Barkour Preview: A Mostly Doggone Fun Stealth Experience So Far

Who doesn’t have a soft spot for a dog game? While walking the show floor at the Games Industry Conference in Poznań, one title immediately stopped me in my tracks. Barkour is a game about a dog secret agent—and not just a cute mascot character. This dog has a gun, a grappling hook, and a full spy toolkit. Naturally, I had to give it a try.

You play as Agent T.H.U.N.D.E.R., an exceptionally good boy recruited into a covert canine intelligence agency to take down cat-themed villains. His abilities are surprisingly robust. Using his heightened sense of smell, he can track enemies and detect interactable objects. He can overhear enemy conversations for intel, bark to lure guards, pounce to knock them out, and drag unconscious bodies into hiding. On top of that, he carries gadgets, including a back-mounted gun capable of firing either sleep darts or lethal rounds.

After a lengthy tutorial introducing these mechanics, the demo drops you into an early mission set in an overgrown medieval castle. Your objective is to infiltrate the structure and eliminate a villain named Van der Meow, who resides deep within its inner sanctum. The castle is heavily guarded, packed with cameras, locked doors, and armed enemies, but the game gives you flexibility in how you approach the challenge.

You can move carefully through the environment, tracking guards with your sniffer, hiding in foliage, and quietly neutralizing enemies one at a time. Alternatively, you can abandon stealth entirely and engage in open combat, alerting the whole area and dealing with the consequences. I leaned heavily toward stealth, and that is where Barkour truly shines.

The level design quickly opens up into something that feels almost sandbox-like. The castle expands into a dense network of rooms, floors, hidden passages, rooftops, underground areas, and exterior paths. Rather than pushing you directly toward the objective, the demo encourages exploration. Venturing off the main path often rewards you with new gadgets, treats, shortcuts, or secrets.

Traversal is frequently tied to light puzzle-solving. Many puzzles involve eavesdropping on guards to learn door codes, using your sense of smell to locate hidden switches, or finding specific items to activate environmental elements. Most puzzles are straightforward, though a few felt unclear, particularly those requiring very specific interactable objects.

Enemy management plays an important role in exploration. Sleep darts are powerful but limited, and recharging them requires physically tackling guards, which carries a higher risk of detection. This creates a satisfying loop of careful positioning, luring enemies, stealth takedowns, and resource management that reinforces deliberate play.

Combat, however, is less convincing. When stealth breaks down, encounters often feel too forgiving. Guards can be stunned repeatedly, and it is possible to survive chaotic firefights with minimal effort by circling enemies and relying on generous mechanics. The game clearly wants combat and stealth to coexist as equal options, but in the demo, stealth is far more engaging and better tuned.

One notable point worth addressing is the demo’s use of voice acting. The initial release drew criticism for using AI-generated voices. Since then, the developers have removed them, stating they were temporary placeholders and that professional voice actors will be used for the final release. The version I played had the AI voices removed, and the experience was better for it.

Overall, Barkour feels genuinely promising. The core ideas are strong, the level design encourages experimentation, and the stealth mechanics are both playful and satisfying. Combat still needs refinement, but the foundation is solid. A stealth-focused sandbox starring a heavily armed spy dog is a wonderfully strange premise, and with some additional polish, Barkour could end up being a surprisingly delightful release.

If the final game builds on what the demo already does well, this might just be one good boy worth keeping an eye on.