Descending The Woods Review (PC)

In an effort to rekindle the dying wick that is the heart of modern-day farming simulation RPGs, developer AIONWARE LTD has launched a rather peculiar hybrid game called Descending The Woods—an open-world sandbox sim that just so happens to bridge the gaps between traditional farming and survival horror. That’s right, even weeding can be dangerous now, and from the looks of it, so can the act of merrily skipping through a secluded woodland at the break of dawn, too. And yet, even with two polar opposites in the deck, Descending The Woods still aims to bring the best of both worlds to life, and it does so by merging its vast quantity of agricultural exploits with a tapestry of frightful and awfully devious creatures. Color us intrigued, I guess?

Descending The Woods is a funny one, I’ll give it that. It’s funny, mainly due to the fact that, aside from it being something of a farming simulator by nature, it still attempts to spoon feed a whole lot of unorthodox horror down your throat. It’s a bit of a mixed bag, if anything — and yet, I’m all for it. Truth is, I’m actually sort of glad that there’s a candidate who’s willing to break the norm and strive for something that’s not only unconventional, but also a little “out there” and a few field goals from what’s universally traditional. The question is, does it work? Eh, yes and no — but we’ll get to that shortly.

To bring you up to speed, Descending The Woods has just rolled out the red carpet for its global debut on PC. Care to hear a bit more as we delve a little deeper into its origins? If so, then get ahold of your pruners and Ouija board — the night is coming!

The Last Safe Place on Earth

Descending The Woods is a lot more than your bog-standard farming simulation game; it’s a hybrid of an otherworldly adventure, and it consists of two main objectives: cultivating a small plot of land that just so happens to be centered in the middle of a haunted woodland; and catering for lost animals—companions who, rather unfortunately, decide to call the mists of the paranormal world a home away from home. In this world, you must figure out how to balance out your core duties as a daring farmhand, whether it’s by pursuing your agricultural career, or descending into the entity-infested depths of the local woodland to obtain natural resources and, with any luck, tame its local inhabitants. But, there’s a catch: your mental health isn’t great, and with each new dive that you take into the forest, you’ll have to witness it decline into questionable territories.

Luckily, there is a silver lining to all of the above: you don’t actually have to subject yourself to an evening of psychological torture; in fact, if you’d soon rather spend some quality time with your crops and the comfort of a blazing fire, then you can — but at the cost of missing out on some valuable benefits. And that’s the thing with Descending The Woods: you don’t need to onboard its wealth of horror stories to participate in a lot of its core scenarios. Sure, it takes the fun out of it, but the fact that you can remove the ideology of death from the equation makes it all the more accessible for those without an interest in it. That wasn’t for me, true — but having the option to swap out a makeshift melee weapon for a shovel certainly helped to alleviate the need to survive, for sure.

Into the Night

Of course, if you were to bust open the cabinet and have a good old shuffle through its contents, then you would come to find that, overarching farming themes aside, the beating heart of Descending The Woods lies within the woodland archipelago itself. It’s within this world that, being the “horror” game that it is, the vast majority of the game’s primary values come to light—the paranormal activities, psychological effects, and death-defying feats, to list just a few of its standout features. Similar to a solid portion of alternate survival-horror stories of its kind, Descending The Woods slumps you with the objective of keeping your sanity intact—a task that involves having to memorize each and every route that you take into the woods, rather annoyingly. But again, there’s a catch: if you willingly subject yourself to the psychological trauma, then you’ll be allowed to dig even deeper.

Descending The Woods is all about learning how to deal with two sides of the same coin, with one side revolving around the art of relatively harmless and generic farming duties, and the other covering the supernatural realm and its effects on the human psyche. And to be fair, it does manage to capture both areas surprisingly well, with each one devoting just enough time to fleshing out the mechanics and to creating a genuinely interesting slice of original content. Sure, its farming aspects aren’t anything particularly extraordinary, but honestly, that didn’t bother me all that much; it wasn’t the agriculture that enticed me — it was the great beyond, and the hidden monstrosities that loomed far behind the mist.

Swings, Roundabouts, and Paranormal Activities

I’ve spoken quite highly about Descending The Woods up until this point, and for good reason, too. With that said, I can’t help but feel that there are numerous things that we need to cover before drawing up the outlines for the final conclusion. For starters, the visuals — eh, they aren’t great. Scratch that, they’re passable, at least in short bursts, to say the least. Aside from it generating an art style that’s genetically similar to that of its peers, it does often fall short in other areas—the animal designs and animations, for example. But that’s a small price to pay for the act of physically playing the game, to be fair — which is surprisingly entertaining, given the unlikely pairing of the two themes. Swings and roundabouts, I guess.

What’s good about Descending The Woods is its clever use of procedurally generated features—elements that, depending upon several factors, can make your life a whole lot easier, or an absolute living nightmare. In addition to the psychological effects that come with the territory, the campaign also accommodates numerous randomly assigned points of interest, haunted objects, and natural resources to shovel through, too. What’s more, it also conjures another form of plight to deal with—a decaying outer border that has the power to knuckle in on your homestead and whittle down your crops. Suffice it to say, there’s a lot to deal with here, and so, while it isn’t the coziest farming simulation game out there, it’s certainly one that keeps you on your toes for the duration of your journey.

Verdict

Descending The Woods capitalizes on a concept that, to my mind, hasn’t been touched in, I don’t know, months—maybe even years. Sure enough, if I were to remove the survival horror from the equation, then I probably wouldn’t have too much to celebrate, for what it would leave, really, wouldn’t be anything more than a generic farming simulation game with a gloomy coating. However, when the two merge into one, it’s an entirely different story, and one that, even at the worst of times, operates surprisingly smoothly. But that isn’t to say that it’s without its flaws; case in point, the graphics aren’t exactly perfect, nor are the animations, for that matter — but the fact that both tie into an independent project does make me feel morally inclined to give credit where it’s due and let bygones be bygones.

There’s a good amount of quality content to chew through here, and perhaps even a little more than what meets the eye, thanks to the game’s unique design and procedurally generated elements. Is it a worthy torchbearer for the survival-horror scene? That’s debatable, though, given its attention to detail and its inclusion of all the appropriate trappings—psychological mechanisms, crafting, and randomized effects, for example—I think it’s more than capable of sporting the banner. Is it a great farming simulation game? Honestly, the jury’s out on that one; it isn’t an original blueprint, though it does manage to blend into the overall narrative incredibly well. So again, I’m on the fence about it, and it seems that the only way I’ll be able to finalize this is by waiting for a patch to be implemented into the code or, failing that, spending another night in the titular woodland.