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Perhaps it is most accurately described as a “top-down survival horror game.”įirst and foremost, Darkwood is fantastic at making the player feel vulnerable. It’s all up to the player to decide how they want to interpret the story, and virtually any answer is as good as the next one.ĭescribing Darkwood’s gameplay using only the familiar genre tags that we’re all used to is tricky. Is it all just a dream or a drug-induced nightmare? Perhaps PTSD, or maybe the afterlife, or even incomprehensible Lovecraftian forces! Maybe it is simply an obscure fairytale. In the end, without digging into spoiler territory, I’ll just say that the game is open to interpretation, and there is no be-all-end-all solution to the game’s riddles. There are different ways to progress forward, some moral decisions to take, and plenty of interesting side quests that should be explored.ĭarkwood is highly evocative and atmospheric and requires patience and attention from those who want to truly take it in and understand it. The player’s ultimate goal is to reclaim his key from the Doctor and escape the woods, but the journey isn’t all that linear. They are all presented up close in conversation screens through beautiful and minimally colored art that reflects the bleak and melancholic hopelessness of the game’s world. Early on, the player will encounter the “Trader”, who is also unable to speak and has mushrooms growing all over his body the menacing and sadistic “Wolfman”, and many other characters. The woods are filled with memorable and unique characters, all odd and disturbing in their way.
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That said, the story of Darkwood is cryptic and layered, relying a lot on the player’s ability to presume certain plot points from the environment, subtle cues and hints presented in the dialogues – or rather, monologues, as the Stranger is unable to speak for an unexplained reason. The intro doesn’t give you much to go on and only sets a basic premise: we know virtually nothing about the Stranger, the Doctor, or the Trader. However, he will be saved by another mysterious figure known as the “Trader,” and wakes up in the first hideout. The player breaks free, the doctor disappears, and the Stranger gets almost killed by a pack of monsters that swarm the Doctor’s house. The player takes control of the captive man, who is the true protagonist of the game and is simply referred to as “The Protagonist” or the “Stranger.” The disfigured mute man is then held captive and is brutally beaten by the Doctor, who is dead-set on figuring out where the door that the key unlocks is.
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Soon enough, he ends up in a clearing where he encounters a wounded man who happens to have a key that the Doctor believes unlocks a way out of the woods. The good Doctor, too, hasn’t been upholding the Hippocratic Oath. The trees are growing unnaturally fast, blocking all the roads to the outside world. We find out that an unknown disease is ravaging the forest. Darkwood kicks off with a brief intro sequence, putting the player in the shoes of the “Doctor,” a character who will later play an essential role in the story.