Winter Survival Early Access Review – Winter is Leaving

It’s the season of survival crafting games, some incorporating unorthodox mechanics into their makeup, like Palworld and Pacific Drive. Others, like Sons of the Forest, offer more grounded experiences, though it’s building heavily on its predecessor, while Enshrouded aims for a different take on the fantasy action RPG sandbox formula. Not everything lands all that well, as seen with Inflexion’s Nightingale, but some credit is due for trying different things. Then you have Winter Survival, whose premise is as bland and straightforward as the name.

The story centers on the player venturing to Mount Washington State Park for a hike during the Winter (spoilers) with his friends, Mike and Joel. Things quickly go wrong, and the friends end up separated as ravenous wolves and a bear give chase. Though initially with Joel, players are left alone and must locate both friends, presumably outlaw trips to any parks for the foreseeable future, and also get new friends.

"It’s understandable if the player doesn’t care about characters and dialogue, but suddenly going from sleeping in a cave after hiding from a bear to being tossed out in the snow alone is jarring."

Unlike many survival crafting games, Winter Survival has a voiced protagonist. It may not seem like a big deal, but it quickly disrupts any tension or immersion. It’s hard to feel any dread from wolves when the main character shouts “Run!” to no one in particular on seeing them. Similarly, managing your hunger, thirst and rest levels can be annoying as your character will say out loud, “I should eat something,” “I’m starving,” “I’m thirsty”, or “I set up half a bonfire, and now I’m tired and need to go home for a nap-nap.”

I know I opted for Survivalist, which promised a more brutal survival experience, but I could do without reminders to stuff my face (in-game, of course). It’s a shame because the voice acting is pretty decent.

The only other mechanic is stench, where you need to remove your clothes and bathe, lest your health starts dropping. Relatable, though my periphery vision clouding up with the stench feels a little too overdone. Whether I prefer that over a whiny reminder is honestly not a question I thought would ever crop up when fighting for my life.

Of course, the writing suffers in other areas, particularly the pacing and structure. It’s understandable if the player doesn’t care about characters and dialogue, but suddenly going from sleeping in a cave after hiding from a bear to being tossed out in the snow alone is jarring. No explanation – just a smash-cut montage of panicked tumbling. The “quests” are your rudimentary “craft this, gather that”, as you discover a walkie-talkie and attempt to track down your friends.

"Early access provides the “first large area of the game,” so having materials to put together rough sleeping mats or set up campfires is essential, right? Well, no."

Suddenly, the next major issue with the current state of the early access version is revealed – the lack of base-building capabilities in the early going. You quickly navigate to a cabin and use that as a base, so don’t worry. Forget setting up your own or modifying it heavily – you can’t even move crafting stations around freely.

It’s possible that as the story receives more content, you won’t have this luxurious cabin around, and building presumably becomes more important in the long term (since it’s tied to your Adaptation Level). There are also scenarios in Endless where you have to build, which is problematic in a different way, but we’ll get to that. The game also tries to offer some unique twists, like campfires attracting wild animals when cooking. This falls under “events”, which includes running into a pack of wolves. What sets these apart from the emergent gameplay of other sandbox titles is a whole different story.

Early access provides the “first large area of the game,” so having materials to put together rough sleeping mats or set up campfires is essential, right? Well, no. The first free-to-explore area is medium-sized at best, to the extent that some quest objectives are a hop, skip and jump away from your cabin. I counted one other abandoned cabin to explore, two cave structures, some fields, a broken bridge and a guard tower. Oh, and a hot spring, water stream, and one spot with buried treasure (where the main character pretty much pointed to where I should dig, dispelling any mystery).

You can cook canned food to consume later, and there are plenty of raw vegetables for immediate replenishment (though both can spoil if left for too long). So the only real danger is getting to bed for some shut-eye, which is pretty easy, even with no in-game map.

"Then there’s combat, where you hold a spear, charge it with the left mouse button and release it before a wolf leaps at you. Time it wrong, and they’ll deal damage while causing you to stumble."

Crafting is the other essential part of the experience, and Winter Survival has the bare fundamentals down, at least. You gather materials for your backpack, refine them on your own or set up stations like a Mill for higher tiers like cloth patches and bone needles used to sew your clothing. Fabrics can also be combined with medicinal herbs to create bandages for healing, and there are recipes for more intricate meals that provide bigger gains for your health, temperature and appetite, though some require pots to cook. Some quality-of-life features include pulling directly from your stash while crafting in a cabin, which is nice.

Unfortunately, the UI and other aspects need some work. When collecting materials like logs, you must press E to pick up every single one. No holding down the key to collect them all. It also doesn’t help that the icons for required materials are super small with no label, which is annoying if you’ve never seen the item before. You have to hover over them manually to see what they are and then commit to crafting.

After acquiring tools like a stone axe, it’s time to cut down trees…which may very well be the most sluggish chopping I’ve seen in this genre. However, it’s oddly fine when holding down the button and making continuous chops. Then there’s combat, where you hold a spear, charge it with the left mouse button and release it before a wolf leaps at you. Time it wrong, and they’ll deal damage while causing you to stumble.

Time it right, and you’ll impale them. Now, you only need to do that three or four more times to take them down. Again, I know this is supposed to be Survivalist difficulty, but it stretches credulity when a single wolf, bathed from head to toe in its blood, still puts up a fight after plunging a spear into its vitals.

"You can only climb on specific parts of the environment, usually denoted by some leafy growth, which leads to frustration when your character can’t even clamber over waist-high obstacles."

Throwing spears is a waste, both because the throwing distance is abysmal and the damage is terrible. Don’t even think about sneaking and stabbing them while they snooze, since they’ll immediately pop up and take you down (which was admittedly hilarious when I had very little health left). My other favorite part is charging the spear, waiting for the wolf to strike…only for it to wait for my stamina to deplete and then attack. Ten out of ten would die again.

The alternatives include setting a trap beforehand or waving a torch, the latter also being hit or miss. While it works to drive wolves away, their pathfinding makes it so that they end up near you again. At one point, a wolf’s AI seemingly broke, and it was too scared to move, simply cowering in place. I got one solid hit in with the axe before it suddenly sprang to life, biting a neat chunk out of my health. After I ran away, it stayed outside the cabin and threw temper tantrums for a few hours. As hilarious as this all seems, it’s unintentional at best and annoying at worst.

While combat is janky and unwieldy, the exploration is only mildly better. You can only climb on specific parts of the environment, usually denoted by some leafy growth, which leads to frustration when your character can’t even clamber over waist-high obstacles.

The addition of Instinct Mode is good since it can highlight materials to gather and nearby threats, but, along with some stealth aspects, it further removes any real sense of danger. Crouching in tall grass makes you damn near invisible to nearby wolves, even if they’ve been recently alerted. Be careful not to jump more than a few feet down, since it can lead to sprains or even severe fall damage.

"As you accrue trauma, whether it’s through encounters with wolves, the extreme cold or staying cooped up in your cabin, various permanent debuffs can occur, including hallucinations."

The wolf AI isn’t much better when they’re out patrolling since they outright ignore you, despite being a few feet away. Why are singular wolves even patrolling anyway, that too in a defined path? Despite some nice weather effects, the world’s ecosystem feels so fake. Wolves aren’t hunting deer or rabbits for food – in fact, they go about their business and only really react to you, that too if you’re close enough.

Perhaps the only noteworthy mechanic that sets Winter Survival apart is the sanity system. As you accrue trauma, whether it’s through encounters with wolves, the extreme cold or staying cooped up in your cabin, various permanent debuffs can occur, including hallucinations. You could hallucinate less threatening animals like deer when hunting, which disappear when attempting to interact with them. However, you can choose the trauma and potentially work around its effects.

It’s an intriguing system that encourages you to adapt, but neither gets enough time to thrive in the current story nor offers much counterplay since it’s permanent. Compare this to the Adaptation Disorders, which hit you with debuffs to the perks gained on leveling up. You can recover from them by completing challenges and reverting that perk to normal, but when it comes to the traumas, you’re out of luck.

Some of the traumas could use further balancing. What sounds like the better choice? Hallucinating parts of the environment that are revealed upon getting closer? Or getting jump-scared by hallucinatory wolves and boars? Maybe blurry vision when activating Instinct Mode unless you shake your mouse? With how little time is spent actively gaining traumas in story mode, there’s no merit in taking any of the more crippling choices.

"That leaves only one other mode – Endless. The start is arguably way more intriguing as you choose different conditions and even interpret a Rorschach inkblot test to customize the experience."

However, as disturbing as the hallucinations are hyped up to be, I barely encountered any phantom deer after taking the corresponding trauma (outside of that one story instance), never mind illusory wolves and boar. Audible hallucinations can occur as part of the story, and they’re suitably creepy but eventually devolve into yet another reminder system for your warmth, hunger, etc.

Once you complete the story quests, a bear attacks the guard tower you’re in and before you can ponder the next jump cut, it’s “Thanks for coming, exit through the gift shop.” Yes, the story ends on a cliffhanger before it gets going. Again, it’s early access, but it took roughly two hours to go through each part of the tutorial, the prologue and this first Act (deaths included). Even if the story isn’t too compelling, the available amount is downright woeful. You could reload your save and continue exploring, but as noted already, there isn’t much to see.

That leaves only one other mode – Endless. The start is arguably way more intriguing as you choose different conditions and even interpret a Rorschach inkblot test to customize the experience. So whether you seek an exploratory life starting in a cave or one more objective-based, like acquiring sap syrup to quell your recurrent illness, it allows the mechanics to breathe some more.

Alternatively, you can modify several parameters to make Endless more or less challenging. Ironically, this also fixes some of the more annoying aspects of the experience, like wolves dying with a single stab or only needing to charge the attack instead of charging and releasing it to stab them. Increase your capacity for hunger, thirst, and whatnot to get rid of those annoying alerts from your character. Max out the stamina and run to your heart’s content, or adjust the trauma gained and experiment with all the different debuffs.

"Endless is only for those who can’t get enough of the core gameplay, and issues like base building becoming available only after grinding your Adaptation Level don’t feel great."

Nevertheless, the same problems rear their head – there isn’t really much space to explore. At one point, I could spot some buildings in the distance, but couldn’t leap across the rocks to reach them. After landing in the water and recovering, I discovered an invisible boundary wall, preventing me from going forward. Couple this with the lackluster content in the sandbox, and it starts to feel dull after a point, even after fiddling with all the different options.

Endless is only for those who can’t get enough of the core gameplay, and issues like base building becoming available only after grinding your Adaptation Level don’t feel great. If you started in a cave, that’s your home for a good chunk of the Endless run. You could tweak the XP gained and max out the Adaptation Level to unlock the building, so there is that, but it feels like a fundamental rethink of the progression is needed. There should be a range of basic essential options, with each Adaptation Level providing more – from weapons and building to recipes and crafting stations – instead of locking the essentials to higher tiers.

Then there are the bugs, from icons suddenly turning dark when going through the inventory to charged attacks uncharging even with some stamina remaining and the “Transfer All” key not working. On one occasion, the music for a dangerous encounter started playing, but I saw nothing. Upon returning to the cabin, a single angry wolf was waiting, seemingly stuck in place until struck a few times.

It’s nothing game-breaking for an early access title, though other players have reported issues like the fireplace despawning, which is only fixed by reloading your save. Performance is pretty decent even on Medium settings with so many options enabled. However, the animations for some actions, like chopping a tree into smaller logs, are outright missing. Hopefully, they’ll be expanded down the line.

"As intriguing as it first appears, this is one winter excursion that you’re better off skipping."

From the core mechanics and world design to the combat and UI, Winter Survival needs a lot of time to cook. The developer plans to release the “first massive update” to the world within a few weeks of launch. Early access is meant to last for about six months but could go longer, depending on feedback. Given the current state, I hope it gets more time to breathe. The characters may be milquetoast, but there is some potential for this kind of set-up, and I’m interested to see if the protagonist’s slow descent into madness has a deeper meaning.

Endless mode can provide a bit more value for the current package, but as it stands, Winter Survival doesn’t offer enough to stick out in a crowded market, much less compete with some of the genre’s greats. If you’re keen on a survival game with a wintery twist, pick up Sons of the Forest and wait for it to snow. As intriguing as it first appears, this is one winter excursion that you’re better off skipping.

This game was reviewed on PC.