Raw Fury Announces Hillthorn, a Dark Investigation Game for PC

Published Jul 9, 2026, 9:00 AM EDT

Linda Güster is a Contributor at DualShockers and a German, UK-based gaming journalist specializing in video games, esports, industry analysis, features, lists, reviews, interviews, and news. She has been writing professionally since 2020 and began covering video games and esports in 2025, turning a lifelong passion into her professional focus.

Before joining DualShockers, Linda worked as content lead for Esports Insider DACH and The Escapist Magazine Germany. She previously worked in software engineering and digital media, giving her a strong technical background and the ability to explain complex systems clearly. Across her career, she has written thousands of news pieces and covered gaming culture, esports, technology, and broader industry developments.

A child has gone missing. You've been sent to find them. The mountain's trails are mazelike, time is running out, and the locals – referred to as the Flock – have no particular interest in helping an outsider. That's the setup, and it's one that already has a very specific atmosphere to it before you've even considered the mechanics.

Everything Happens Through Cards

The general gameplay is probably one of the most distinct things about Hillthorn, and if you're into new and fresh concepts, you're going to love this one. Every single detail of the story is revealed through Clue cards. You investigate them, explore them, and in some cases communicate with them. There are no conversations, no cutscenes, no text boxes from NPCs. The mystery unfolds entirely through what these cards carry and how you interact with them.

That's a pretty unusual choice, and it changes what kind of game this is quite significantly from what you would first expect after hearing about the story. Drawing information out of a reluctant community without any dialogue to rely on means the design has to do a lot of work to convey personality, reluctance, and hidden meaning. Whether Fool Moon can pull that off is the more interesting open question hanging over this announcement. It's a concept that could be quietly brilliant or quietly frustrating, and there's not enough shown yet to know which.

The clock is ticking. There are too many threads and too little time. Something seems to want you to revisit untrodden paths, though the cost of doing so hasn't been explained yet. That last detail is the one that really caught my attention, because it implies a loop structure that's more interesting than a simple deadline.

The idea that returning somewhere has a consequence, that the mystery actively pushes back against repetition, suggests Hillthorn is trying to build pressure from a different direction than most games in this space.

Whilst we don't know much about how it works in practice, the implication is that you'll need to be deliberate about where you spend your time, and that being thorough and being fast are probably not both possible at once. For an investigation game built around cards, that trade-off could be really compelling.

Raw Fury Has Been Building Towards Something

It's worth having a look at where exactly Hillthorn lines up within Raw Fury's recent catalog. Blue Prince was one of the most talked-about puzzle games in recent memory. The Seance of Blake Manor extended that interest in atmospheric, eerie investigation. Hillthorn makes it three, and at this point this is clearly a pretty deliberate direction rather than coincidence. Raw Fury has always had a strong instinct for distinctive moods, and their broader catalog – Norco, Cassette Beasts, Sable, the Kingdom series – consistently reflects a publisher that looks for games with a very specific identity.

Hillthorn fits that profile cleanly. A wordless investigation on a mountain where nobody wants to talk to you is a very clear pitch, and I mean that as a compliment. The best indie announcements tend to know exactly what they are from the very first description, and this one does.

No release date yet, and more details are promised soon. For now, the Steam wishlist is live, and this is absolutely one worth keeping track of. And for those of you who just can’t get enough yet, there is also a trailer you can watch to sweeten the wait time, and a demo to start investigating.