I get the fantasy of living off the grid. The older I get, the more complicated things become. It’s not even that my schedule clogs with things that are unfulfilling or bad. Life just gets hectic with having to meet expectations, deadlines, and goals.
The balancing act feels even more unmanageable when throwing in the needs of others. Soccer practice, grading endless papers, consoling a loved one, forcing my eyes open during a work meeting – whatever it is, it all compounds when you’ve got others involved. The spinning plates get passed towards me, one by one, on what seems like a dozen sticks. Suddenly my hand is tied behind my back and then…
I really would not mind taking a long, long break from it all, disconnected, in the woods, where my only interruptions are the soft sway of trees, birds’ chirps, and the infrequent cracking of a twig from an animal scuttling by.
Hermit and Pig starts in this fantasy. You’re just an old guy in the woods with a pig companion. Heck, you’ve got matching glasses and beanies. You’ve got all the time in the world to lounge about, poke around the woods for snacks, and nap under the shade of a tree. It’s nice. The slow, peaceful isolation welcomes Hermit’s small asides and mutterings to Pig as you laze about the starting area of the game. The game invites a leisurely pace, and you feel alone in the never-ending stretch of trees. At one stage you’re reminded that there’s an outside to your bubble, and maybe it’s time you gave something to the greater community.
From that point onwards, Hermit and Pig hit the gas and never let up.
It’s a thoroughly quixotic ride from start to finish as Hermit and his lovable pig pal battle their way through a world in chaos. What struck me was just how thematically similar Hermit and Pig are to the first modern novel, Don Quixote, first published in 1605. Both tales feature an elderly man and sidekick extraordinaire that are forced to reconcile the madness in a world that constantly questions them and what kind of justice is required for peaceful living. Sometimes that hero is a persona non grata, and sometimes it can only be the outcast whose outsider perspective creates the necessary shake-up to sift out a solution from a stubborn problem.
By the time I was done with Hermit and Pig, I was happily dizzy from the many loops along the main path forward. The narrative starts with subtle environmentalist themes and then outright explodes with razor-claw precise satire on the current political climate. The narrative explores the story of a community crushed by narrow-minded and greedy capitalists, profiteering off a factory closure in a small town. Hermit and Pig rise to the challenge before them, setting aside their quiet life to support a disquieted community.
The road from humble hermit forager to the people’s champion is blocked with many battles. But it’s this battle system that punctuates the game’s introspective narrative. I loved the fights in this game, even if towards the end they got a bit tedious. It’s got three iterations: Combo, Simple, and Story.
In the first mode, you have to figure out which attack from a list of half a dozen or so will hit for the most damage. Your cues come from the enemy’s posture or Pig’s spy ability. If they are crouched, that implies a defensive position, or they’ll only take damage from low attacks. If flying, maybe it’ll take a slap to get them to the ground when you can next stomp them. Enemy positions may shift during your turn, so if you take too long in determining which attack to use, you may end up using the wrong one with negative consequences. But wait! There’s more! In order to successfully land an attack, you must input the correct button combination. These combos range from 3 to 7 sets of inputs. Add to the pile the status conditions, defending options, and super abilities; there’s a lot to manage.
If you’re starting to get overwhelmed, so was I. So, I kicked it down to the simple mode. There are still plenty of moving parts to juggle, but not having to worry about combo inputs recentred the focus on figuring out which kind of attacks I needed to land. It was a small adjustment, but it lessened the amount of processing my brain required while retaining the right level of challenge for me.
In the final mode, you don’t have to figure out which attack will hit for the most optimal damage. Hermit and Pig handles this difficulty beautifully, with an innovative way to shave down mechanics that can feel too additive or energy-consuming, making for an experience that you have a lot of control over. Add to the mix traditional hard, normal, and easy difficulty modes, and we’re cooking with gas. Playing on Story, the most optimal attack is your only option for attack. You’ll be left with just the Quick Time Events.
You better stretch your thumbs and fingers before booting up Hermit and Pig, though. Look up some YouTube tutorials on quickening your reaction time. Every mini-game will demand you click the icons or letters on the right side of your controller in a successively rapid timing to maximise your boosts and combos. The mini-games are capped; skill will only carry so far.
There’s no obligation to master these mini-games; I definitely never did, but the boosts gained are welcome. They substitute the stats earned in traditionally designed RPGs. In Hermit and Pig, levelling up doesn’t do anything for character stats. It nets you one trinket point, which you’ll fill up quickly with the game’s many, many passive items. If you want better stats, it’s all about what trinkets you equip. I ended Hermit and Pig at level 12, which gave me a lot of room to arrange and rearrange my trinkets to make builds or slight battle adjustments. Trinkets occupy 1, 2, or 3 points. It’ll require some dedicated sleuthing to discover them, around 30 or so, but in a fairly straightforward playthrough I had amassed plenty to shift gears as both Hermit and Pig gained abilities.
Gameplay is couched in easy-to-read, minimalist pixel art design with soft colours. Hermit and Pig is visually legible. It’s a breeze to navigate its world and a joy to talk with its many characters whose togetherness was questionable at best. Hermit and Pig’s humour landed with an incredible success rate. My playthrough had me laughing to myself often, especially in the conversation battles. These are scaled-down, dialogue-based encounters with people. There’s no damage. Well, unless you select a cringe option, then Hermit takes emotional damage. Hermit suffers from social anxiety, and he’d struggle in some interactions. The developers carefully handled his anxiety throughout the game, not making it the butt of a joke but a tasteful vehicle for comic scenarios to unfold. A few times Hermit uses this to his advantage to subvert enemy expectations. Other times, you witness the cruelty of people who underestimate his capabilities.
Hermit and Pig was a game I had high on my list for 2026 releases. It delivered in spades. While the random encounters and some chase sequences would slow the game’s pacing in some sections, the vast majority of my playtime passed by without a hitch. In just under 6 hours, I was able to explore much of what Heavy Lunch Studio’s debut offered, with a wide smile across my face.
