Nothing soothes the soul like a little woodland creature acting like it's people. If you're suffering from a midweek slump, try it yourself: Imagine a mouse. Now imagine he's got little clothes and he's sipping a tiny mouse soup from an acorn cap. Good, yeah? It's the infallible logic behind the success of Frog and Toad, Redwall, Magic's recent Bloomburrow set—and it's the delight that NEARstudios, a team of former Bethesda, BioWare, and Naughty Dog devs, are hoping to capture in Hawthorn.
Hawthorn is NEARstudios' upcoming life sim and sandbox RPG, featuring anthropomorphic woodland animals working to rebuild an abandoned trading post into a functioning village for little owls with hats and otters who drink tiny cups of rodent ale. The studio has been posting short glimpses of early development gameplay on its X account throughout the last few months, but Hawthorn got its first proper reveal yesterday with a gameplay trailer published on YouTube.
