Outside, the days are getting longer again, the birds are flying out of their nests and the temperatures are rising. Yes, it looks like we have survived the cold season once again. Virtually, however, we are presented with a title called Winter Survival put to the test again. This has been happening since March 6th adventure in a number of games in the genre that are currently in Early Access.
The project is most reminiscent of Sons of the Forest in a more realistic setting. There are no mutants, no artifacts and no large-scale cave system. What made it into the game are bugs, crashes, a look from 2013 and illogical gameplay mechanics. Although Winter Survival has only just started early access, we doubt that the project will be able to assert itself against the huge competition. Hopes are probably up Success must have melted away in the spring.
The agony of choice
Before we start our adventure, the game lets us choose between one Endless mode and one Story. We can also decide whether we prefer the hardcore survival variant or whether we would rather make do with the easier mode.
Winter Survival relies on realism. For example, after four days without a shower, our character starts to stink, which in turn doesn't really suit the olfactory bulb on his face. Means: We have to find a body of water in which we can give the cat a quick wash – without clothes, of course.
We hang them on a drying line beforehand to ventilate the muff a little. However, we think that the fact that your own stench is so damaging after four days that you lose health at a certain point is too exaggerated.
But let's get back to the story part, which is chewed through quite quickly. With our friends Joel and Mike we go on a trip to Mount Washington State Park. But things go wrong and suddenly one buddy goes missing and a short time later the other goes missing too. It can happen sometimes.
From this moment on we are on our own and have to fight not only smelly socks but also the usual survival mechanics. So we need food, drink, a roof over our heads and a fire to warm up between our explorations. But there's an additional twist.
This affects the psyche
All actions in Winter Survival affect our state of mind. If we are near dangerous animals, our character becomes afraid. If we don't make it back to our camp before dark, it will also take a toll on our psyche.
While we explore the game world during the day, we don't really notice anything about it, but when we sleep we feel the consequences of our dangerous expeditions. Both hemispheres of the brain are attacked. This means that on the one hand we suffer disadvantages the following day, for example we get cold more quickly or we are more hungry. To undo this, we have to complete certain, inconsequential side missions.
On the other hand, when we are under psychological stress, we have to identify symptoms that affect us. Most of the time, this causes our character to start hallucinating. It can happen that the tree trunk on which we are balancing over a precipice suddenly disappears and we make a descent into the depths.
The ideas behind these gameplay elements are quite interesting and make you want more. After all, we only have the first of five story acts available to us so far. But the technical implementation makes for little fun.
Before we get to the bugs and the lousy graphical component, a few words about endless mode. This is a little different because we have the opportunity to set some handicaps before the start. With ongoing illness, we need certain items periodically to stay alive. A mode called Cold Wave will also appear in the future. However, we don't yet know exactly what to expect. However, the weather probably plays an even bigger role.
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