There have always been games with dark or gloomy themes, but with the advent of Steam and the aggressive growth of the indie sector more generally, these types of titles are more abundant than ever. Games like Disco Elysium and that Frostpunk franchises, for example, serve as much-needed counterweights to the more polished, sanitized offerings in the AAA space. Their focus on topics such as war, drug use and poverty is mostly avoided by more mainstream or mass appeal projects.
Hollow home looks to follow in the footsteps of these more thoughtful and ethically complex titles, with developer Twigames Inc explicitly naming Disco Elysium and Planescape: Torment as major influences. The game follows a Ukrainian teenager named Maksym as he comes to terms with Russia's invasion of his homeland. It adopts an isometric camera perspective and oil painting-inspired art design (it might be there Hollow home is its most Disco Elysium), giving it a beautiful yet subdued, damaged atmosphere. Needless to say, the game's narrative and aesthetic features are only the tip of the iceberg, because Hollow home aims to tell a confronting and uncomfortable story about war and its toll on ordinary people, making it one of the more emotionally challenging games to release on Steam this year.
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Hollow Home is a choice-based RPG about life during wartime
In February 2022, Russia launched a siege against the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, returning eight years after the first attempt to capture it alongside Crimea. Mariupol, an important industrial center and coastal resort, was highly sought after by Putin's administration: the city was not only critical to Ukraine's steel and agricultural industries, but also served as a land border between the Russian-occupied territories of Donbas and Crimea, making it a valuable target for Russian forces. After a three-month operation that Red Cross officials described as “apocalyptic,” Ukraine's army surrendered. As of 2026, Russia still occupies the city, which has reportedly been 90% destroyed.
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It is against this outrageous, recent background that Hollow home takes place. Beginning on the eve of the Mariupol invasion, Hollow home eases players into a false sense of security – the same volatile feeling that many of Mariupol's citizens may have felt during this time – as protagonist Maksym prepares for a few days at home without his parents. Young, alone, and without a hint of practical survival skills or meaningful resources, Maksym is forced to explore the doomed city, forming alliances, gathering resources, and solving new problems as they arise.
Twigames has said so Hollow homeThe story can branch off in a number of different directions depending on the player's decisions, indicating that this type of choice-based structure will form the bulk of the game's interactive elements. However, Hollow home also gestures towards some other systems and mechanics. For example, you can collect various items, upgrade skills like athletics and companionship, and manage Action Points to complete important tasks like cooking. These ideas are introduced in a Hollow home demo currently available on Steam, but only a full walkthrough will determine how much they actually evolve and inform the overall experience.
Hollow Home offers a much-needed alternative to traditional depictions of war in games
One of the reasons I love Metal Gear Solid games is that, despite containing action and violence, they ultimately offer a very nuanced, worthy anti-war message. Apart from anomalies like Spec Ops: The LineI can't think of many other video games that actually have anything interesting or worthwhile to say about war. This isn't even about taking a moral stance against war (which I do) – war video game franchises like Call of Duty and Battlefield say nothing of value on their subject, reducing warfare to cheap and pointless entertainment.
This is not good, which is why it's so important that the independent scene continues to explore topics like war in an additive and respectful way. War can provide some opportunities for heroism (but through whose eyes?) but it's kind of weird that that's how IP likes Call of Duty identify as what military operations are most about, so to speak; it's as if these comics believe that action, heroism, adventure, and even fun are the main takeaways from war.
This is demonstrably untrue, and games like Hollow home serve as poignant reminders of this fact. In modern conflicts, such as those in Ukraine and Palestine, the most affected are often not the soldiers on the battlefield. It is the ordinary civilians, with jobs, homes, pets and so on, who are disenfranchised, disenfranchised and impotent. The first casualty of war is justice for ordinary people. You don't need a meticulous, well-researched report to tell you this – a conversation with someone who has experienced one of these conflicts will make it clear enough. Artwork that Hollow homewhich specifically focuses on the devastation that war brings to an innocent child, can accomplish something similar.
