Reviews / 25 June 2019

Review: Graveyard Keeper

Graveyard Keeper is a medieval graveyard role-playing game developed by Lazy Bear Games and published by tinyBuild. The game was originally launched on Windows PC and Xbox One in August 2018, and now has been announced for Nintendo Switch, with a release date of Thursday, 27th June 2019.

I remember hearing about this game back when it was in the alpha stage on PC and followed the development, so seeing it come to the Nintendo Switch was very exciting news to me.

The story sets off with your character being hit by a car and waking up in a world where you have been pronounced as the new caretaker of a graveyard. Here you find a sentient talking skull and a talking donkey that drops off a fresh corpse, and with that you start your journey as the new Gravekeeper.

The aim of the game is to build and manage your graveyard, while trying to find your way back home. Despite the name and setting, this game has a great sense of humour, even while burying bodies. The games dark humour made me chuckle and I was able to let myself get involved into the story and characters with ease.

The opening tutorial is very helpful as it shows everything you need to get started in your new graveyard, such as making burial plots, harvesting body parts and making graves look presentable. Sadly the tutorial is very short, so once it’s over, you really are on your own.

While also looking after and maintaining your graveyard, you can also grow crops and cook your own food which really made my Stardew Valley loving heart happy. You can do many things with your crops such as sell them and use them for quests.

One of the main things I found a bit complicated was the menu screens, as sometimes a lot of information is thrown at you at once and trying to remember everything can be a bit of a headache, but once you can wrap your head around it all, it is a very enjoyable game.

If you enjoy management sims like Stardew Valley but don’t mind a bit of dark humour in a game then I do suggest giving Graveyard Keeper a try.