However, I also happened to survive three nights in a row by hiding inconspicuously in a cramped corner, praying that I wasn't overwhelmed by hordes of red chompers in the twilight.īecause you're never truly safe in Darkwood, it's easy to lose track of time. I spent a night boarded up in a hideout that was fortified to the teeth with barriers only to be attacked by packs of demonic dogs moments before the saving grace of the sunrise. Rather than help you, Darkwood's systems affect you in a much more neutral way. As the world deteriorates into madness around you, the only way to survive is to adapt alongside decay. But even on Normal difficulty, it's important that you recognize that this is an ambiguous world that necessitates experimentation. These are incredibly minor, but in a game as brutally unforgiving as Darkwood, it's essential to level up with caution, which subverts the entire idea of leveling up rapidly in the first place.Īs a result, opting to favor survivability over gratifyingly quick forward momentum often allows you to live longer in the end-something that's absolutely essential on Darkwood's harder modes, where lives are limited. However, these perks come at a cost: For every skill you gain, you must apply a negative effect designed to hinder you for the rest of your playthrough. These skills usually only have a minor impact on the game, allowing you to benefit from a daily single-use perk such as running without taking stamina into account. For example, the game affords you skills in exchange for cooking in ominous ovens. While the controls are clearly mapped out on the pause menu, learning how to manipulate some of the game's ostensibly unimportant mechanics can give you a major edge as you progress into its more difficult areas. Although the mechanics are quite complex, Darkwood offers an intense but fair learning curve. The game assimilates a plethora of systems into its makeup, including crafting, bartering, and combat. Even at the crack of dawn, venturing too far from your hideout can result in you coming face to face with blood-curdling, satanic sadists hellbent on mauling you to death. The best thing about this is that it doesn't rely on nighttime to be scary. Darkwood revels in its eponymous darkness-even its daytime cycles are subjected to limited visibility, courtesy of its field-of-vision illumination. However, the most recent iteration of this macabre indie game is unwaveringly confident in itself. It was inevitable that Darkwood would be compared to similar open-world survival games like the Burtonesque Don't Starve, and from a gameplay standpoint their top-down perspectives and day/night cycles are similar. Now, in 2019, Darkwood is an entirely new game. In GameSpot's early access review, writer Brett Todd admired its willingness to experiment with aesthetics and rework the concept of permadeath, but couldn't get past the fact that it wasn't quite ready to go on sale. When Darkwood originally launched in early access in 2014, it was an ambitious game that suffered from clunkiness and a lack of identity.
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