5/5 ★ – FarnySeals's review of Darkwood.

When playing Darkwood, I drew many comparisons to other creations I love, from Zdizslaw Besksinki’s post-war hellscape paintings to the pure black and bleak comedy of David Firth, but ultimately it stands as it’s own thing, with a uniquely dark woodland world. It’s a folk horror take on the book Roadside Picnic, which while I haven’t read it myself, I’m familiar with the things it inspired, such as Tarkovsky’s Stalker, the Metro 2033 books and games, and the game series, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. all of which, just as Darkwood does, execute crushingly harrowing world building perfectly. Darkwood weighs heavier on the survival side of survival horror, reflecting survival games like Don’t Starve and Minecraft which are the two few I’ve played, but being way more familiar with survival horror as a whole, I recognised some of the aspects that kept it in the survival horror genre. The inventory management for example is very similar to the classic Resident Evil games on the PS1, with the added mechanic of an upgradable hot bar and an inventory that doesn’t pause the game like RE would. There’s also plenty of backtracking, limited ammo resources, and fight or flight scenarios that keep you in your toes. Darkwood doesn’t just take from the survival and survival horror genres though, as it even echoes aspects from other games and genres I love, like the subtle multiple choices and options of the immersive sim genre, where the world is your oyster and you can approach the story and your environment to your hearts content with multiple solutions not only to the narrative, but also to environmental obstacles and enemies. Even some of the bug-infested horror reminded me of SHODAN’s atrocities in System Shock 2. Then there’s the obtuse quest lines with varying outcomes and multiple endings which remind me of Dark Souls, with subtle environmental storytelling and a narrative that requires thought to piece together and solve. I’m still making a lot of comparisons, but Darkwood really does take and reform so many great mechanics and ideas from dark horror games. What makes Darkwood truly unique for me, though, is its art style, its world, and characters. Every character you come across is unforgettable, whether they be unsettling or purely tragic. I personally love Piotrek and the Musician the most, but despite not taking the Musician’s quest and sticking to the Wolfman, I was distinctly surprised by how the Musician still manages to stay around in the world, and the progression of his story is truly just horrifying and downright depressing. This game is at times incredibly disturbing, thanks to its hopeless world. I never get nightmares from games, and it could’ve been something else that triggered it, but I actually had a nightmare while playing Darkwood due to how unforgiving and bleak the game is. I even had to find a cozy game to play through afterwards because it can be a lot to handle in-between surviving hostile environments with limited lives and heavy consequences, hiding from the deep black unknown as creatures break into your house and unseeable entities are heard walking by your house, or seeing the downfall of innocent people who have succumbed to the forest’s plague or even each other’s wrath. If I was in Darkwood, I would shoot myself immediately, because otherwise a tree would consume me and turn me into an unkillabe sludge creature consumed by tree bark and mushrooms. Though not outwardly evil, the entity creating the hell that is Darkwood actually reminds me of AM from I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, for how ruthless of an environment it creates as well as the deeply depressing and sadistic fates that it’s inhabitants come too. The miles of unkillable tree roots reminds me of the infection of circuitry in AM’s world, and the ending of Ellison’s story reminds me of many of the characters or even those mushroom ridden corpse traps you come across. There isn’t a part of this world that isn’t ravaged by this otherworldly entity. Alongside the fact that I played this on hard mode, there wasn’t a single thing besides the few moments at dawn that wasn’t horribly oppressive. I died permanently several times and had to psych myself up to go through everything again, but it did lead me to discover new character interactions and items, some of which I might sometimes regret to find, such as finding that a village inhabitant who’d been storing human corpses most likely to distribute as food. It also helps that the world is mostly randomly generated too, so you get a different experience with each play-through. There’s so much to explore here, from the themes of each quest line and the story as a whole, to the several easter eggs and secrets. It’s such a dense and horrifying experience and I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of this before Pyrocynical’s bloated 7+ hour summary disguised as a video essay (sorry, I didn’t like it). Go play this for yourself if you’re a fan of survival games, horror, or unforgiving experiences, it’s usually cheap on sale and you’d be a fool to miss out on it.