Fade to Silence Reviews
A survival game that, despite a few interesting ideas, struggles to provide any reason to persevere with its overfamiliar gameplay and poorly handled storytelling.
For the flaws that it has, Fade to Silence is an ambitious game that provides a unique experience in a crowded genre. The world is stark, cold and unwelcoming, and there's a discomposing atmosphere that always puts you on edge. Fade to Silence isn't for everyone, but for those who want to experience a harsh, unforgiving world, this is just the ticket - just don't rush into permadeath mode right away.
THQ Nordic and Black Forest Studio deliver an interesting survival proposal, with some unique elements such as the cold environment, the mushing and the inner voice that guides and tortures us throughout the whole game. But its mechanics are not polished, and we found several technical problems while we played the 1.02 version.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
A game with interesting ideas but a bad realization that makes this game fun for a while, but boring in the long run. Also it's ugly and unpolished.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
If you’re looking for an adventure with a bit of an extra challenge and you don’t mind putting in the work to figure out how to do everything, or perhaps just want a bit of a harsh survival game with a lot of depth and lore, then Fade to Silence will tick a lot of boxes. It comes with a few issues, like being unable to equip a torch for some reason, or story missions forcing you to stay outside when you really need to find shelter from a blizzard, but there’s just something quite playable about this one. Though many might find it a bit too overwhelming. I sure did.
All in all, Fade to Silence has been an enjoyable experience for me. It's got the resource management and camp building that I seem to be drawn to and challenging but not Soulsbourne level enemies to tackle. The glitches are easily fixed with patches (knock on wood that they are in the pipeline), and there's a decently sized map to explore with hidden passages and caverns to loot.
There is a decent survival gameplay loop at the core of Fade to Silence. It's just that everything that emanates from that core is either cheaply cropped from another game or poorly executed in this one. I just kept coming back to this feeling I was playing disjointed parts of these other games, not a unified experience of this one.
Attempts to build a new type of survival on the Dark Souls foundation has failed. Opponents are stupid, and mechanics are pretty dull.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Lackluster combat and poorly explained mechanics aside undermine the fact that Fade to Silence is an often decently crafted survival sandbox effort that neatly dovetails Lovecraftian themes into its design to often surprising effect.
Stunning visuals and survival mechanics shine in Fade to Silence. Unfortunately, companion management, bugs, crashes, and uninspiring combat lead to an experience that you just want to fade away.
Fade to Silence is an amalgamation of mechanics and systems that only work some of the time. Extensive survival procedures and dynamic weather patterns provide the potential for a memorable experience, but nothing takes advantage of that. Controls frustrate, crafting is lacklustre, and combat is missing any sort of depth. Keen survivalists will find something to like here, but those with only a passing interest should probably steer clear.
Fade to Silence is a broken mess where even the simplest of tasks is frustrating.
Review in Italian | Read full review
It demonstrates qualities that could appeal to lovers of the tough and intransigent challenge
Review in Italian | Read full review
With Fade to Silence, Black Forest Games was undoubtedly willing to offer a title with a unique atmosphere at the crossroads of influences dear to hardcore players, eager for ruthless survival mechanisms and mute narrative. Unfortunately, by trying do to too much, this RPG survival does not convince in any of its aspects, offering a repetitive experience, technically very limited and painful.
Review in French | Read full review
Fade to Black is an interesting tale of survival, but is far too repetitive.
Fade To Silence is a mess of ideas that don't come together well enough to be worth experiencing. There's plenty of potential here, but every idea is half-baked, undercooked, and buried by other systems.
Fade to Silence makes bold attempts at twisting the survival genre into an expansive pallet of action-based combat, base building, and crafting. The freezing post-apocalypse is brutal and not often rewarding, yet there is enough personality to merit interest.
Fade to Silence does leave its mark on the survival genre, namely the terrific use of a dynamic weather system. However, everything else in the game is slightly cumbersome, from combat to item management. With player inventory being limited, your only option is to transfer items to your stash at the camp. However, the only options are to place items one at a time, or everything you happen to be carrying. There isn’t any way to transfer individual stacks of items. The game needs a better introduction to many of the game’s mechanics, especially when playing on the harder difficulty that can leave you with starting over with nothing, outside of the permanent unlocks.
The best way to explain Fade to Silence is that its designed with a specific player in mind. You need to have that desire to deal with micromanaging and drive to pick up, use and explore every place. If you're looking for a more combat or story driven adventure, this likely won't appeal to you, even if the events leading to this situation are eventually revealed. Because, at the end of the day, Fade to Silence does survival phenomenally well, it just isn't terribly interesting or check enough boxes to appeal to a wider demographic.
Fade To Silence's cool weather system and interesting ideas can't make up for a derivative combat system, samey open world design, poor story, and several severe bugs. This is an adventure you won't want to survive.