Vacations are for many things: a blissful lie-in, a trip somewhere new, or a long overdue catch-up with friends or family. If you’re reading this, it’s likely that your own vacations will feature a healthy dose of gaming. But games about vacations, like Dungeons of Hinterberg, tend to be as rare as a holiday you just can’t wait to be over.

With many of us about to enjoy a winter break, we asked Microbird Games Co-Founders Philipp Seifried and Regina Reisinger exactly how they made a game about vacation. As it turns out, they desperately needed a vacation themselves when they started making their action RPG about rest and relaxation, having been stuck indoors fresh after being laid off in the midst of COVID-19.

“We were sitting at home. It was lockdown. We felt a bit burned out from the last project,” Seifried says. “We thought, ‘Wouldn't it be nice to go on vacation?’ We couldn't, so we figured we'd start working on a game that's about going on holiday!” 

We’re all going on a snowy holiday

That ambition to make a game about a snowy holiday led them to create their protagonist Luisa, a junior lawyer who, burned out by the notorious demands of her profession, decides to pack her bags, don her puffer jacket, and head to the Austrian Alps for an overdue break.

Her resort of choice is Hinterberg, renowned for stunning scenic views and its pristine lakeside location. Famous Austrian resort towns Bad Gastein and Hallstatt informed Hinterberg’s design. The moment they were freed from lockdown restrictions, Reisinger and Seifried embarked on a train tour across Austria, searching for little details that make Hinterberg such a memorable and special place. 

Reisinger describes their intent as creating “a little mini home that you can go to after work.” Its landscapes are assembled from a patchwork of their home country’s biomes, a mountain from Innsbruck here, a giant snowy expanse from the Dachstein glacier there. They weren’t just constructing an Austrian fantasy to rival The Sound of Music; they wanted to acknowledge how tourism to these locations has unintended consequences, given the millions of visitors pounding the mountain passes every year. 

“On one hand, they’re economically dependent on tourism. On the other hand, it affects your quality of life,” Reisinger says. “There are different people profiting from it. Someone who owns a restaurant is going to get very rich in a place like that; a school teacher will have a mostly negative experience.” The details matter in making a place that players (and Luisa) come to care about despite their temporary stay.

Along with swamps perhaps better suited to the lowlands of Holland, the devs added another extra ingredient they didn’t find on their travels: an infestation of rabid monsters, which leads Hinterberg to seize the opportunity and rebrand as a tourist hotspot for all sorts of adventurers.
 

A monster vacation

Even with a bunch of monsters running amok, the team doesn’t see the game’s combat-driven dungeons as breaking its cozy holiday vibes. Vacationers often go snowboarding, ziplining, or mountain climbing one day (all of which Luisa can also do) just to spend a leisurely day at the beach the day afterward.

Combat systems typically aim for intensity, but Dungeons of Hinterberg’s experience of walloping a bestiary inspired by Alpine mythology was actually designed to be relaxing. That doesn’t mean it lacks depth or character build variety, but it’s designed with care to be accessible and enjoyable—never punishing.

The game’s combat system was modeled on classic 3D The Legend of Zelda games, with both sharing a similar pace and emphasis on combat encounters that test deduction skills over reflexes. To Seifried’s dismay, some younger players mistakenly consider it a Soulslike. 

“Wind Waker was my favorite Zelda game,” he explains. “As much as I love Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, I wish for an experience like that again. Making something in that style was a beautiful thing to work on because that's the kind of game I like to play. It also fits; it's snappy and looks spectacular with the special attacks, but it's not too hard to use them.”

It could just be my childish memories of rolling around Hyrule fields and abusing vengeful chickens with carefree abandon, but the Zelda series has a quintessential holiday vibe. Seifried agrees that Zelda’s fairy tale tone, playful attitude, and rich traversal and combat systems are all present in Dungeons of Hinterberg. And above all, it preserves that sense of freedom.

The entire point of a holiday is to do what you want, released from your usual obligations. It was important to Reisinger to respect the player's freedom, even if their only desire was to do nothing at all.

“If you don't feel like doing a dungeon, you can go meditate at certain places,” she says. “And it's just the character sitting and thinking, and the day ends, and you go back to the village. That was really important to us: that you can have this vacation day where you do nothing. We were wondering if it’s good enough or interesting enough, then surprisingly it was one of the things that resonated with a lot of people.”
 

Chance meeting

Fleeting social encounters with locals and fellow tourists are often a memorable aspect of the vacation experience. Dungeons of Hinterberg took care to re-create that, with a Persona-inspired social system designed to contribute to a place that feels alive. 

“I'm not someone who's interested in every character in a game being super nice to me,” says Seifried. “From the start, we said, ‘OK, you're on vacation, you're going to meet different people. Not everybody is gonna be super likable or instantly going to want to be your best friend.’” 

Out of the game’s fond collection of oddball tourists, I consider Kai the least tolerable. The German influencer is always hunting for new material to entertain his followers, a loving dig at a sight now seen in the Austrian mountains as often as red deer grazing in Alpine pastures. 

“Nobody likes him, but I love him! He's my spirit animal,” Reisinger says.

Beyond the characters themselves, there’s a conscious rejigging of Persona’s social system at work. The same structure is there, though Dungeons of Hinterberg drops the time management aspect. You develop social bonds with characters and receive rewards, but this isn’t a game designed for min-maxers intent on seeing every arc to its conclusion—although that doesn’t stop some players from trying anyway. 

Relationship level-up rewards are intentionally hard to game, an unpredictable grab bag of bonuses. The best part of a holiday is the unexpected moments after all; this approach leans into those spontaneous surprises.

“For me, when I think about vacations and about random friendships that you make there,” says Seifried, “it's cool if someone just surprises you with who they are, how they think, how they talk to you, the moments you share. Maybe a little bit of that went into how we wanted to design the relationship trees and the almost randomness of what these people give you as a relationship level-up reward.”
 
Take a break and enjoy an Alpine excursion in Dungeons of Hinterberg, out now on the Epic Games Store.