HAROLD HALIBUT
The life aquatic has never looked so good
Developer/
publisher Slow Bros
Format PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series
Origin Germany
Release TBA
Let’s get the obvious out of the way: Harold Halibut is a stylistic tour de force. This intimate narrative adventure features an astonishing stop-motion aesthetic with stylised puppets, doll’s-house-sized sets, props and costumes all created by hand. The team has spent the past decade bringing the project to life, 3D-scanning objects into the digital space and building their own mocap system to birth their kaleidoscopic cast of characters and the sunken intergalactic ark they call home.
“We have around 40 characters all built in the real world,” game director Onat Hekimoglu explains. “The sets took up around 200 square metres of space. We used 200 kilograms of clay. We took about a million photos for the 3D scanning process. We actually broke the mirror in our DSLR just by taking photos. The sheer numbers were crazy.” Yet behind those numbers is something that feels unmistakably human. From what we’ve seen so far, Slow Bros has succeeded in creating a tactile experience that looks unerringly cinematic. Yet, for all of its visual verve, the studio insists the heart of Harold Halibut is its deeply personal narrative.