Through the Woods Review: Are You Afraid of the Dark?

When it comes to horror, the sound design is just as important as the visuals, if not more so. Sure, you can throw grotesque visuals or creatures at the audience all you want, but to really bring out the tension you’ll need to make them fear what they don’t see. Knowing that, I was a bit disheartened when I launched Through the Woods, as the game was a bit broken and would not showcase the audio regardless of what I did. I managed to fix this after several hours of troubleshooting and a number of workarounds, but I had already played through the first few chapters of the game in complete silence. I restarted the game once resolving the issue and am glad I did, as the sound design is easily the best thing about the game. Throughout my playthrough, I was constantly checking behind me (as well as my own home as it sounded as if an intruder was inside of my house) due to the highly detailed, realistic sounds emanating from the title.

The title starts out with a mother and son arriving at a remote home in the middle of the Norwegian wilderness. The narrative is voiced by the mother who is telling the story of her son’s disappearance. Early on it is stated she loathes her son for the wedge he drove between her and her husband as well as their friends. At the risk of spoiling the story for you, it is not very original and has already been explored many times, such as in the game The Park and the film The Babadook. Through the Woods quickly picks up when the protagonist catches her son being carried away via a small boat by a man from the cabin’s dock. She jumps headfirst into the lake to swim after them and arrives on a small island not far from the home.

The new area is covered in dense fog and features old, dilapidated structures that appear to be ancient ruins of a long lost civilization. The structures and wilderness areas are highly detailed, well rendered, and on par with many indie horror titles on the market today. There are only mild Bethesda-ish glitches where items enter each other awkwardly. The same cannot be said about the character models which are stiff, poorly animated, and downright ugly. So much so, the mother appears to be more akin to a grandmother in appearance. The dialogue is equally terrible, as the voice actors all sound bored or disinterested, particularly the main characters.

The gameplay is extremely basic, making the title more akin to a walking simulator that plays in a third person perspective. Your character can open doors, run, sneak, and turn on a flashlight, with most of the face buttons being unused. There are some collectibles to be found for those that wish to explore the world, and while most of these are not required, they do provide some chilling context to what is going on in the world around you. The bulk of the game revolves around you evading creatures that pursue you while making it from point A to point B.

I wish I could comment on the overall appearance of the enemies you’ll face, but I have yet to actually see any of them. Based off the scattered notes I came across, there are a few enemies taken from Norse folklore, but one of them decided it wouldn’t even make an appearance, leaving me feeling like Ian Malcolm from the original Jurassic Park before the chaos went down. Another of the beings decided it would cause my character to randomly stop mid-run, cause her to throw her flashlight across the way, and then die without explanation. At first, I thought this was one of the many glitches I encountered; however, after sneaking through on my fourth attempt I feel like this is how you are expected to pass the segment.

Through the Woods could have used quite a bit more polish, as the glitches come regularly. Early in the game, the child that the mother is walking side by side with walked up an invisible staircase, where he eventually hit a wall and continued to walk in place until I reloaded a checkpoint. In another instance, the mother fell awkwardly off of a staircase causing her to get stuck in midair, again forcing me to reload the checkpoint. The game is also prone to freezing when transitioning between cut scenes and actual gameplay, causing my entire Xbox to freeze on more than one occasion. This would be slightly more forgivable if the checkpoint system was not simply atrocious, but the save points are so randomly scattered and can only be triggered once, progression becomes a bit of a chore early into the adventure. The saving grace is that the entire game can be completed in just a few short hours.

With Through the Woods being light on content and littered with bugs, it is hard to recommend it in its current state. While the overall presentation shines through at times, the bugs and bare bones gameplay make it near unplayable and hardly worth the payoff that the story builds up to. I would recommend waiting until this is discounted heavily or offered for free from one of the many subscription services offered.

5 out of 10

Pros

  • Sound Effects Are Top Notch
  • Highly Detailed Environments
  • Creepy Notes Add to Lore
  • Interesting Premise Despite Being Unoriginal

Cons

  • Lack of Mechanics
  • Bugs Galore
  • Poor Checkpoint System

Through the Woods was developed  by Antagonist and published by 1C Company. It launched in 2016 for PC, May 2nd, 2018 for X1, and May 8th, 2018 on PS4 for $19.99. The game was provided to us for review on XB1. If you’d like to see more of Through the Woods, 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.

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