam

Harold Halibut screenshot - Harold and an alien sneaking past an open doorway

Harold Halibut, the stop-motion-style story about life at the bottom of an alien ocean, gets a big new trailer and an April release date

Harold Halibut screenshot - Harold buys some sweets from a woman

Harold Halibut, the game about making friends while trapped in a giant spaceship stranded at the bottom of an alien ocean, now has a demo on Steam

LatestSorry everyone, Minecraft 2 is cancelled, and it might be our faultSee more latest►

Latest

Sorry everyone, Minecraft 2 is cancelled, and it might be our fault

Herobrine standing in front of a foggy forest

Sorry everyone, Minecraft 2 is cancelled, and it might be our fault

See more latest►

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Our Verdict#

Engineer ingénue#

Our Verdict

Engineer ingénue