Winter Survival

Winter Survival is a game that for me came out of nowhere and really took me by surprise. This is a survival experience that I think is very cool and perfect for a video game. As someone that grew up in Scotland, going camping, hiking, and playing around in the woods is something I loved to do. I often wondered if I could have survived out there on my own in the depths of winter. Well, now I can wonder no more and I can do it safely as I can see how well I could survive in a winter wilderness thanks to this survival game.

Going It Alone!

There is a bit of a story in Winter Survival that gives you the motivation to keep on going. You and your buddies are out for a fun hike together in Mount Washington State Park. There is an accident, you fall, lose your backpack, and most of your supplies and now you are stranded in the woods! It is freezing cold and you need to make your way to an old ranger station so that you can call for help. However, in order to call for help, you must first survive! The game looks fantastic, the first trailer I saw kind of reminded me of a Bob Ross painting actually!

The Ultimate Survivor!

The key to survival in Winter Survival is making it through that first night and finding a shelter for yourself. There are basic needs that you need to make sure are met if you have any hope of making it to that ranger station. Cold, thirst, hunger, and your physical wellbeing all need to be tended to as you fight to survive. Before you can make it to the ranger station, you will have to scavenge for supplies. Thankfully other people have been up in this part of the park before and there are supplies, cabins, and so on for you to find to help you on your journey. Death always feels like it is just one wrong move away and that is something I think that makes the game very exciting to play.

Big Bear Chase Me!

If you get that reference, you are most certainly my kind of guy or girl! Anyway, as you would expect this deep into the woods, wildlife is certainly going to be an issue for you. Winter Survival is interesting in that it does not give you a gun or a bow and arrow to fight with. There is not actually any combat in this game at all and if you do come across a bear or a pack of wolves, you better haul your ass out of there. However, you can actually set traps that you find. You can set the traps to try and protect yourself from the larger animals or you can use them to try and trap smaller ones.

We Are All A Little Crazy Here

One area where Winter Survival is offering something unique is with one of the things that you have to keep an eye on. We already mentioned thirst, hunger, and so on, but your mental health is also something that needs to be looked after here. Your mental health can have a disastrous effect on your other “stats” that you need to maintain. Also, you can suffer from full on hallucinations if things get really bad. This is a really cool twist to the gameplay and something that separates this from all the other survival games out there.

There is a free demo of Winter Survival that you can try out right now and I can tell you that I have spent a lot of time with this demo. I know that we have had a lot of survival games over the last few years.

Pros:

• I love the Washington State Park setting
• The game is very nice to look at and it actually makes you feel cold!
• The survival mechanics are fantastic
• I like the mental health thing they have going on, especially with the hallucinations!

Cons:

• Games like this can sometimes get a bit frustrating
• I do wonder how much story there will be in the final version of the game