Screenshot: Hohokum
While a big deal has been made about some old PlayStation exclusives coming to PC, like Horizon and God of War, last week no deal was made about a game with a much lower profile, but which m ‘love it regardless.
That game is Hohokum, which was first released on PlayStation 4 (and PS3 and Vita) in 2014, and remains one of the quietest video game experiences available. A collaborative work between artist Richard Hogg, developers Honeyslug and record label Ghostly, Hohokum is a beautiful 2D adventure where you play as a worm… aesthete… a thing that floats through its various levels, environment of a colorful landscape. let’s see what happens
HOHOKUM | Now available on Steam
it’s magic I love this game so much that, amidst all the hardware drama and blockbuster releases that make up our roundup of the last generation of consoles, I wrote a whole thing about this little game, which I described as perfect , regarding their ambitions.
You move a large snake around a floating landscape and sometimes bump into things and sometimes fly between things. You’re never fighting, talking, or doing much of anything.
However, for the Hohokum, these are not limitations. They are a canvas.
It’s a game that understands the links between interaction, visuals, and soundtrack to a terrifyingly perfect degree. Each is inspired and dependent on the other two, to the point that once Hohokum begins it’s almost synesthetic.
Something Hohokum is proving is also timeless. Eight years after its original release, its art style hasn’t aged a day and technically looks like it could have been released yesterday. The accompanying heavyweight soundtrack also sounds as good in 2022 as it did in 2014, no doubt helped by the fact that many of the artists involved, like Tycho, are still killing it today.
So if you haven’t had a PlayStation in a while and you’ve never had one, I can’t recommend it enough. Annapurna has released this version for PC (which, admittedly, is probably why there was less fuss than if Sony had released it), and it’s now available on Steam.