HomeReviewsA Highland Song
A Highland Song review: a beautiful snapshot of wild places that stumbles a littleA trip worth taking
A trip worth taking
Image credit:Inkle
Image credit:Inkle
A while back, I had a feeling we’d see a lot of games about nature and plants and the wild coming out over the next few years, as developers and players alike emerged from being shut inside for basically a year like dairy cows during theirannual spring turnout. We may not all be not be naturally disposed to it, but there’s much to be said for the fleeting, if unbridled happiness that comes from running barefoot into the teeth of the wind or getting caught in a rainstorm without a coat.
Nine times out of ten, you might get wet and have cold fingers, but that one time that you get wet, have cold fingersand feel red-raw and aliveis a doozy.A Highland Song, a lone and dangerous jaunt through the Scottish highlands, is trying to capture that feeling, most especially in segments where you sprint across rocks and heather alongside a deer. At these times you leap in time to swelling music, and whoop and yell in spontaneous joy. It’s lovely. It’s also easy to stumble.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Inkle
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Inkle
You also only get maps of the route forward sometimes, and they’re often hand drawn or fragments that might be hard to match on the peaks themselves. If you reach a peak when it’s dark, or if it’s cloudy and raining, it’s much harder to spot landmarks, adding to the sense of doom. If Moira falls too far (which, due to the self-yeeting, she will) she loses some maximum health/stamina, which also happens if you can’t find a bothy to sleep in, and so longer climbs are harder. There’s usually more than one route off a mountain, but there are definitely dead ends or optimum ways to climb around a peak. There are also some paths that you’re meant to stumble on naturally as part of climbing down a mountain, except if you don’t go that way or you run past too fast, then Moira seems destined to freeze on this mountain like a small and less murderous Jack Torrance. To scramble down a big snowy section, half-freezing, only to find yourself staring at an unclimbable gravel slope, is to flirt with selling your soul to Satan. Let it end. Let me not run back and forth on this same section of level for another afternoon of game time.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Inkle
There is, as you would expect from Inkle, a story within the story to A Highland Song. It’s worth exploring further than you dare, to skim those stones and find the birds watching you, to better understand Moira and the wild part of her which will only fully reveal itself if you make your Beltane deadline. But really, A Highland Song is about the wildness we all feel sometimes, and where we go to find it, because the wild places and wild ways are disappearing. As a game trying to take a snapshot of that, A Highland Song is beautiful and does it very well. As a game trying to let us run into that wildness, it trips up sometimes. After playing it, I am left with a desire to visit it again, but also a lingering, vague sadness. I can only be grateful for A Highland Song making me feel that.
Disclosure: Natalie Clayton, level designer on A Highland Song, used to write for RPS in the before times.
