Hela: Of Mice & Magic Sets December 1 Release Date, With a Demo Out Now

Hela: Of Mice & Magic is a cooperative adventure game about a band of backpack-wearing mice exploring a Scandinavian-inspired natural world. Its demo launch trailer confirms a full release on December 1st, 2026, and a playable demo that you can try right now on PC.

Quick answer: Hela is set to reach PC and consoles on December 1st, 2026, with a free demo playable now on Steam, Epic Games Store, and Xbox on PC.

What Hela: Of Mice & Magic is

Hela is built around a small group of mice who travel together through outdoor Nordic environments. Each mouse wears a utility backpack marked with a spiral motif, and those packs let the characters glide down from heights and carry objects between locations. The trailer shows mice with light brown fur and colored packs in green, purple, and blue, pointing to a co-op setup where players each control a distinct character.

The moment-to-moment play mixes exploration, platforming, physics-based interactions, and puzzle-solving. Mice run along forest paths, scamper up wooden planks, cross streams by hopping between moss-covered rocks, and rig up objects in the branches of a treehouse. One sequence has a mouse drop from above onto stacked crates to smash them apart, showing how physics figures into clearing obstacles.

Gliding into the Forest — A mouse uses its backpack chute to glide off a porch and down into the forest, one of the game's core traversal moves. Shown at 00:05 in The Triple-i Initiative’s video. Image: Windup Games

What the trailer reveals about the story

The trailer frames a short errand that doubles as a look at the game’s loop. The mice set out from a cottage, glide into the woods, and make their way to a red house belonging to the family of an elderly man named Holger. The narration notes that Holger’s grandfather carved violins from local trees, and a handcrafted violin is shown leaning against a folding chair in the grass.

Watching Holger — The mice watch Holger resting in bed from a windowsill before setting to work on recovering his memory. Shown at 00:11 in GameTrailers’s video. Image: Windup Games

Two mice in Holger’s room create a luminous, spherical memory display featuring an elderly woman baking in her kitchen. The trip seems aimed at retrieving that memory, which connects the puzzles and traversal as parts of one task.

Unlocking a Memory — The mice unlock a memory, projected as a glowing sphere showing a woman baking. Shown at 00:22 in The Triple-i Initiative’s video. Image: Windup Games

The mice then return home, where an elderly woman seated beside an ornate fireplace greets them with “Ah, welcome home.” They present her with a glowing green orb of magical light, and she gathers the essence into her hands while reflecting on the ancient songs of the land. She reads as a caretaker or guide figure who receives what the mice collect on their outings.

Return to the Elder — Back home, the mice bring the recovered magical essence to the elder woman by the hearth. Shown at 00:29 in GameTrailers’s video. Image: Windup Games

Release date and platforms

The full version of Hela is scheduled for December 1st, 2026, launching across PC and consoles the same day. It is developed by Windup Games and published by Knights Peak.

Platform	Full release	Demo now
Steam	Yes	Yes
Epic Games Store	Yes	Yes
Xbox on PC	Yes	Yes
PlayStation 5	Yes	No
Nintendo Switch 2	Yes	No
Xbox Series X\|S	Yes	No
Xbox Game Pass	Yes	No

How to try the demo right now

A playable demo is live today on three PC storefronts: Steam, Epic Games Store, and Xbox on PC. Search for Hela: Of Mice & Magic on any of those platforms and download the demo from the game’s store page. There is no demo listed for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, or Xbox Series X|S at this stage.

Once the demo finishes downloading and the store page shows it as installed, you can launch straight into a slice of the mice’s exploration and puzzle loop ahead of the December launch.