A Highland Song, the beautiful “open platforming” adventure from Heaven’s Vault and 80 Days developer Inkle, is almost here and will be launching for Switch and PC on 5th December.
A Highland Song tells the story of teenager Moira McKinnon who one day decides to run away from her life of relative seclusion in a small house on the edge of the Scottish Highlands, after recieving a letter from her Uncle Hamish, inviting her to his lighthouse on the coast.
What follows is yet another genre shift for the ever-ambitious Inkle. This time, the acclaimed studio – which has previously dabbled in the likes of visual novels, turn-based strategy, exploratory adventuring, and murder mystery – is combining its acclaimed narrative expertise with 2.5D platforming, as Moira sets off on a journey across the Highlands, where “every peak has a story to tell and every valley echoes with song.”
Moira will climb hills, scale cliffs, slide down slopes, and spelunk caves as her adventure progresses – the environment forming itself to match the folk rhythms of a soundtrack provided by Talisk and Fourth Moon at certain points – and she’ll also need to shelter from rain and wind, and watch her hunger, in order to survive the Highlands’ “wilderness of paths, peaks, shortcuts, dangers, and song.”