Hollowbound Realms
A Bonesinger with an antlered skull mask and a glowing staff faces a draugr and a great black wolf at a snowbound crypt under the northern lights.

A Norse action RPG

Hollowbound Realms

The barrow hills are breathing a curse, the land calls for a hero.

Six classes, a cold land, and everything that has woken within it: the risen dead and Jötunn, cursed by a mire that drowns the living. Journey alone, or with friends in an online realm.

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The Hollow North

The last warm hearth in a cold valley

The Hollow North is a valley ringed by mountains, running from snowbound pinewoods to a black coast and a red desert pass. Its last warm hearth is Winter Holt, a palisaded settlement on the shore of an icy lake. Eirik, its gate-warden, used to keep the gate as a formality. Now he bars it at dusk and listens.

“The barrow past the old graveyard, north up the Grave Road, where a cave goes down into the hill. It has started to breathe again.”Eirik, Gate-Warden

You came back over the west pass and slept like the dead once you were inside the walls. Yrsa, the holt's bonewise healer, knows you for one of the old blood, a people she thought had gone south with the ships.

What follows is one long road out from the holt: down into the barrow, up onto the knoll where masked things chant to the Jötunn, along a shore where the tide comes in wrong, through a black mire and up a river into a sunlit dale, to a desert pass where something has been calling the North's wild things home.

A huntress looses an arrow as the dead climb out of the snow in a moonlit graveyard, a skull-masked Bonesinger and a frost-mage fighting behind her.
Helgrind Cemetery, north up the Grave Road.

Six classes

Choose who comes back over the pass

Each class has three specializations of ten skills, its own weapons, its own resource and its own attributes, and its own figure on foot and on the ram.

The six classes side by side: Berserkr, Bonesinger, Fenrikin, Rimecaller, Nattfari and Runeward.
The Berserkr: a braided warrior in bear fur.

Berserkr

Bear-shirt of the Shieldwall

RageAxes · swords · shields

A raging warrior who builds Rage from every foe he fells and spends it on crushing axe blows, roars and leaps.

  • WrathTwo-handed bearded axe
    Cleaves through whole ranks: stunning chops, leaps into the press, an execute for the wounded.
  • BearAxe or sword with a shield
    Roars that drag foes onto him, a hide that turns blows, wounds that close as he fights.
  • FuryAn axe in each hand
    Quick bleeding cuts, thrown axes, a frenzy that builds with every swing, a whirlwind of iron.

SignatureCleaving Blow · Wolf-Leap · Bear-Kin · Throwing Axes · Whirlwind · Red Mist · Einherjar's Wrath

The Bonesinger: an antlered stag skull over a hooded face.

Bonesinger

Spirit-caller of the Barrow

ÖndStaff · wand · rod · tome

A spirit-caller who mends the fallen and fights with soul magic or with the dead themselves.

  • SorcerySoul magic
    The staff up close, bolts of spirit at range, a pyre that burns a crowd, phantom beasts of fire.
  • BloodboneBlood and bone
    A strike that drinks what it cuts, spears of bone through whole lines, armour of bone.
  • GravecallingMinions
    Grave-fire bolts, skeletal thralls raised to fight beside you, the fallen made to burst.

SignatureSoul Bolt · Soul Pyre · Raise Thrall · Blood Hydra · Hel's Knell · Soul Tempest · Army of Hel

The Fenrikin: a huntress with a wolf pelt over her shoulders.

Fenrikin

Wolf-Sister of the Northern Woods

FocusBow

A huntress of the wolf-blood who strikes from afar: arrows that pierce and bleed, traps laid in the foe's path, and a wolf at her side.

  • MarksmanThe long shot
    Precise shots that pierce whole lines, aimed shots, volleys that darken the sky.
  • PackmasterThe wolf at her side
    The pack answers her call, while her arrows bleed and slow their prey.
  • TrapperSnares and venom
    Spikes, fire and poison laid where the foe must walk, and arrows that tangle.

SignaturePiercing Shot · Call the Wolf · Snare Trap · Grey Brother · Rain of Arrows · Fenrir's Call · Skyfall Volley

The Rimecaller: a grey-bearded sorcerer in a fur-collared cloak.

Rimecaller

Storm-Speaker of the Ice Fjords

ÖndStaff · wand · rod · tome

A sorcerer of the frozen north: ice that slows and shatters, lightning that leaps from foe to foe, and the tide that drowns enemies and heals wounds.

  • FrostIce
    Shards and lances that slow and freeze, ground turned to rime, hail that batters a whole pack.
  • StormLightning
    Bolts that leap foe to foe, thunder that stuns, and the wind to ride where he will.
  • TideWater
    Drowning waves and whirlpools that drag the foe down, and healing mists that keep him standing.

SignatureFrost Lance · Chain Lightning · Healing Mist · Ice Comet · Hailstorm · Thor's Wrath · Deluge

The Nattfari: a hooded, masked figure in violet-black leather.

Nattfari

Night-Farer of the Hidden Roads

ShadowA dagger in each hand

An assassin who walks unseen: twin daggers that bleed the foe dry, strikes out of the shadows, and venoms that finish what the blade began.

  • BladesTwin daggers
    Flurries too quick to follow, wounds that bleed the foe dry.
  • ShadowThe dark
    A step through the dark to strike, ambushes from nowhere, the night worn like a cloak.
  • VenomPoison
    Poisoned blades and knives, choking clouds, acids that eat at the foe long after the blow.

SignatureEviscerate · Shadow Strike · Toxic Dagger · Blade Dance · Smoke Bomb · Death Blossom · Nightfall · Hel's Breath

The Runeward: a bearded warden in mail and a bronze-trimmed cloak.

Runeward

Oath-Sworn Warden of the Runestones

ÖndSword and shield

A holy guardian behind sword and shield who holds the line, calls down light to smite foes and mend wounds, and cuts runes of power into steel and stone.

  • GuardThe shield
    Foes called to face him, wards that soak the blows, iron that bites back.
  • LightHoly smites
    Light called down from the sky, hallowed ground, and a light that mends his wounds.
  • RuneRunecraft
    Runes cut into blade, shield and the ground itself, to bind, ward and break his foes.

SignatureShield Slam · Hollowed Smite · Rune of Binding · Shield Charge · Healing Light · Aegis of Asgard · Dawnbreaker · Ragnarök Rune

World Realm 1 (Beta Details)

From a haunted barrow to a fortress in the sands

Wake the Realmway's standing stones to travel between them, and take the boats upriver and along the coast. Most dungeons are laid out anew each time you go in.

A parchment map of the Hollow North: mountains to the north and south, pinewoods, a lake with Winter Holt, a river running east to the coast, and the fields and red pass in the north-east.
  1. Winter HoltThe town: traders, trainers, the stash, the Realmway
    Town
  2. Helgrind Cemeteryand the Barrow of the Sleepless beneath it
    Lv 2–3
  3. Myrkholt Knolland the Brood Nest, the Spider Queen's cave
    Lv 4–7
  4. Náströndthe Corpse Shore, and Rán's Hollow below it
    Lv 7–10
  5. Svartmýrthe black mire, and Villuhöll, the hall of illusions
    Lv 11–16
  6. Árdalrthe river dale, and the Goblin Warren
    Lv 11–18
  7. Sólvellirthe sunlit fields, and Svartborg, the Elf King's castle
    Lv 18–23
  8. Sandgil and Galtaborgthe desert pass, and the Lord of Swine's fortress at its head
    Lv 23–25
  9. Echoes of the Barrowonce the realm is won
    Lv 28–30
  10. The Maraan illusionary labyrinth of every zone with a boss
    Lv 10+
Heroes fight skeletons among the gravestones under a full moon.
Helgrind Cemetery“This place looks nothing like it used to…”
A great maddened bear charges heroes across a rocky rise at dusk, a masked shaman behind it.
Myrkholt Knoll“Everything is strung with web.”
Giant spiders and skeletons swarm heroes in a torch-lit crypt.
The Brood NestWhere the Spider Queen waits.
Heroes wade through black swamp water as giant toads rise around them, a stilt house behind.
Svartmýr“Trees that drowned standing up.”

What makes this game unique

Something waiting in every zone

The Mara

A higher-difficulty illusionary labyrinth version of a completed zone, unlocked with a dropped key from defeating a zone boss. Foes twice as deadly, the boss's loot rolled two to five times; alone or with your party.

Parties of up to four

Foes stand at your strongest hero's level and grow tougher for each friend, so mixed levels play together and every fight counts. Loot stays your own.

Loot worth reading

Tiers from common to Epic-Forged, rolled bonuses, gems, runes and sockets. Every class finds weapons of its own, from the barrow to the last boss.

Gather and forge

Mine copper and tin, fell the trees, fish the lakes. Sindri smelts the bronze, and bronze becomes Epic-Forged gear made for your level.

Ride the ram

From level 20 the Large Tamed Ram carries you across open country at nearly three times walking pace. Every class rides its own figure.

A realm to share

Trade face to face, list on Ragna's Market, find a party, chat, and take on three Daily Challenges every day.

A view that turns

The isometric camera turns in quarter steps, so every place can be seen from four sides, and most dungeons are laid out anew on every visit.

A rare in every zone

A rare boss on every visit, cairn encounters, shrines of four kinds, ore veins, trees to fell and fish to catch.

Its own engine

Hollowbound Realms runs on its own home-made game engine named Scratch, built from scratch in C++20 with SDL3 and OpenGL. Made by a single engine and game developer/director (John B. a.k.a. “sloopy”), built in coordination with a team of frontier AI models including those from Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX.

The beta

Take the Grave Road north

The whole of World Realm 1 is free-to-play, just install the game client and join now!

  1. Download the gameFor Windows or Linux; macOS is coming soon. It's free to play.
  2. Make an accountIn the game: PLAY ONLINE, an email and a password. We email you a code to confirm it.
  3. Step out of the holtPick a class and a specialization, and bring up to three friends.
Download for Windows v1.0.24b
Download for Linux v1.0.24b
macOS Coming Soon

Windows: run HollowboundRealmsSetup.exe. It downloads the game, keeps it up to date, and adds it to your Start menu. Windows may say it protected your PC from an unrecognised app: choose More info, then Run anyway.

Linux (Ubuntu 24.04 or newer): paste this into a terminal, or download the AppImage above and allow it to run as a program in its Properties.

wget -qO- https://dl.hollowboundrealms.com/linux/install.sh | sh

Minimum potato requirements:

Windows
Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit
Linux
Ubuntu 24.04 or newer, 64-bit
macOS
Coming soon, for Apple silicon and Intel Macs
Graphics
A graphics card with OpenGL 4.1
Online
An internet connection for online play. Found a bug? or can't play? Hit “Feedback” in-game or contact us here.