Hela: Of Mice & Magic

Story and setting

Hela begins as the world starts to fall out of harmony and the kind witch who has protected its forests and inhabitants for generations grows ill. Her smallest familiars must leave the safety of home, carry on the work she can no longer manage alone and help her recover. The story is told through the mouse’s perspective, making ordinary places feel enormous and turning forests, meadows, lakes, wetlands, mountain paths and burrows into a large, hand-crafted playground.

The tone is deliberately gentle. The aim is to help animals, local communities and other inhabitants, restore harmony and uncover story fragments rather than defeat enemies. Creatures may block your path, but the confirmed solutions involve avoiding, distracting or befriending them. Windup has said there are no traditional combat encounters.

How it plays

Hela combines free exploration with environmental puzzles, gathering and hands-on potion brewing. You collect plants and other ingredients in the wild, then return to the witch’s cottage to follow recipes using a series of interactive steps. Remedies are more than ordinary crafting rewards: they can open new routes, alter how you approach puzzles and provide new ways to interact with the landscape.

The magical Froggy Backpack is central to movement and problem-solving. It can help the mouse glide, swing, pull and reach higher areas, while the game’s physics-based objects encourage experimentation. The world is designed to be explored at your own pace, with hidden paths, playful interactions and optional discoveries rewarding curiosity.

Hela can be played alone, with two players in local split-screen or with up to four players online. Local and online play can be combined, with a maximum of two players on one device and four players in total. Solo players are supported by the Shade System, which creates magical copies of the mouse that repeat recorded actions. Shades can hold objects, act as rope anchors, create temporary platforms and complete other parts of a co-operative puzzle. Cosmetic rewards, including hats, accessories, backpack customisations and fur colours, can also be unlocked.

Trailers and showcases

The Future Games Show Summer Showcase on 7 June 2025 introduced a wider look at Hela’s premise and co-operative adventure design, including the tiny mouse protagonist, the Scandinavian-inspired wilderness, the Froggy Backpack and traversal built around climbing, gliding and swinging.

Hela appeared in several June 2026 events, including The MIX Summer Game Onsite Showcase, the Green Games Showcase and Wholesome Direct 2026. The accompanying material concentrated on the natural setting, the relationship between the mouse familiars and the witch, and the game’s emphasis on helping rather than fighting.

The 9 September 2026 narrative and release-date trailer was primarily an atmospheric CGI piece about the witch, the origins of her mouse familiars and their magical Froggy Backpacks. It confirmed the 1 December launch date. The latest Brewing and Remedies deep dive, published on 24 September 2026, showed how ingredients, recipes and interactive brewing feed into progression and exploration.

Platforms, editions and UK price

The digital game is confirmed for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2. The physical release is the limited Harmony Edition, planned for selected retailers on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Nintendo Switch 2. The PS5 and Xbox Series X versions include a physical disc; the Switch 2 packaging and whether it contains a cartridge or download code have not been clearly specified in the main retail announcement.

Harmony Edition includes the game, a premium outer box, a 48-page softcover art book, a reversible poster featuring the world map, exclusive stickers and a digital soundtrack composed by Frida Johansson and Henrik Oja. Xbox Series S and PC are digital-only. UK RRP has not been announced. The Game Collection has listed the Harmony Edition at £32.95 on PS5 and £34.95 on Switch 2, although both listings were unavailable when checked; these are retailer prices, not confirmed RRPs.

Hela will be available on Xbox Game Pass on day one for Xbox and PC. No PlayStation Plus inclusion has been announced.

What we still don’t know

The publisher has not confirmed UK digital pricing, a formal RRP for Harmony Edition, the complete list of UK retailers or the exact UK launch time. Because 1 December 2026 falls in the GMT period, the UK date is clear, but the release hour is not.

Cross-platform online play, cross-save, the final PC storefront list beyond Steam, the Switch 2 physical format and any post-launch content remain unconfirmed. The PEGI 3 rating is confirmed, but no fuller UK content-descriptor information has been published.