The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow

Genre: Graphic Adventure

Players: 1

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Review:

The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow, released in 2022 on PC and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2023, is a Graphic Adventure game with some Horror elements set in and around the fictitious rural Victorian England town of Bewlay that has players following Thomasina Bateman, a grave robber antiquarian seeking to document the country’s barrows (ancient underground gravesites – think hobbit holes for ancient dead people). Thomasina has been summoned to Bewlay by one of the townsfolk to investigate the town’s nearby barrow, the titular Hob’s Barrow.

Upon arriving, Thomasina is met with suspicion and hostility by most of the local townsfolk, who distrust the outside world and Thomasina by extension, but are also superstitious and wary of anyone seeking to unearth such an unholy site. What’s more, the man who invited her is nowhere to be found, Thomasina begins having strange and unsettling dreams, and other strange events seem to be happening around the town.

While in theory I like the dark and paranoid atmosphere this setup builds, in practice this still needs to work as a game, and this same great tone causes problems, in a genre where you need to ask questions to solve puzzles, but virtually everyone is not only refusing to offer anything helpful, but is also extremely unpleasant.

It wouldn’t be quite so bad if the game did a better job with signposting, but often you’ll be given no leads to follow, no direction to guide you, simply left to your devices to search the town and its outskirts, look for anything that might help you without knowing what that looks like, and often explore every dialogue tree with characters who are actively trying to stonewall you, just in case something you encounter progresses the plot. It’s exhausting.

It’s a shame too, because the atmosphere in this game is outstanding, using a mix of detailed 2D pixel art visuals in a few different styles ranging from LucasArts-style chunky pixels to something that looks to be rotoscoped, the game succeeds at being both familiar and unsettling all at once. What’s more, this is joined by some truly excellent writing, absolutely phenomenal voice acting, and a nice subdued soundtrack that does an excellent job of building the dramatic tension and really giving you the sense of this being a small and reclusive rural community.

In the end, I think The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow’s better qualities outweigh its negative ones, but I would argue that if at all possible, you’ll want to play this game while using a walkthrough guide to avoid the frustration of trying to figure out just what the heck the game wants you to do. If you can do that, or if you don’t mind a game where you really have to dig (ha) to figure out just what the heck you need to do, I think you’ll find this game to be a Graphic Adventure worth trying.

tl;dr – The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow is a Graphic Adventure game with Horror elements set in a rural British Victorian town where an archeologist seeks the titular Hob’s Barrow. The game’s creepy atmosphere is wonderful, and the presentation is great, but the way the game makes it difficult to figure out what you need to do next is highly frustrating. The good qualities ultimately outweigh the bad but be aware that you may want to play this with a walkthrough guide.

Grade: B-

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