Edit: s/o to @GrantUsEyes@lemmy.zip for this weekend’s discussion topic 💜
A tale as old as time, League of Legends is a garbage game that I cannot stop playing. At least I also fired up Dishonored for old time’s sake which got me a little nostalgic. Neither are soulslikes, sadly.
Inspired by @Skua@kbin.earth’s post on how the Elden Ring maps match up, I’d like to know what your favourite soulslike theory is. I don’t really have any - I leave that to people who know more about the lore of the games. :)
That sounds absolutely terrifying - I doubt I’d have it in me to play this.
We’ve recently played through RE8 and that was quite a challenge for my nerves. Some passages were quite fine to move around in since the game is a little more action-oriented compared to RE7 that’s just full-on horror with barely any ways to protect yourself + constant jumpscares, but it was still scary to move around in at times. What you’re describing, however, is something else.
I’m probably imagining it to be worse than it is, I suspect. I’ll have to watch some gameplay.
No, it’s pretty much as scary as it sounds. The sound design is spectacular. I’m not particularly easily spooked, but this game gets to me. One thing is because it’s not really doing jump scares. It’s a game that understands that tension and the unknown are the scariest things in the world. Also, if you play it in the intended semi-permadeath game mode there are actual stakes, which horror games often lack otherwise. Like you know, a jump scare can make me jump a little if it’s well done, but it’s not really scary. What’s the worst that can happen? You reload your last save? Big deal. It’s something a lot of horror games get wrong. The first time a zombie jumps out you might twitch, but after that you just go “okay, this is an area with zombies, got it” and it’s not scary anymore. It’s the unknown that is truly terrifying. It’s why Kojima’s PT is so fucking scary.
And that’s also why this game wants people to play permadeath. I’ve dabbled in it in STALKER Anomaly before (which also has some pseudo-horror elements) and it definitely adds another dimension.
Okay, you’re kinda selling me on it, and that’s not good D:
I’ve played RE8, a little bit of RE7, RE4, a little bit of RE2, a little bit of Outlast 2. Watched a whole bunch more, like Amnesia when that was all the rage, but these are probably the only ones I’ve actually played myself.
How does this stack up against all the games I’ve played?
I mean, it depends what you find scary. Darkwood so far has not been psychological horror if that’s what gets you going. This also hasn’t had all that much gross-out stuff and body horror and that kind of stuff that Outlast does. And again, the developers themselves have said they wanted a game with no jump scares.
This is oppressive survival horror - the whole premise is that you’re basically trapped in a fucked up cursed ass plague ridden forest and need to get out. Everyone else you meet is trapped too (there are NPCs, not just enemies). And like I said, a big emphasis is made on the day/night cycle. Daytime is mostly okay, you spend it exploring deeper into the forest and desperately scavenging for anything you can find - then rush back as fast as you can when night falls because if you’re caught outside at night it’s over.
And you have to sit through the night, by the way. There is no fast forward, there is no bed to interact with to jump to the next morning. You huddle in a corner of your cabin with your back to the wall for five to ten minutes as you can’t see what’s going on outside - only hear the noises. And you hope your barricades are holding until dawn and nothing gets in.
There are plenty of video essays out there saying Darkwood is the scariest horror game ever made. They started popping up in my feed last year when the sequel got announced, that’s actually why I ended up buying it. Anyway, so far I may be inclined to agree. Also it’s dirt cheap, currently 80% off and less than €3 total.
I might be getting too comfortable and underestimating things, but I feel like the isometric view is probably not too bad tho, right? I imagined a first-person game. It could very well be still scary as hell, but that probably makes it tolerable at least? D:
Honestly, just give it a try. I guess it’s a question of immersion, but for me I don’t have any problems getting immersed as is. And I definitely think for the budget and resources they had, this implementation is much better than any full 3D attempt they could have made. I’m trying to picture in my head what a full budget AAA first-person version would be like, but I honestly don’t know that it would be all that much scarier.
Also, their use of a limited cone of vision is really effective, so it’s not like you’re always aware of your surroundings - the opposite in fact. And there is something to that, especially when you’re waiting out the night time. You’re huddling in a corner - maybe behind a bear trap - holding a rock or maybe a plank with a nail in it, and you only see a tiny circle around yourself, while simultaneously seeing all the screen real estate around you being in fog of war. In a way, it makes you even more aware of everything around you you can’t see. You constantly look at the room next to yours on screen, behind the wall, knowing that you can’t see what’s in there. And then the noises start…