Hawthorn Preview

Fans of survival sandboxes can count themselves lucky: at least a couple of new releases show up on popular launchers every month. Some try to offer something new, while others simply copy a proven formula with minimal innovation. The latest entry in the genre — Hawthorn — bills itself as an "RPG sandbox from developers at Bethesda, BioWare, and Naughty Dog," set in an original setting: a charming fantasy world of talking animals. We played through the short demo presented to the public at the latest Steam festival and are here to tell you what direction the creators have in mind.

Before going into detail, let's get one important thing straight. Right now, Hawthorn is not an early alpha or even a full playable demo — the developers refer to the current build as a Proof-of-Concept Demo. In their development logs they mention that this version was originally intended to show a publisher how the project is progressing, and was only afterward made available to players as well.

In practice, this means roughly the following: what's available is only a small sliver of the full picture — essentially a tech demo that gives a surface-level look at the project's core mechanics. Our thoughts, based on what we got from the experience, will therefore be very measured — it's highly likely that a great deal will change over the course of development.

Hawthorn begins with a character creation screen — simple and unassuming. Here you pick one of three animal types — mouse, otter, or owl — and do minimal cosmetic customization, adjusting color and size. If you enjoy games where you get to play as different kinds of animals, take a look at our selection of the best adventure games on PC, PS5, Xbox, and Switch.

Each critter has asymmetric mechanics: the owl can fly, the otter can swim, and the mouse can ride on members of other species. On top of that, only land animals can use tools — the owl lacks that option. Right now, because of the small amount of available content, these differences feel minimal, since the game has an option to recruit NPC companions of other species to take advantage of their strengths. The class asymmetry baked into Hawthorn will likely shine most in co-op.

After choosing a species, the player configures their critter's traits — you can pick one perk from a list for free, but each additional one must be "balanced" by a negative trait of your choosing. You can also simply stick with just the first positive trait. The options here are fairly simple: more inventory slots, more stamina or health, better food satiation, and so on. The negative perks are the same thing, just with a minus sign.

The story setup goes like this: a small animal settlement has a festival coming up in a day. In preparation, the kingdom's critter representatives kick off a multi-step preparation process: gathering resources, cooking food, arranging decorations and other useful structures. These tasks fall to the player.

If you've played even one survival sandbox before, Hawthorn's core mechanic will feel elementary: gather resources, craft useful items from them, then gather more complex resources and craft higher-quality items. Repeat until the credits roll. For more fully-realized games in the genre, check out our roundup: Survival Games on PC: Top 65+ Picks for 2026.

But since this is a very early demo, the current progression chain is limited to the bare minimum of available resources, tools, and structures. Hawthorn doesn't even have an ending yet.

One of Hawthorn's interesting features is settlement management. It's hard to call it fully-fledged management just yet, but the seeds are there. For projects where settlement building and development are more deeply realized, check out our top of survival and building games. None of the NPCs stand around as static dummies: the critters move between locations, finish laying out blueprints for placed buildings, gather items, and deposit them in a central storage. On a special notice board, quests from the residents appear — delivery orders for various resources. You can also set up crafting queues for all sorts of items there.

Small things — pebbles or mushrooms, for instance — go straight into the player's inventory. Bigger items, like branches, need to be physically carried (in their paws!) to the storage. Complex crafting doesn't exist yet — just a couple of workbenches for converting one set of supplies into another, a variety of food types, and decorative items for sprucing up your corner of the world.

Only one small location is available in the demo — an autumn forest filled with charming Victorian-style cottages. You can enter every building, but beyond the ability to place decorations inside, there's no functional use for them yet.

The game currently has no health bar visualization, as there are no threats — no enemies or environmental hazards. But some of the traits available at character creation hint that something like that may arrive later. There's also no hunger, thirst, or other status effects familiar from survival games. There is a stamina bar, which depletes during sprinting and jumping — and for the owl, flying as well. If the character goes without sleep for too long, the maximum stamina decreases.

In the middle of the forest sits a large lake. If you're playing as the owl or otter (or have recruited one into your party), you can fish there for later cooking and crafting into various dishes. Fans of that pastime should check out our selection of the best hunting games on PC and consoles, which also covers fishing. In the corners of the location you can find and tame snails — they'll follow your character around as decorative pets. Food and sleep grant buffs to the player, but their descriptions aren't shown yet. This is probably just a placeholder for the future.

Given how bare-bones and modest the demo is, it's hard to draw firm conclusions — but we'll try. Are there interesting mechanics and potential here in Hawthorn? Definitely: even the core idea of playing as an animal with corresponding abilities in a survival setting could be developed into something appealing and enjoyable. Everything suggests Hawthorn is designed as a cozy game to unwind with after a long day. The settlement management mechanic supports this: if the developers build on the existing foundation properly, the project definitely has a future.

But is it worth checking out right now? Honestly, no: at its current stage Hawthorn is hard to call a complete game — it really does feel more like a technical demonstration of a work in progress. The numerous visual and gameplay bugs deserve only brief mention: it's expected that they exist, and there are plenty.

But if the genre appeals to you and the chosen setting speaks to you, Hawthorn is well worth adding to your wishlist to follow news about its development.