Winter, times when darkness emerges quickly and swallows the land completely, with it brings many dangers and in Winter Survival’s case its bears and wolves looking for their next meal, along with the freezing cold temperatures, oh and your own mind which can quickly deteriorate to sanity due to the life and death situation you find yourself in, probably should’ve mentioned that first.
With that said whilst the dangers make the game quite a challenge if you actually decide to play on a demanding difficulty, it does end up to be a somewhat enjoyable experience. I say somewhat since there were a few problems with it, with the biggest one being some glitches and bugs which we’ve all encountered at some point in our gaming journeys. Which unfortunately we all know too well can completely make all of the positives irrelevant, luckily they weren’t bad enough to stop me from dropping this snowy sandbox adventure, though.
The story felt non-existent, especially in the first act.
The first part of a game usually introduces you to its mechanics, enemies and world, along with giving players necessary tips and information on the important things. Winter Survival exactly does that, it introduces players to the snowy area, dangerous animals which inhabit the forest and introduces one of the core mechanics of the game, crafting. Despite all that, the story progression feels stagnant for the most parts.
For context you play as Danny, a rookie survivalist who embarked on a trip to the snowy forest with his friends, only to find himself alone shortly after with his aim to find them and get back home. A classic story of ending up alone and vulnerable whilst looking for someone, something which is predominant in a lot of horror games narrative. Whilst I wouldn’t call this a horror game, it certainly had some elements to it which felt like you were in a life and death situation, which when defending yourself against hungry bears and wolves certainly matched that criteria.
The first act of the game felt like more of a tutorial to crafting than actually progressing with the story, there were some missions which had you venture out deeper into the heart of the forest and try to uncover what was actually going on, but most times you had to find specific resources to craft items in order to complete the mission, then it would just be a long cycle of repeating the same thing. It took me around eight hours to complete the first act and at least half of the time was full of that.
A lot of the times I was missing the required items which had me running around the forest trying to get my hands on them for quite a while, some things such as rocks and tall grass were very easy to find and didn’t kill my momentum, but items such as glue sticks were a lot harder to come by and absolutely killed the already slow story for me, which just left me bored rather quickly. What was supposed to be a tense and unforgiving survival experience, felt like a walking and running simulator in the middle of a snowy forest.
Story doesn’t mean everything when it comes to games, some can have a very weak one but make up for it in other aspects, but what’s arguably worse than a basic story is one which builds up too slowly and takes a while to start taking shape, something which Winter Survival unfortunately succeeded at.
The snowy setting is something I wish we saw more survival games implement
Weather in survival games is something not many people care too much about, as long as it has a good open world, interesting story, along with fun and innovative mechanics, then players couldn’t care less whether they’re exploring under a beautiful bright sun or dark and dull clouds. I however am the minority, and do actually care about it, not having one to my preference wouldn’t put me off playing a game, but it does make me enjoy the experience a lot more.
You have sandbox games like Minecraft and ARK which cycle through different types of weather, this can often depend on the specific area you’re in but it does keep the gameplay fresh, creating new and often challenging situations. One thing I loved about Winter Survival was that the whole forest was always covered in snow day and night which for me made it a lot more immersive, though the high-quality graphics were the main reason for that. Snow is my favourite weather in real life, so when I see it as the main weather setting in games it draws me to them more than it should really, though I’m not complaining…
It did also make the game a lot more challenging, in terms of having more statuses to keep an eye on whilst you were exploring the large snow dense forest. It was included on the list of severe dangers, along with wild hungry animals seeing you as dinner, and the harsh unforgiving conditions which were relentless, just make sure you have enough wood to create a fire otherwise you’ll find yourself dead before you can properly sink your teeth into the game.
