Herdling is a surprisingly well-rounded atmospheric adventure that belies its short play time – and it's right at home on the Switch 2

While it's one of, if not the oldest professions, herdsmen aren't often represented in video game format, and after playing Okomotive's Herdling, I struggle to understand why. Sure, if you asked me to come up with my dream game tomorrow, I probably wouldn't start with "herding cattle", but Herdling takes the idea and expands it into a mystical, uncanny world filled with fantastic beasts and terrifying foes.

Your role is simple: finding, taming, caring for, and guiding a herd of great calico-patterned horned beasts called Calicorns and ushering them to the mountain's peak. Along the way, you'll encounter various puzzles, obstacles, and foes.

From its painterly art style to its rich, emotive music, the world of Herdling is vivid and expansive, and delightful to explore thanks to a decent variety of mechanics in each level and plenty to discover and explore.

You'll traverse verdant fields, discover abandoned man-made structures, both modern and mystical, and cross treacherous woods and mountain climes to reach the summit. While it's not terribly long, offering 4-6 hours of gameplay, Herdling is littered with collectibles and discoverable content, making for a good amount of replayability.

Seen, but not herd

The game opens in a seemingly deserted city, as the protagonist awakens on the streets with a seemingly singular purpose: to find and herd Calicorns. This slightly claustrophobic cityscape acts as your tutorial ground, though there's little to no instruction.

Things aren't all as they seem, though; the presence of human life is tangible everywhere in the early stages of the game, whether that's in trains hurtling past the open fields, lights flickering in buildings, or cars crossing open highways. Still, the manufactured world seems at odds with your new companions, so you dust off the concrete and head out into the open plains on your quest to reach the mountain's peak, gathering more fluffy friends along the way.

It's unclear why, bar the Calicorns, you seem to be so alone in this slightly uncanny world; Herdling asks not why, but how you'll navigate the treacherous path to the summit. And that "how" is largely dictated by your herd.

You'll find a host of Calicorns along your journey, which you can tame with a good old-fashioned head scratch and name. By standing behind them and facing in the direction you want to travel in and waving your shepherd's crook, you can steer your Calicorns and command them to stop, go, or slow down.

You can also activate stampede mode for a speed boost, which is refuelled by guiding your herd over blue flowers and increases the more Calicorns you have tamed. Performance drops are fairly frequent during stampede mode, and as you'd expect, it becomes more challenging to guide your flock at high speeds.

In narrower portions of the map, navigation can be frustrating, especially as you collect more Calicorns, and there were more than a few moments where I feared I'd never safely negotiate the herd out of some slightly jammy corners. On the one hand, that could be by design, but I'm never a fan of chance taking the reins.

You'll find yourself inventing all kinds of methods to keep your herd compact and controlled, but sometimes even pausing their motion can't stop the scamps from going on walkabouts. After all, they are wild animals.

Until you find your dream

The game is largely linear, but that doesn't make your journey easy; you'll have to decide on the best paths to take, navigate in and out of some tight spots with your growing, occasionally mischievous herd, and care for them to ensure they survive their passage – and yes, that does mean they can die.

Upon taking damage, the Calicorns' vibrant coat, often dusted with petals from running amidst the flower fields and storing up stampede powers, will become slick with blood, a wound you can only heal by scrambling about the map level in search of berries to feed your friends. There is also an Immortal mode for the faint of heart; thankfully, in my first playthrough, I didn't need it.

Nobody wants to ruin a perfect run with a herd member's passing, but it's doubly heartbreaking when you factor in how personable and cute these creatures are. Each has a unique design, with different horn shapes, sizes, and ages, expressed through their quizzical and expressive wide red eyes.

Some even have personality traits that play out as you rest in camp between levels. Needy Calicorns will follow you around camp until they receive affection, while playful ones will try to engage you in a game of fetch. It's incredibly charming and raises the stakes in the game overall.

(Image credit: Okomotive)

(Image credit: Okomotive)

(Image credit: Okomotive)

(Image credit: Okomotive)

As the game progresses, the world expands to include more mysticism. Ancient monuments and grand structures become the backdrop for your quest, and the farther you climb, the more enchanting the world becomes; and the farther you feel from the vaguely post-apocalyptic vibes in the earlier game levels as your protagonist becomes increasingly enmeshed with their herd.

There are environmental threats at different levels, including spiky surfaces and even ice calving beneath your Calicorn's feet (or hooves? You can't really see them...), but the real fear factor comes from the cryptid-esque giant owls that seem to have a real taste for Calicorn.

These are the primary antagonists in Herdling, but their menace takes various forms. From high-stakes stealth navigation through the birds' nest to high-speed chases as they snipe at you from the air, these great beasts pose a genuinely terrifying threat to your herd.

You can really appreciate the calmer moments in the game in contrast to the terror, though. The great, sprawling landscapes are gorgeous, and the soft-touch sound design wonderfully captures the emotion of every moment. Activating stampede mode launches a tremendous Galop-esque burst of sound and color, where more peaceful moments feature little more than the sounds of nature and the sprinkling of keys.

Of course, as Herdling is an indie title, it does lack polish in areas; animations are occasionally a bit awkward, especially as Calicorns descend slopes, and tight or enclosed spaces can be challenging to navigate. That's especially true as your herd grows, which may well be by design, but if you're playing using a controller like I did on my Switch 2, you might find yourself in peril (or just fiddling with herd positioning) more often than you'd like, which can impact the pace of the game.

Still, I really enjoyed my time as a Calicorn shepherd. The game hints at themes of homeship, nature, found family, death, and rebirth, giving the player ample perspectives through which to enjoy its wordless narrative. Herdling cleverly implements its key herding mechanic but offers enough ways to play and explore that players of all ages and skillsets can enjoy this minimalist yet profound odyssey to find a new home.

Should I play Herdling?

Play it if…

Don’t play it if…

Accessibility features

Herdling has a handful of dedicated accessibility settings. You can toggle controller vibration, sprint, auto-run, display HUD, herding direction indicator, Calicorn immortality, and button holds. There are no dialogue lines, but there are various language settings for the menus and tutorial.

How I reviewed Herdling

I played through Herdling twice (10 hours) on Nintendo Switch 2 using both the Pro Controller, Joy-Con 2, and handheld mode.

During my time with the game, I compared my experience with other indie titles, especially those launched on Switch 2, making certain to note any issues with performance or game quality.

First reviewed August 2025