Bramble: The Mountain King releases its twisted folklore monsters this April
Befriend garden gnomes and avoid the pigman
Bramble: The Mountain King is an upcoming adventure that mixes a charming fairytale world with twisted monsters inspired by Nordic folklore. Expect cute garden gnomes and sleeping giants, alongside all manner of horned beasties and nasties when it releases on PC and consoles April 27th.
Bramble: The Mountain King follows a boy called Olle on his journey to save his sister from the ominous, titular Bramble, and the new trailer teases some of the horrors we can expect in April. We see glimpses of colossal boss fights with a blood-soaked pigman, and a big-nosed goblin who really wants to eat you. Our young Olle has access to some supernatural powers and that manifests into a shiny sword at the end of the trailer. Perhaps Bramble has more action than I was expecting, or maybe it’s just a tool for puzzle-solving. We won’t need to wait long to find out.
Bramble first caught my eye when I saw a stray screenshot and immediately thought it looked like the excellent Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons, another twisted fairytale puzzler focusing on a pair of siblings. Bramble doesn’t put you in control of both siblings, but at least some sections will reunite them to travel through the woods together.
Most of Bramble’s trailers show off a dark, unsettling adventure, but I caught a few minutes of gameplay in a livestream and got the opposite impression. Olle was merrily jogging around, befriending gnomes, and even woke up a forest troll with a dandelion. This was likely an early-game section to lull me before things got freaky. Either way, I’m looking forward to simply interacting with the various fabled critters in this world - if they aren’t trying to swallow me whole.
Developer Dimfrost Studio previously released the narrative VR game A Writer And His Daughter in 2017, and they’ve been working on Bramble ever since. Bramble: The Mountain King releases on consoles and PC via Steam on April 27th. In the meantime, there’s a free demo available as part of Steam Next Fest.