Darkwood Reviews
A bird's eye view of indie survival horror, unique for its oppressive atmosphere and atmospheric shadow play.
Review in German | Read full review
Darkwood is a very unique experience that relies on darkness and silence frequently, causing your own imagination to run wild and fill in the horrific gaps.
Darkwood is a tense and challenging horror and survival game with superb atmosphere, excellent visual presentation, and a strong gameplay core, but it's marred by clunky movement and unintuitive combat mechanics.
Despite being such a common setting in horror, it feels like there aren’t that many big games that utilize the woods (The Forest is probably the best other example), especially to the level Darkwood does. Every decision is informed by the setting, from the survival mechanics to the enemy types to the tone and story. This cohesion of theme makes it stand out in the crowded indie horror market, providing scares that AAA games have trouble achieving. But just like getting lost in the woods, be prepared to spend some time fumbling around in the dark before finding the path.
Darkwood plays with the fear of the unknown to create an atmosphere and situations of pure terror. If you've been looking for a true survival horror game for years, one that doesn't rely on jump scares and make you turn on the lights at night... You've just found it.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Darkwood is a challenging and rewarding horror game that will test even the hardcore survival horror buff. The gameplay loop of finding new and better resources by day and fending off horrifying creatures by night is surprisingly addictive.
Darkwood tells the story of escaping from a mysterious and scary forest, where darkness and fear are the powers at work, and although it suffers from shortcomings here and there, the atmosphere alone is enough to keep you engaged and take your breath away.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Darkwood is a thrilling survival horror game that delivers a unique experience with its pixel art top-down graphics, great sound design and gameplay in mysterious woods full of danger lurking behind every tree and corner.
Review in Dutch | Read full review
Darkwood is a game with potential, and I certainly hope the developers take any lessons learned from it and return with the killer horror title they’ve come close to creating.
Unfortunately for me Darkwood is unintelligible, and I'm genuinely sad that I wasn't able to appreciate the many merits of a game because I simply had no way of actually making sense of it.
Darkwood is a work of absolute value, able to create a sense of deep and pervasive restlessness, which results in anxiety at the beginning of each night. On consoles, the game suffers from a more cumbersome gameplay. A cruel adventure, suitable for those who think they have seen everything in their videogame career.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Darkwood is a great little horror ID title and deserves a good reception. If you enjoy horror titles and more so survival horror games, then you`ll enjoy this.
As far as survival horrors on the Nintendo Switch go, Darkwood certainly knows how to keep players alert and on their toes, as well as to make them take their own decisions to survive. Where Darkwood doesn't fully stand out is when it comes to its visual environment, as well as on solving technical issues but beyond that, this is a game that will satisfy fans of the survival horror genre.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Darkwood is really not for everyone's hands. Unforgiving and far from being linear, it's above all aimed to gamers who are experienced in the survival genre. The sound design is neat and conveys a real feeling of despair and horror, even if the visuals and the game design in general lack of variety.
Review in French | Read full review
Try to escape a haunting forest with an intriguing cast of characters in Darkwood.
Darkwood is a simple but hugely satisfying top-down horror survival game that will have you jumping at shadows.
Darkwood has an interesting world, a story that can go in different directions depending on your decisions, and a gameplay loop that's exciting at times and tedious at others.
Darkwood succeeds in creating a haunting atmosphere that will leave even veteran horror gamers on edge, but it has its fair share of tedious moments as well.
Darkwood for the Nintendo Switch will certainly scratch the itch of a survival focused gamer. This takes the premise of games like Don't Starve, then takes itself much more seriously and makes it somewhat spookier. The harshness won't appeal to everyone, and the horror themes wear thin before too long, but for the right survivalist, or glutton for punishment, this may be exactly what you were looking for.
Darkwood is not a game for everyone – and that's perfect. As a survival horror game, it's one of the tensest and scariest experiences I've encountered. There is a very European soul in here, a desperation and acceptance of death that we can only see in eastern productions, giving us a hard look at something different, but equally beautiful.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review