Winter Survival Review (PC)

It’s one thing to wallow in the depths of a quarantined shopping mall for three days straight with little more than a carton of orange juice and a plastic katana to your name, but to have to physically embrace the wrath of a seemingly eternal blizzard that drapes over a barebones world that’s scarcely without warmth is another story altogether. For the record, this is everything that Winter Survival aims to encapsulate in its rough-and-ready survival-crafting sandbox — an unforgiving icy climate that’s mostly without natural commodities, and not to mention a sense of camaraderie between those who are hunting, and those who are natural-born predators at heart. As it turns out, though, you play the former—a wayward soul who, whilst relatively knowledgeable in the art of survival, has just about every odd imaginable stacked against them. But there’s a silver lining: you hold the keys to the forthcoming season.

Winter Survival is exactly what it says it is on the tin: a survival game based around one lone voyager’s journey through a seemingly endless winter. Think The Long Dark, or The Forest, for that matter, and you’ll have an idea of what it builds its walls around. There’s exploration, crafting, base-building, and of course, an entire region of biodegradable materials that bear the power to transform minuscule grains into powerful tools, artifacts, and building blocks. It’s your job, as the world’s chew toy, to pool all of these resources together, and lay the foundations for an organic settlement that’ll see you through to spring and beyond.

There’s a lot to unpack with Winter Survival, so we’ll just go ahead and rewind the clock and tear open the first few layers. Care to join us as we gloss over DRAGO Entertainment’s latest incarnation? Then let’s jump right in.

Well, It’s Winter, Alright

Of course, you’re probably asking yourself the same old question: what makes Winter Survival any different from its peers? Well, to be absolutely clear — it isn’t, as it’s more or less the same product that we’ve seen a hundred times before, only with smaller maps, and a litter of wolves, to list just a couple of recurring assets. There is a Story Mode, which is always a delight to see, and an Endless Mode—a drawn-out cycle that essentially consists of having players do the exact same thing in the primary mode, only for a much, much longer period of time. For the sake of saving you a trip into that quarter, though, we’ll start off by touching base on the former.

Winter Survival thrusts you into an icy world as one of several characters, each of whom comes preloaded with a certain amount of equipment, needs, and resources. For example, one scenario sees you starting from scratch with little more than the clothes on your back, whereas another slumps you into the ill-fitted boots of a survivor who’s hanging on by a thread. Regardless of the situation that you get left with, the goal is always the same: survive the day-to-day, and figure out a way to make your daily routine a little less, shall we say, daunting.

If you’ve slugged through The Long Dark, then you’ll no doubt have the core knowledge needed to find a foothold in Winter Survival. And even then, you don’t need to be a clone of Bear Grills to figure out how to rub two sticks together, as a lot of the game is mapped out and relatively easy to learn. To put it simply, there are materials to collect, meats to cook, and fluids to consume. Deja vu? You bet.

Pointless Torture

As I said earlier, there is a story to unravel somewhere in Winter Survival, though it is, unfortunately, as bare bones as the world it attached itself to. The goal of the game, really, is to test your mettle and see how long you can withstand the wrath of the elemental forces as the season gradually progresses. The only issue here, annoyingly, is that there isn’t a whole lot waiting for you on the other side, other than a key to some level of bragging right that holds no real value whatsoever. Sure enough, it is possible to survive the eternal winter, but at no point does the game incentivize the journey, or at least give you something to work towards.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of good survival-based mechanics here; the ability to whittle down the slider on your ever-declining frame of mind, or having to locate a remedy for your seemingly incurable homesickness are both boons in themselves. Aside from those two things, though, the vast majority of the game is a mere copy-and-paste template of just about every other survival-crafting game on the market, minus the inclusion of a few ravenous wolves.

Where most games of its kind tend to unravel a small portion of the narrative every two or three days, Winter Survival instead opts to lay all of its cards on the table right from the get-go, meaning, outside of carving your own journey from the fragments of an uncivilized world, there isn’t a huge amount to weave together. And that’s a shame, truly.

Barren and Boneless

For those who enjoy a good old-fashioned survival-crafting game that has all the mandatory bells and whistles, Winter Survival is sure to give you something to carve away at. However, what lets it down, really, is its lack of creativity—an issue that also falls in tandem with surprisingly small maps, dull and repetitive gameplay, and a lack of polish on the overall narrative. Sure, it can be fun in short bursts, but given the fact that you can also, in all fairness, experience a solid ninety percent of the game in the first two or three in-game days, it does make the latter half of the journey feel a little pointless and expendable, thus making the likes of an Endless Mode seem slightly less appealing.

Core mechanics set aside, the game does offer you the option to engage in combat with a few wolves every once in a blue moon. Granted, this isn’t something that you’ll want to overindulge in, as one too many wolves can, and often will, tear you to shreds and leave you fleeting for the hills with your tail tucked firmly between your legs. Given the fact that you do, however, need to secure some source of food to keep your energy levels up, though, such acts are often unavoidable. But hey, at least there’s a slew of baked beans and other tinned ingredients strewn around on the floor. Don’t ask.

I’m not going to pretend that Winter Survival is the hallmark of quality, because it’s far from it. With that said, I can also see why certain gamers will feel that sudden urge to experience it, too, as it does bear all the appropriate seals to be labeled a genuine survival game. But, eh, it doesn’t do anything to reinvent the wheel.

Verdict

As it turns out, Winter Survival really isn’t all that different from its adversaries — to the point of it being little more than a needle in a haystack. It has character, if only just, but the fact that it’s often overshadowed by a monotonous cycle of events and unforgivingly boring mechanics does make the overall product seem a little lackluster and dull. Of course, there could be a good game here, but the fact that it tries a little too hard to emulate just about every aspect of a cliche sandbox sim does hinder it ability to flourish. It isn’t bad, but it’s not exactly good, either — which ultimately leads me to believe that, if it were to go under a few more hammers and receive a little more TLC in future updates, then it could come to find its own brand of success.

To answer the question, is Winter Survival worth playing? No, it isn’t — and for good reason, too. If, however, you’re itching for a bit of filler that might just have the potential to bridge a few gaps left behind by the likes of The Long Dark and Kona, then there’s a good chance that you’ll find it here. With that said, if you’re looking to get your money’s worth, and only want the absolute best of the bunch, then you ought to consider unloading your wallet for an alternate neck of the woods.