Herdling is the latest games from Swiss indie team Okomotive. It launched in August 2025 and is available on all consoles and PC.
In keeping with the dev’s FAR series, here we have an atmospheric, beautiful, and relaxing adventure where you guide a herd of enigmatic beasts through a dramatic landscape. It’s an ideal game for unwinding and forgetting the world’s woes, offering some serious artistic craft.
The Atmospheric Trek of Herdling
Okay, so Okomotive is responsible for the gorgeous solitude of FAR: Lone Sails (2018) and its striking sequel FAR: Changing Tides (2022).
Herdling is a new type of adventure, namely as this is the developer’s first 3D outing. But it’s very much in the spirit of the FAR games, offering players a serene sense of solitude and a clear mission.
Get to the top of a mountain with your herd.
The beasts you control are called Calicorns and you use a simple (but occasionally cumbersome) control system to guide them up the mountain. As you travel, you discover obstacles to overcome, meaning there are some basic puzzle solving elements at play.
But the core experience of Herdling, as with the FAR games, is solitude.
It’s a calming game to play, with some beautiful graphics, and another magnificent score from composer Joel Schoch (more on that further below).
It’s better to play these things for the full immersive experience, but it is surprising the number of video games people can just watch and enjoy.
If you’re not a gamer, then it’s one way to experience what the medium has to offer.
And Herdling is very much one of those games you can enjoy as a kind of gaming movie. Such as putting it to the 13 minute mark below and seeing the sweep in action. Those mountains off in the distance—you’re heading up there.
Although it’s often a peaceful experience, there are moments of considerable peril—psychopath giant eagles can murder your Calicorns dead. You have to time your stampeding mechanics to avoid them.
And that does highlight one issue with Herdling. The controls can be a bit iffy at times, with a unique herding system to guide your Calicorns to their destination. You’ve got about six at any one time to manage, feed, pet etc.
The controls aren’t perfect. It’s largely a minor thing, but if you want to get the most of the game make sure you master the system very early on.
Okomotive is daring with its work, choosing a slow-paced style that’s not going to appeal to a lot of gamers. As with FAR, here with Herdling you have a methodical journey where players must show restraint. Patience, introspection, and introversion are a huge part of the experience.
There’s a definite sense of Buddhist appreciation, make sure you take time to pick up on the minor details around you. Bask in the wilderness.
If this is your type of thing, and you want to enjoy the brilliant solitude that certain video games have, Herdling delivers incredible heaps of the stuff. It doesn’t always maintain the peak across the full two-hour run, but it does regularly enthral.
The combination of a peaceful waltz, matched with that gorgeous score, and here we have another winner from Okomotive.
Notes On Herdling’s Beautiful Score
Joel Schoch is a young composer in his early 30s who began playing piano aged nine. His work across the two FAR games have made him a leading indie game composer and Herdling is his most ambitious score to date.
That familiar woodwind style of his is here again. Just ramped up.
He’s brought in a mini-orchestra to get the sweeping scope of the game into focus. It’s another brilliant piece of work.
Schoch is aware his music is popular, which is what’s led to these more in-depth videos of the soundtrack creation process. But we do mean he brought in a mini-orchestra for some pieces.
We’ll likely do a feature on his canon of work at some point, as those two FAR games, complemented by this new work, make him one of the most interesting indie game composers out there.
