If you’re a gamer of a certain age, the phrase ‘escort mission’ is guaranteed to send shivers down your spine. It’s a gameplay mechanic that’s been largely excised from modern games and only recently made a return thanks to last year’s Resident Evil 4 Remake. But even if you’ve never played a game with an escort mission, you surely know them by reputation.

Slowly dragging an uncooperative NPC from point A to B was once a ubiquitous gameplay experience, appearing in everything from The Legend of Zelda to Grand Theft Auto. Thankfully that trend died alongside quick time events and unskippable cutscenes. Now, Swiss game studio Okomotive, known previously for Far: Changing Tides, is looking to rehabilitate the escort mission as the core mechanic in its new game, Herdlings.

It’s not as brutal as it sounds, I promise. In case you haven’therd, Herdlings is an atmospheric adventure game about herding a group of yak-like creatures on a mountainous expedition. Inspired by games like Journey and Gris, Okomotive has crafted a dialogue-free, music-driven odyssey that I found instantly resonant when I played it at PAX West earlier this month.

The entire game is one long escort mission in the most literal sense, but you won’t have to lead your lumbering beasts (called calicorns) or wait for them to catch up to you like the olden days. Instead, you walk behind your companions and direct them where to go. That may not seem like a big difference, but it effectively creates a sense of traveling with the calicorns, rather than dragging them along on your journey.

It begins in a dark and desolate post-apocalyptic cityscape where you’ll quickly round up a group of three calicorns and learn the basics of herding. The controls are simple but not entirely intuitive, as you have to picture an imaginary line between your character and the herd that extends forward; that’s the path they’ll take when you tell them it’s time to move. Using some clever level design, the game has you work your way through a claustrophobic training course across the city.

The moment you eventually make your way out of the city where the world opens up and there’s nothing before you but rolling hills and endless sky is breathtaking. The juxtaposition of the cold, desolate city behind you and the promise of a grand adventure ahead is so powerful that I could feel emotion swelling up in my chest as the orchestral score swelled in anticipation of what would happen next.

Your instinct is to run, to tear off across the field and get as far away from the dead thing you just crawled out of, and that’s exactly what you do. The demo ends with you and your herd stampeding across the field. It’s as evocative as any experience I’ve ever had in any game.

As is often the case with ‘silent’ games like this, the score does a lot of heavy lifting, narratively and emotionally. The music is composed in a really clever way as you first gather the calicorns. While it starts off simple, each calicorn you find adds a new instrument to the composition that subtly informs each of their personalities. The biggest one is accompanied by slow, heavy strings, while the smallest gets a plucky oboe introduction. Each motif blends together to develop the overarching arrangement in a Peter and the Wolf kind of way that’s really impressive. Like Journey, the story here is entirely experiential, so the environment and the music have to work together to convey the emotional twists and turns. From what I’ve seen so far, Herdlings nails the concept.

I didn’t think anyone would attempt to reclaim the escort mission in 2024, but ever since I saw the first trailer for Herdlings during Gamescom’s Opening Night Live, I knew it was going to be something special. I love exploring new places and cultures through games, and even as someone with no personal connection to the interdependence between humans and animals that herding creates, I can’t wait to see how Herdlings explore those themes when it comes out next year.