Winter Survival Review – a literal survival simulator

I have never played a survival game that is just that — a game of surviving. Keep yourself warm, keep yourself fed, keep yourself rested — repeat. Every survival game I’ve played has some sort of secondary objective, or other compelling aspect. Yet I failed to find any meaningful or fun motive alongside the surviving.

There are three ways to play Winter Survival — a story mode, endless survival, and a challenge mode with a scoreboard. However, the core mechanics extend between all three modes. You’ll be doing a lot of crafting and wolf management.

Winter Survival lacks an incentive

Sneaking past wolves. Hiding from bears. Clutching my pathetic sharpened stick. Bated breath brought forth by the freeze.

Sounds exciting, right? Well, that level of excitement may occur for your first time dealing with a wolf pack when you start in any survival world, but it will immediately wane. The one thing that keeps challenge alive and excitement fresh in survival games is something to survive for, and Winter Survival doesn’t give you one.

Sure, there’s a story mode that provides a narrative for you to unweave, but if you’re playing the Endless mode purely for a survival fix, then you’ll be disappointed even though you’re getting exactly that. The gameplay loop of sustaining yourself is incredibly boring, and easily done when you first boot up the game.

If I can make fire, drink water, and cook food all at level one, then why would I care about leveling up to unlock new items and surfaces? Sustaining yourself is all you will be doing, whether level 1 or level 40. There are no greater challenges to conquer, no escape to work toward.

You won’t find enjoyment in simply exploring. The maps are relatively small and there’s next to nothing of interest to look out for. Also, invisible barriers cut off areas that looked like they should be explorable.

I found myself sitting at my desk, the magic circle between Winter Survival and I broken, as I considered my next steps. All I had done was cook some wolf meat, eat it, and drink some water. My stats were full. I felt as though I had already done everything to do in the game. All at level 2.

Survival itself isn’t fun in Winter Survival

Well, it is a survival game after all, with surviving being the main attraction. Even if there’s nothing to survive for, the survival itself should be fun, right? Well, not really. The unoriginal process of sustaining yourself is everything you’d expect it to be, and yet it’s rather limited. Your only food sources will be from hunting or tins of beans you can find lying around. It is as bland as it can get.

This renders a lot of the challenges in Winter Survival into mere nuisances. The wolves aren’t a challenge, although the less-than-desirable combat mechanics are a challenge to my patience. Being forced to stealth by constant wolf patrols becomes a deep frustration, as they’re preventing you from doing the simplest things.

My mental bandwidth for the wolves quickly diminished, and I openly challenged them whenever they popped up. Instead of the apex predator of the winter wastes, the wolves became an obstacle that made me sigh every time they appeared.

I did consider that I was trying to breeze through the game too fast, that I was simply not taking my time to appreciate and enjoy the experience. So, I played the game how it was supposed to be played. Slowly. Painstakingly slowly.

To be frank, it’s just too boring. I can’t see many enjoying the Endless mode for more than a few in-game days.

However, the gritty and realistic elements of survival are honestly quite fun, such as having to dry your clothes if they get wet, or suffering from homesickness when waking in a bed. Most negative status effects will inflict trauma on your character’s brain, and if it reaches 100% trauma, your psyche will break, and you get to choose a symptom of your fragmenting mind.

The only problem is that it’s wasted on the boring survival mechanics. Unfortunately, I don’t care for the hallucination of the mutilated deer even if it’s the most exciting thing that’s happened.

Starting Scenarios and Story Mode do add interest to Winter Survival

There are some things that I will credit Winter Survival for. Although the survival mechanics are uninspired and tried and tested, the story mode itself did immerse me in the frostbitten landscape. It may not be a prime example of writing or storytelling, but it’s fun and provides something to work toward.

I think story mode is the only way that the frustrations I have the with game will become the challenges and trials they’re supposed to be because you’re given a purpose behind progressing.

Having to focus on your survival in tandem with working on the objectives allows you to experience your own survival journey that the story doesn’t handhold you through. Some may find this an obstruction to the plot that they want to experience, however, as the survival aspect is repetitive and painfully slow.

In the Endless mode, there is some story to be had in the form of starting scenarios. When starting a game, you get to choose the conditions. Time of day, equipment condition, overall difficulty, and such like. However, your first choice will determine the scenario that you find yourself in.

Either starting in a cave with ample equipment to get to building a shack, or finding yourself randomly spawned in the map with not much to your name. One starting scenario is incredibly challenging and has you suffering from a chest infection. From that spurs a long, albeit tedious, questline as you vie to cure it.

The trauma feature, as touched on before, is pretty cool and exciting, it’s just a shame that they become yet just other irritations as you force yourself to have fun with the game.

This review has been quite the downer so far. All I’ve done is complain that the survival features are basic, and mixing that with no incentive makes for a frustrating slog of recurring basic tasks (outside of the story mode, of course). However, I do have to praise the story mode. The story itself is decent enough, with mystery and intrigue to spur your efforts. Maybe check out some story gameplay before you make the dive yourself.

Winter Survival is ultimately a boring game

I truly hate to say it, as I was excited for this game, but Winter Survival is rather boring. Outside of story mode, the game is a sluggish and limited sandbox of frustrations. You’re surviving, sure, but for what?

There are good ideas present throughout the game, but they’re wasted on the lack of investment the players will likely face when playing it.

Not all of the story acts were out when I was playing it, so I truly hope that it’s good when it’s finished. With the narrative lens, the surviving becomes a little less of an infernal irritance. But if a mechanic needs to be supported by the plot to be enjoyable, then it’s not exactly the most riveting mechanic to begin with.

Many players compared it to The Long Dark under YouTube comments, and unfortunately, in the state that the game is in now, it is simply an infinitely less interesting version of The Long Dark.

Although The Long Dark’s own survival mode doesn’t have a narrative or escape incentive for playing, it benefits from having so much more content and places to explore. The challenge then becomes being the ultimate survivor in every region and for every creature. Something that can’t be said for Winter Survival. It has promise, but currently, Winter Survival is ultimately a boring game survival simulator.