The Magnificent Trufflepigs Review: Not Quite A Hidden Treasure

Although walking simulators may be divisive, it’s fair to say that the narrative-focused subgenre has delivered some truly remarkable experiences over the last few years. One of the standout examples is Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, from developer The Chinese Room. Now, lead designer Andrew Crawshaw is back with new studio Thunkd and new game The Magnificent Trufflepigs.

Set in the small British village of Stanning, The Magnificent Trufflepigs focuses on the characters of Beth and Adam as they take part in a metal detector-led hunt through a farmer’s fields for a missing, expensive earring. Beth found one earring when she was a child, and following a major crisis she tries to revisit that feeling of excitement, inviting Adam along to help.

From a gameplay perspective, this means methodically scouring the farmer’s fields for hidden treasure. The player has to use their detector to cover the fields before the battery runs out, using a shovel and trowel to dig up treasure and become a much more down-to-earth Shovel Knight. This makes The Magnificent Trufflepigs into a nice, relaxing venture, should the player be in the right frame of mind.

However, the main focus is more on the relationship between Adam and Beth. Each find in the farmer’s field results in a text or radio call with Beth, while the game is structured into days with lunch breaks where you find out more about Beth, and Stanning as a whole, via a conversation between the two treasure hunters. All the while, the player can take in the beautiful scenery of the countryside, emulating the same kind of forest bathing feel that worked so well in Sunlight.

The emphasis on dialogue means that The Magnificent Trufflepigs feels structurally similar to Firewatch, recreating that same feeling of intimacy through remote dialogue. There’s even an apparent strange history to Stanning, although it never becomes entwined in the plot in the same way as Campo Santo’s classic. Nonetheless, there’s some intrigue to be found in the brief conversations about estranged children, macabre deaths, and UFO sightings.

The Magnificent Trufflepigs is at its best when it looks into what growing up in a small town means as an adult. Delving into questions of ambition and dreams, it subtly covers off how the suffocation of a small village life could be comfort to someone looking in, or how the worry of no job prospects or family support could be the freedom that someone needs to thrive. As the game itself states, “joy doesn’t have to be tied to our situation.”

Unfortunately, The Magnificent Trufflepigs stumbles in its writing, which sometimes feels too stilted for a game where dialogue makes up the bulk of its experience. Whereas Firewatch had a fluidity and humanity to it, The Magnificent Trufflepigs feels too blunt in its approach, which perhaps could have been salvaged if there was more room to be found within its short runtime. This culminates in the game’s ending, which is a little muddled to say the least. Some of this is salvaged by the game’s performances, as both Arthur Darvill as Adam and Luci Fish as Beth are wonderful, doing a lot of heavy lifting to keep the player engaged. It’s not enough to stop the wider issues from becoming apparent, but they propel the story forward through each scene with tact.

Overall, The Magnificent Trufflepigs is an interesting character-driven story that doesn’t quite meet its potential. It lacks the nuance required to be a truly great, especially when it comes to its broader plot, but there’s still charm here among its performances and solid depiction of village country life.

The Magnificent Trufflepigs releases 3 June 2021 for PC. Screen Rant was provided with a PC download code for the purposes of this review.

About The Author

Rob Gordon
(637 Articles Published)

Rob Gordon is a writer and musician from Brighton, United Kingdom. A Creative Writing Masters graduate from the University of Exeter, Rob has his roots in fiction writing but also has extensive experience writing about video games and the video game industry. As well as this, Rob is at home with a focus on film and television, particularly when it comes to the realms of horror. Alongside his writing, Rob plays in two UK-based musical acts, the electro-pop band Palomino Club and rock band Titans & Kings, and also lends his vocal talents to the Big Boys Don’t Cry podcast, which reviews and discusses romantic comedies. The bands and the podcast can be found on all good digital distribution platforms, and Rob can also be found on Twitter.

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