Darkwood

Darkwood was reviewed on a PS4

Developed by: Acid Wizard Studio

Platforms: Linux, Macintosh, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Release Date: August 18, 2017 (On Computers), May 2019 (On Consoles)

You stand in the corner of your cabin in the woods. The rusty lamp’s light blinds your eyes. You can hear the rustling of the broken branches outside. You listen to the footsteps of the chompers slowly creeping towards you. Gripping your reliable shovel with both hands, you’re ready to bash the heads of any rabid dogs or monsters that are ready to break through the barricaded doors and windows. The light flickers as the growling grows louder outside. You can hear them scratching at the wooden boards that are barring the windows shut. You quickly set up bear traps at each possible point of entry.

Suddenly, the lights go out and a banshee screams at you. You struggle as you quickly try to kill it and its babies. Meanwhile, The chompers are already inside, stuck in your homemade bear traps. You’re almost overwhelmed by the numbers of abominations that are out to get you.

Suddenly, you notice the dark red light of dawn shining through the windows. A white screen introduces a new day. You’re finally safe.

This is a perfect example of a normal night during your stay in Darkwood.

Darkwood is a horror game unlike any other, developed by Acid Wizard Studio. It’s available on almost every current gen platform. Including the Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Xbox one. As well as on the PC through Steam where it started out as an early-access. It’s also available on the Ubuntu, MacOS, and SteamOS.

Darkwood plays from a top down perspective. Featuring the usual survival mechanics such as crafting, upgrading your character. As well as the constant need to go out during the day, scouring and searching for supplies. Darkwood boasts that it’s a horror game that doesn’t rely on jump scares. Even though it does rely on them a little bit.

The story is set in a forest somewhere in Poland during the 80s. The inhabitants of this forest are trapped in it with no way out. A plague had ravaged them. Making them sick, disfiguring them, killing them, and turning them into a bunch of monsters and abominations. You play as a stranger trying to find your own way out of this oppressive and suffocating environment.

“All roads lead to nowhere”. You’ll hear these words often from the inhabitants of Darkwood. The game skillfully sticks to those words until the very end. The ending is remarkable, thankfully, and it makes your whole journey through the terrifying chapters of Darkwood even more worth the price of admission.

The characters you meet all seem like they’re straight out of a fairytale. Albeit a twisted and a disturbing one. One such recurring character is Wolfman, a man whose face is that of a wolf’s. What’s even more intriguing about him is that he carries an AK-47 around with him everywhere. The game offers you the ability to choose how to deal with these characters. Influencing both the ending and their fates.

The game features a day/night cycle. During the day, you spend your time gathering supplies, fixing any doors or windows and barricading them. As well as looking for other survivors and exploring abandoned farms, buildings and villages.

Don’t be fooled though, the daytime is as nerve wracking as the nighttime. The game illuminates the protagonist’s field of vision in the direction that he’s looking in, in the shape of a cone. This makes you vulnerable to any enemies that are outside your vision. Always ready to ambush you without you even noticing they’re there.

However, it’s during the nights when the game is at its scariest. Walking outside of your safe house during night time would rapidly kill you as the monsters roam free in the darkness. Therefore, you always spend your nights indoors. You fill up your generator with gasoline and you turn on the few lamps that you have, you grab your favorite weapon and you try to guard your safe house from any intruders. Each night is an anxiety-inducing endeavor. You can feel your heart beating in your chest as you wait for the monsters to come knocking on your door.

If you were lucky enough to survive the night, the next morning will have a trader standing in the middle of your cabin. By surviving, you get trader points which can be used to get even more supplies. On normal difficulty, this reward is the only incentive that pushes you to try to survive. After a while, you realize that dying at night isn’t that big of a deal. The harder difficulties however, ramps up the tension by introducing Permadeath or a limited number of lives. That’s why we highly recommend that you play Darkwood on a higher difficulty.

Weirdly enough, dying during the day is more punishing since upon death, you lose half of your inventory. The location of your demise is marked on your map, allowing you to go and try to fetch your supplies back. Crafting in Darkwood is as simple as it gets, and it allows you to get creative in how to fight your foes. Breaking bottles on the floor shatters it into pieces, inflicting minor damage to any enemy that walks over them. You can also combine the bottle with some gasoline and a cloth to make a Molotov cocktail. You can make several types of fatal traps such as bear traps or setting up explosive barrels.

Your weapons are varied and fun to use, from pistols to shotguns, shovels to axes. Although the shovel was my favorite, all of the weapons felt balanced and underpowered when it comes to fighting the tougher enemies.

However, the game’s scare factor is highly diminished the more you play it. Once you get used to all the different mechanics, and become familiar to all of the monsters that dwell in the forest and the quickest ways to kill them, the game becomes less terrifying. Towards the second half, it introduces new enemy types that, oddly enough, are not as tough as the ones found in the first half. The game also tries to bog you down in its traversal by introducing a swamp area, which adds a new layer of challenge.

The upgrade system is solid though. You upgrade your character by cooking mushrooms, but for each upgrade you add, the game forces you to choose a negative perk. For example, if you pick your first upgrade to be an increased field of vision, then you’re forced to choose that darkness slowly kill you.

Overall,

Acid Wizard Studio perfected the art of the horror genre. Darkwood is truly one of the most terrifying games I ever had the pleasure of playing. I’ve spent 30 in-game days to finish the game and have replayed it a few times ever since. Darkwood will keep you occupied for about 16 hours, which is more than enough for its standard price of 15$. If you’re taking your time, you can easily add more than 10 hours to your playthrough, especially on harder difficulties. If you’re a horror fan as well, then you’ll definitely enjoy Darkwood.

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You Should Play Darkwood If You:

Enjoy a challenging game

Are looking for an intense horror experience

Don’t mind the top down perspective

Hate jump scares

Score:

9 / 10