I will post here my impressions from a thread I made some time ago. Game is a Masterpiece to be honest.
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So, I bought this little game called Darkwood last year. Was impressed with its top down "faux 2D" scenarios, but since most of the story was not really done, only the sandbox aspect of it, with its crafting and survival mechanics, I made a vague reminder to wait for it to leave early access. Ended up forgetting it until the beginning of this month, and started playing just on a sense of "Well, I bought this; I should at least have my money's worth for a few hours".
These hours (20 or so, since I was playing on the hardest difficulty) ended up being one of the most impressive and immersive stretches of video game I had to pleasure to experience these last few years, even though I had just finished a full play through of Horizon Zero.
The gameplay loop is not groundbreaking, since it involves you scavenging for supplies in two major areas; the first one broke down in three separate smaller ones. In each of these areas, there is a hideout, where you can craft more elaborate items, and the only place where you can survive the night. In the day, you are talking to some ridiculously bizarre characters, each of them more twisted mentally and physically, trying to find a way out of the cursed forest, helping some of them along the way, and dooming others without even realizing it. Your character movement feels heavy, and each action seems to carry a lot of weight, like pulling up your fuel can to fill up the generator, or readying a heavy axe attack. In most games I would find it a negative, but somehow it ties up with the harsh, laborious actions your character has to make. He is barely holding on, after all.
At night, you hunker down in your hideout with hopefully enough fuel in the generator to feed the lights, while the night passes by with a series of horrible, beneficial, or even completely mind boggling events. Sure, sometimes monsters attack you while you defend your home, but sometimes you will just see someone in the corner of your vision, whispering that they want to go home, and then disappearing when you look at them. Sometimes you will hear a knock on your door, and nobody there when you answer. Sometimes there is someone. There are a lot of "There was a hole here. Its gone now." Moments throughout the game that makes you shake your head, confused, only to have a fridge realization later of what it really meant.
The "Bloodborne" part of the feeling I had comes in the 2/3 of the game, but talking much about it would certainly spoil much of the experience. I will just say that its much like a certain fishing hamlet, but in the woods. The body horror is so strong in this game, which is kinda absurd because of how far things look in the screen because of the perspective, but It made my skin crawl several times and actually made me sick in one really disturbing moment.
The S.T.A.L.K.E.R feeling comes from the setting: Fucked up village in soviet Poland in the 70's(80's? Time is long dead in that stretch of the woods) that is being engulfed by the forest, while a sickness of some kind starts to corrupt everyone. There is a distinct "environmental storytelling" approach of the story, with a ton of items, journals, diaries and posters with allusion to the setting. Even the placement of these items, where you get them (and from whose body you get them) tells a story, even if it isn't outright said, but the implication makes you wonder. There are also some scripted sequences, dream scenes, flashbacks to some critical plot points, and also branching paths depending on your actions.
The sound, together with the art, makes this game. I played it through with a headset, and you can just feel the things. I spent some nights in pitch-black darkness in forests in real life, and the sounds on the game are eerie similar. It feels alive, but in very, very wrong way. Hearing footsteps in your hideout while you are defending it a night, branches cracking while you are out exploring, weird chants in the distance, all contributes to make the game feel immersive.
Lastly, the art and the characters are something that will really stick with me for a long time. This is a scary, scary game, and even the "friendly" faces you will meet along the way look very monstrous and weirdly charismatic in their own way. Some of them give you quests, that you can get around to do it in exchange for some pivotal piece of information or item, or you can just bash their head in with a half broken shovel and get the item faster. Alternatively, maybe just eat them. That is a choice in one case. The weirdness of the characters and the setting are brought to the forefront with some stupidly cool and disturbing pices of artworks that depict them. I will post just one example here, one of the first, since meeting these weird people is one of the highlights of the experience.
Another thing that is of note is how satisfying the end of the game is. There is three main endings, from what I could read about in the wiki, and a "epilogue" of sorts that details the fate of lots of people you interacted with, New Vegas style, the outcome depending of what you have done with them. The ending I got was mesmerizing, and even though is something of a "true" ending, it didn't really felt forced or obtuse to get, I only had to observe things and not rush the final sequence.
Go play this game. Its amazing and fucking horrifying. Its not like well get a new Stalker, Bloodborne or Silent Hill game anytime soon."
