In my time writing for this site, I have taken in one major bit of knowledge – no matter how well or poorly received a product is that product won’t be for everyone. In a perfect world, this would be fine and dandy – I mean, Baskin-Robbins has 52 flavors for a reason, but since the internet is a thing and gives everyone the ability to share their opinion, things aren’t so simple. We’ve received countless comments, messages, and replies to several of our reviews and posts simply because we scored something lower or higher than what the internet at large agreed upon. While I never reviewed it, I have stated many times that Horizon Zero Dawn was just meh for me; I can see why people enjoy it, but something about it turned me off entirely. I am not sure if it’s the broken English, the repetitive nature of the game, or the fact that the main character looks like a dirty hippie who idolizes Dog the Bounty Hunter a little too much. Ironically, the newly released Fade to Silence reminds me a great deal of it, and will likely result in even more hate mail being sent my way because I am really digging this game despite the majority of the internet disagreeing with me.

For those who have never heard of Fade to Silence, it is primarily a survival game that incorporates Lovecraftian horror and combat mechanics to make for a rather unique experience. The end result feels very much like it’s a mashup of Dark Souls, Horizon Zero Dawn, and some bits and pieces from Dead Rising for good measure. You begin the journey in a strange tomb of sorts and interact briefly with a mysterious wraith that greets you with the normal threats of taking your soul for all eternity before a rather short tutorial followed by roaming the game world freely. In the tutorial you’ll learn some of the basics including combat, survival, and crafting. The game kind of leaves you alone to figure out the rest on your own. This is by far one of the game’s biggest opportunities as the lack of direction shifts the emphasis from a fairly interesting narrative to simply surviving long enough to figure it out on your own.

Much like Dead Rising, this plays the long game by giving you a few lives and then incorporating permadeath mechanics with some progression carrying over between playthroughs. Where I would normally be frustrated and throw my controller across the room (in other words, pretty much any Dark Souls inspired game), I was determined to push forward and always felt that the failures were a learning experience, looking forward to what upgrades I had achieved. This is a prime example of a grind done right that other developers could take note of. The game comes out of the box with three difficulties, and since I am not a masochist, I went with the normal option, which sits very high on the steep end at the onset and slowly becomes more manageable with each new game; my first run ended before I ventured out of sight of the main base. Between the vicious enemy entities and harsh tundra, survival will not come easy and require you to excel at the Souls-ish combat as well as managing hunger, stamina, and the cold. Through meticulous scavenging and carefully planning my upgrades that are awarded upon death, I found myself exploring areas further and further from the base.

Resource gathering is a huge part of the game, so much so it felt like I was playing HZD at many points throughout the game, albeit with a much more enthralling story and setting. Scavenging is required early on but subsides quite a bit once you’ve added a few NPCs to your camp, or if you select the upgrades allowing bulk amounts of resources to be planted within your stash at the beginning of a new run. This frees you up to explore the area and try to piece together the mystery of the where and why’s associated with you and the world around you. Since this does a horrible job of leaving any sort of direction or bread crumb trail for you to follow, you’ll need to check the map often for points of interest. Sadly, the map doesn’t remain unlocked between runs, so it requires you to keep mental notes of important locales, such as NPC hiding spots in order to take advantage of their perks early into the adventure. As your camp advances in terms of population and resources, so will your gameplay options, eventually adding a dog sled as well as some better weaponry.

When you’re not looking for bits of wood to burn or fashion into a limited number of primitive weapons, you’ll be on guard against the spine-tingling creatures who aim to do you and your camp harm. These beings look like demonic tree systems that are animated in a way that calls back to Silent Hill due to the jittery, jerking animations that were common among the creatures found within the streets of the rural town from Hell. The nightmarish creatures come in a few different flavors, each with their own weaknesses and attack patterns that will put you into fight or flight mode instantly, even more so when they appear to be dead trees hidden amongst foliage and come to life when you least expect it. While I would’ve loved to see more options in terms of your arsenal and abilities, the limited options do the game justice and play into the survival horror aspect well, reinforcing the flight or fight mechanics. With a standard bow as well as a few melee options available (each with their own light and heavy attacks), you’re given just enough to get by and nothing more. Each of the options serves secondary purposes, such as hacking down trees or chiseling away at mineral reserves found in caves.

The enemy forces pose a decent challenge and will likely cause a few deaths, but your biggest adversary is going to be the risk of blizzards, and I don’t mean death by diabetes thanks to the Dairy Queen treat. A random modifier that can come into play as early as the tutorial are the blizzards, which will roll through the winter wasteland and cause near whiteout conditions and the temperature to plummet at alarming rates. Obviously failing to find shelter will cause you to freeze, or even worse, get turned around and end up in a nest of creatures. Since shelters are placed within reasonable distances of each other, I never found this to be overly frustrating, but I can see this causing some grief depending on what task you’re working on when the snow rolls in.

If this all sounds like too much for you, the game offers an easier option that focuss on the story over the survival and combat mechanics at the cost of the associated Trophy/Achievement progress. Since the survival mechanics, as well as dying repeatedly is an integral part of the game, I only booted this mode for just enough time to touch on it. While it makes combat a bit more forgiving and greatly reduce the penalties for ignoring your core survival meters, it also reduced the number of enemies I encountered, making the game feel rather empty.

From an audio and visual standpoint, this doesn’t quite stack up when compared to other games released this late into the lifespan of the current generation. Outside of the crunching snow beneath your feet, the absence of sound plays into the feeling of desolation, but this is almost entirely ruined when the NPCs or player character speaks. Outside of the devil tongued wraith, who is a constant voice in your head and makes frequent appearances, the voice work is atrocious, to say the least. The flat, often laughably bad delivery is only rivaled by how poorly written the script is, often sounding overly dramatic at all times, regardless of the lines being delivered. The human character models look crude and overly stiff, with downright hideous facial animations, as well as clothing and hair flowing at weird, awkward angles with clipping being an almost constant issue. The environments fare slightly better, with assets that are easy to discern, but fail to impress due to a limited amount of textures being used. The otherworldly aspects fall on the opposite end of the spectrum as standouts from a visual standpoint. The way the enemies and evil foliage bursts from the ground and the gigantic tendrilled beings that hover in the skies, often blocking out the sun paint a horrific Lovecraftian vibe that stands as proof that Black Forrest Games has the ability to make a devilishly well-polished experience, but sadly failed to bring the execution full circle to provide a full package that looks even across the board.

While I am fully aware that I will catch some grief for saying this, I really enjoyed my time with Fade to Silence. It’s a survival game for people who hate the survival genre, a Souls-esque game that manages to offer more than a simple “git gud” response to its combat, and sadly, one that many people will overlook just due to the opinions of the few. Do yourself a favor and check this one out, and until you do, keep the snarky comments to yourself.

7 out of 10

Pros

• Horrific Adversaries
• Interesting Take on Lovecraftian Lore
• Grinding Done Right
• Unique Permadeath Mechanic

Cons

• Dated Presentation
• Horrible Writing/Voice Overs

Fade to Silence was developed by Black Forest Games and published by THQ Nordic. It released on PC, PS4, and X1 on April 30th, 2019. The game was provided to us for review on X1. If you’d like to see more of Fade to Silence, check out the official site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

Check out OpenCritic for a better idea of how our review stacks against others.