Gameplay tasks the player with scavenging for resources and supplies, crafting usable items, defending themselves from the local fauna and flora, and exploring the procedurally generated woods during the daylight hours. As you could probably surmise, that is easier said than done. From what little exposition is given to us at the beginning of the game, you play as an unnamed outsider in a dense, sinister, and disease-like Wood, one which continually grows and which supposedly has no escape. The story of DARKWOOD is purposely sparse and cryptic, relying on a DARK SOULS-ian method of piecing together its narrative through items, environment, and filling in some of the blanks with your own imagination. The result is DARKWOOD, a cruel and unrelenting game that blends survival horror with roguelike and RPG elements, managing to meld with the bleak world it creates to make both a unique and unnerving experience. Polish developers Acid Wizard Studios spent upwards of four years tinkering around with these elements to create a horror game that was still pants-ruiningly terrifying and anxiety-inducing, yet never once uses the crutch of jumpscares. Ambiance, oppressive atmosphere, paranoia, helplessness-these too make horror.Įvidently, I’m not the only one who thinks so. That’s not to say that it isn’t something that can work in the right context, as was made exceptionally clear in ALIEN: ISOLATION, but there are so many more factors that can make a game terrifying and tense without relying on said gimmick. Some of the most popular games today, such as the frequently-streamed FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S, rely almost entirely on jump scares for their success because their product wouldn’t really be anything without the debatably spooky image and startling stinger popping up every once in awhile. Not only because I’m probably the most anxious person in existence, but because they’ve become both the standard and the biggest cliché in the horror genre, be it in movies or in video games.
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