In this series I am exploring the genre of survival games, what makes them attractive and how they reflect on our culture as a whole. I will covering the story mode Wintermute for this article.
The unforgiving nature of the far north of Canada is well captured. The long dark pits you against the elements in a way that is familiar to the genre, but contends with pacing issues and a lack of player direction. The core gameplay loop is at its peak when you find yourself in a jam but there is little of interest when you are well stocked and supplied for the journey ahead.
On a mechanical level, you are tasked with survival by managing your body temperature, food and water intake, as well as your rest. Similar to The Flame in the Flood with the added challenge of encumbrance. Your health is always at risk but remedies for sprained and broken limbs, lacerations and viral infections are available and must be administered. You can also repair your equipment and clothing to get the most of them.
While your main goal is to find your past love interest and travel companion, the game encourages you to dismantle furniture and found objects to use to your advantage. Having a way to start a fire is essential in the indifferent wilds. Besides harsh weather that will chill you to the bone you may encounter wolves and bears that will hound you until they have a chance to severely hurt you if not end your run.
The game suffers from a pace that directly reflects its setting, slow and bleak. Simple tasks like moving from one point of interest to the nearest other can take up to a day in game. Nighttime is as dark as you might expect, but essentially makes half of the day useless. If you compound this with a map that hardly offers any information or a way to supplement with your own findings, you can end up wandering and squandering resources with no return on investment. Some icons on your map may look like they offer shelter but do not and can leave you stranded in the snow for the night. The cycle between day and night is less of an element of the game to master or maneuver around but a gate to keep your from progressing. Tie this all with a player character that moves slower than snow melts and you may find yourself looking at the same barren view for minutes at a time without any real change.
Another unfortunate aspect of survival is combat. While I can commend a game that actively makes it difficult and high risk to encourage thoughtful strategy on the player's part, this is not it. Gun play, when you finally receive it, is not nearly as useful as getting a shot on a predator (or prey) is something you can hardly be prepared for. The audio can sometimes make it seem like a wolf is sitting on your shoulder even though they are at the far edge of the screen and so gauging their distance and speed is hardly optimal. If you have enough resources, it's a better bet to take the hit, beat away the wolf and apply first aid rather than try to outrun or intercept any attack. The sound issue makes avoiding the situation unfairly difficult. Even though the game pleas with you not to cause "wanton destruction of wildlife" here in the real world, you will hardly get the opportunity in game.
The thrills come from getting into trouble. Wildlife is not well balanced, but the climate is indifferent and unforgiving. Being caught unprepared for a night out can be the most rewarding if you can manage it.
There was a time where a misleading icon of a radio tower with shelter lead me to a night in a storm and no cover. I luckily had my rifle at the ready and shot a panicked deer at point blank range to offer me some meat for the night. A storm was coming in strong and threatening the fire I had built. With my bedroll out, I thought to keep by the fire but the snow and winds were snuffing out my warmth and my fuel was running low. In between cooking deer meat for energy, drinking fresh hot coffee for warmth and fighting off fatigue I would take torches out to find more wood and keep the fire alive. Once the storm passed I switched to an herbal tea to give myself a boon in stamina recovery and sleep an hour or two at a time to make sure the fire was fed and that no wolves were out to take me in the night. I made it.
What did I make it for? The solitary feeling even in a single player campaign with NPCs and objectives seems to play on the trope of the lone wolf. With the constant noise and attempts at the attention of the modern person, I can see where the concept of making it out to the quiet and the dark could be refreshing. Beating the odds in any game is satisfying, but there is something at our core that makes braving the wilderness fulfilling. Unfortunately as a video game, there is just less reward inherently. Being in nature offers so much to see and feel even before enacting any type of survival.
Overall the game felt less like a challenge in survival, mitigating risks and preparing for salvation. You spend more time walking into empty rooms with spattered dangers along the way that were better remedied than avoided. For all the strategy involved in surviving the wilderness, it was in an insufficient challenge to keep me engaged. My character motivations were unclear and unconvincing while the pacing grounded my own motivations to a cold halt.
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