Survival games are all the rage right now it seems, aside from the incredibly popular and successful Battle Royale genre. There’s Ark: Survival Evolved, Conan Exiles, Die Young, The Long Dark and possibly more that I’ve forgotten without checking. Now we have Fade to Silence which is published by THQNordic and is currently on Steam Early Access. So this means it’s not a 100% complete, and will have teething issues and some content not implemented just yet. Today, I took my first steps into Fade to Silence to find out if I could survive the frozen wastes and the voice that plagues the protagonist, Ash.
First off, I want to address the issue that is game crashing. It happened several times in the 2 hours I spent in my first session. Naturally there will be issues like this in an as yet unfinished title. Feedback is essential in games like this, so the developer can address the situation immediately and work on a fix. It’s not a major issues in that respect as you can expect things to go wrong.
As a survival game with a crafting interface and RPG mechanics, with a skill tree currently unavailable, but showing in the menu screen. My guess is that we’re not that far away from receiving this in an update soon.
The game itself is a third person action/adventure set in a frozen waste, where you must scavenge for supplies to continue breathing and not freeze to death. There’s supplies to scavenge and plant life to forage around for in an unforgiving world, and not forgetting animals that you must hunt down. However you’re not alone in the wilderness, and twisted, deformed enemies will sprout out of the ground ready to deliver a swift end if you’re not paying attention.
Combat sees you starting off with a lit torch to defend yourself with which does for the immediate future, but long term, it’s not ideal. There’s also stamina to take into account, which prevents you from swinging wildly until an enemy is dead. Block or roll can be used too for defence.
One issue I came across while trying to keep my guy warm, was adding firewood to my campfire. I found some with no issue but when it came to interacting with my campfire, nothing happened and I died from exposure. Relating what I had tried after respawning bore the same result. I honestly have no idea if it’s broken or I’m not performing a certain action. There’s no tutorial available except what you get for combat. If I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, then surviving is not going to happen unless random guess work is what is going to be the norm in Fade to Silence.
Verdict
Fade to Silence has the potential to be an intriguing survival game set in frozen wastes, and with a disembodied voice that haunts you throughout, I’m genuinely interested in finding out where this game will take me. There’s plenty of other survival/crafting games available to you, but they’ve not really grabbed me, aside from Die Young. But I do believe that with some new features, Fade to Silence could well stand out from the crowd. A brutal and harsh frozen landscape stands between life and death not only from twisted creatures, but also the elements.
It would be unfair to award a score for a game that is still a work-in-progress, but at the current standard, I would say a definite 7 at a minimum. There is still a way to go, and the overall quality of the game could improve or slide the other way. I just hope its the former and we get plenty more new content coming our way very soon.
Developer: Black Forest Games
Publisher: THQNordic
Release Date: 14th December - Steam Early Access
Price: $29.99/£24.99
File Size: 7.5GB
System Requirements
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 7/8/10 64bit
Processor: Intel Core i5-2400/AMD FX-8320 or better
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 or AMD Radeon R9 270 (2gb or more)
Storage: 30 GB available space
RECOMMENDED:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 10 64bit
Processor: Intel Core i7-3770/AMD FX-8350 or better
Memory: 12 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 480
Storage: 30 GB available space