DaRmaZat Developed by Brocap, a studio formed by industry veterans who previously worked on games like Mafia: The Old Country, Last Train Home, and Crime Boss: Rockay City, Hubert is a unique, narrative-driven, dog-centric adventure that won Best Game at Game Access 2026 and has undoubtedly been on the radar of many fellow dog lovers for some time. Playing as a fluffy sheepdog, you try to make the best of life alongside your young owner while working for a shepherd, but gradually, it becomes clear that the call of the wilderness will also play its part in a increasingly mysterious plot that delivers a whole tangle of emotions.
The whole adventure couldn’t get off to a more disarming start. You play as Hubert, a German Shepherd who fancies himself a proper detective, setting out for a better life alongside Lily, the teenager who rescued him from a river one night. While looking for a way to make some money, the two end up at the doorstep of an old, grumpy sheep farmer who could actually use their help, as his flock keeps breaking out of its enclosure time and time again. And so begins an adventure that is sometimes cheerful and funny, sometimes melancholic, and, for a brief while, genuinely tense and unsettling, with you, as Hubert, constantly having to prove yourself. To the sheep farmer, to your new owner Lily, but also to yourself. Proving that you really are a good sheepdog and that your nose for detective work – quite literally in this case – is the best there is.
As you might already expect, the gameplay in Hubert relies heavily on using your snout, as dogs naturally possess an extraordinary sense of smell. By holding down a button, you keep Hubert in scent mode, allowing you to see scents in all sorts of colors that you can follow to discover things invisible to the naked eye. A blue scent indicates a main lead, which often branches off into one or more leads of different colors. Following these may or may not – as sometimes they turn out to be dead ends – lead you to the desired object or relevant location.
For an in-game dog, Hubert’s animations are actually quite polished, although they cannot exactly be called feature-complete. For instance, you do not see the dog convincingly sniffing around even though you can hear the corresponding snuffling sound. It’s also not always clear where you need to go, as the scents sometimes inexplicably fail to appear. On top of that, having to hold down the scent awareness button the entire time while running is rather uncomfortable. I also found the sound effect that plays every time you switch between modes unnecessary. A silent toggle between the two modes would have been a better solution.
As expected, you will also regularly have to perform those typical sheepdog duties. This includes herding the old man’s sheep and their lambs back to his barn, but also searching for and fetching lost items such as a radio, a gas can, a crowbar, sticks, and so on. Sometimes you do this for the farmer, but quite often it is Lily who needs your help. Later on, a few stealth sections also come into play, although their execution remains very basic and far from challenging, despite the Hard option offering a slightly tougher experience.
Fortunately, there is a compelling plot lurking beneath some of the more superficial missions, gradually showing more and more of its teeth as you progress. For instance, you regularly experience those black-and-white dreams about a huge thunderstorm, during which other animals attack you as well, alongside a strange, glowing, bright-white orb that talks to you. Each time, the dream ends with you falling into the water, which is your great trauma, so your profound aversion to it makes perfect sense.
After several more discoveries of this intensely suspenseful nature, however, the narrative unfortunately begins to tread water around the middle of the roughly four-hour game. Not coincidentally, this is also where the gameplay variety starts to run dry and previously completed tasks begin to repeat themselves. During this repetitive cycle of assignments, you mainly have to drive groups of disobedient sheep, scattered across different locations, over fairly long distances towards pastures and barns to keep the wolves from getting them, while also handing planks to Lily so she can repair the fences. It feels like an artificial way of extending a game whose story has already been told. Thankfully, things improve again afterwards, with several sequences exploring Hubert’s past, followed by some nail-biting sections leading up to an exciting climax that also involves combat. Unfortunately, the execution of that aspect is once again somewhat disappointing.
Luckily, the regular humor, helped considerably by Hubert’s excellent voice acting, keeps things afloat. Hubert often has cynical thoughts and witty remarks about everything happening around him. He also likes leaving a little turd behind in places where it is less than ideal, and gets up to plenty of other typical canine antics that make you wonder whether our loyal four-legged companions might actually think about us humans far more than we realize.
With its many lovely acoustic guitar songs and piano tunes that really help convey an adventurous, journey-of-life atmosphere, Hubert also has a pretty decent soundtrack. The sound effects are richly detailed too, particularly when you are exploring the natural environment. Another surprisingly extensive feature is the built-in Photo Mode, which allows you to take some genuinely beautiful shots.
Visually, however, the graphical fidelity looks just a little too soft, even grainy, despite having everything set to Ultra. It is also worth noting that the DirectX 11 version is the recommended launch option on Steam, which does make some sense considering that, despite the game’s otherwise solid performance, it is already rather glitchy and rough around the edges when it comes to animations. Hubert or Lily can slide several feet across the ground, for instance, while inexplicable invisible walls and occasionally wonky AI pathfinding also make an appearance. Sometimes subtitle letters overlap or remain stuck on the screen, and on other occasions, you cannot immediately select a menu option with the controller, forcing you to use the mouse instead. Xbox controller inputs did not work properly either, and I eventually had to disable Steam Input myself before the game would accept my button prompts. The frame rate, on the other hand, is perfectly fine, even on Ultra, and I did not experience a single crash.
Sound effect volume is also set far too high by default compared to the rest of the audio. Very occasionally, the in-game voice language also switches to Doglish, even though English is correctly selected in the settings and reloading the checkpoint does not seem to fix it. So, when it comes to the voice language setting, do pay attention. Doglish is a kind of gibberish language in which the words sound as though they are being spoken backward. It took me a while to realize that I had the wrong setting enabled, but at the same time, it is a funny option for maximum immersion as a dog!
Final Thoughts
You can tell that Hubert was made out of love for nature, animals, and dogs in particular, including their helpful and often playful yet loving way of interacting with the world around them, humans and animals alike. At the same time, the numerous bugs and rough edges, including missing voiced lines, glitches, and heavily rushed sections towards the end, make it difficult to shake the impression that the game was not quite finished when it was released. Despite a few dips in the middle caused by repetitive gameplay chores, the game manages to hold its own thanks to excellent storytelling that gradually develops from funny and charming into something eerie and suspenseful. This provides enough emotional depth to appeal to lovers of our faithful four-legged companions and fans of narrative-driven games alike.
Additional Information
Release Date: October 14, 2026
Reviewed On: PC. Download code provided by the publisher and PR agency.
Developer: Brocap Studio s.r.o
Publisher: Brocap Studio s.r.o
Relevant Links: Available on Steam.
