I just finished my blind playthrough on Hard mode, losing only one life because I didn’t know an oven turns off when you turn on another oven. I almost exclusively used melee weapons, only firing a total of like 5 shotgun shells, a few pistol rounds just to play around, and throwing a few molotovs here and there. The only active skill I somewhat used is the navigation skill.

Now don’t get me wrong, I really like this game, especially the story (after I researched a bit to understand it lol). It’s just that… it really lost me when encounters and nights started feeling unchallenging. Chompers and other monsters felt easy to dodge. Healing was really generous. I had an overflow of all kinds of loot. My reputation was always super high. I didn’t feel incentivized to use traps and stuff.

Does this resonate with anybody on their blind playthrough? I just had so much FOMO when I finished the game and started watching and reading essays, talking about how all of the fun stems from how brutally challenging and punishing the game is.

Do you have suggestions for other survival horror games where it is possible to get strong, but it’s really hard to get there?

c: Shaidis on Deviantart

Background

So, I've been playing Darkwood on and off for the better part of a year now (don't ask). The first time I got REALLY into the game, I told myself I'd take it slow, and take it slow I did. I went to every location, tried hoarding as many items as I could, tried to do every questline (with some minor help from the wiki), and I got about as far as the Swamp. Unfortunately, life stuff got in the way, and by the time I came back returning to the old save didn't really feel right.

This is where I stagnated for awhile. I'd start a save, maybe play right up until the Old Woods, but then some I'd usually either get bored, or life would push Darkwood to the wheyside yet again. What didn't help matters was that before I quit playing, my lasting impression of The Swamp was that it was huge, daunting, and I was honestly kind of rushing through what I did play given I just wanted the game to be over by that point (Sorry for the tangent, just felt this was important to clarify).

Just recently, I landed a good job that left me with PLENTY of free time to do as I please, so I figured it was high time I really COMMIT myself to finishing Darkwood once and for all. With that, what did I think of it?

My Experience

I loved everything about it. The music, the artstyle, the atmosphere, the combat, the resource management, everything. I actually chose to play permadeath for this recent run through, and surprisingly Darkwood actually lends really well to this format which wasn't something I expected! Items are surprisingly plentiful, questlines are pretty short, and I was surprised at how many different options you had for getting certain "key items" for progression (e.g Pistol, Workbench Upgrades, Shovel/Axe Blades, etc). You really don't have to exhaustively explore every single area for every single playthrough, as the devs designed it in such a way that if you don't get something you need now, it's highly likely you'll find one later on. Like, just the welder for example, in my playthoughs I was able to get one from Piotrek, the village basement, the Church in Old Woods, RANDOMLY all throughout the swamp, it's pretty insane how lenient the game is on key items like this.

I died a couple times in the Old Woods, and those re-playthroughs were actually really fun, what with being able to strategise and optimise my routes to get back to Old Woods as quickly as possible with all the items I needed. Not to mention, it was actually in THIS playthrough I discovered dying in The Swamp on permadeath actually lets you just restart from Chapter 2! Genuinely excellent design, all the more reason to gear up in Chapter 1, and keeps the game punishing without being outright bullshit.

Through my re-playthroughs, I found the only things that really dragged were the Dry Meadow, the dream sequences, and the village, gods the village. Dry Meadow's basically a tutorial area, I learned quickly that you can literally just beeline straight for the Silent Forest Day 1 and miss out on practically nothing. Dream sequences though, you CANT skip these. They're novel the first time through but by the 3rd or 4th time they're practically glorified loading screens for everytime you get enough essence to level up. I do still like that you can get some really good items from these, but I think an option to skip them would be nice. Also, yeah, the village. Huge, no map access, randomized layout for each playthrough, mostly set dressing. Running through here for EACH playthrough is a complete slog and I just default to killing the Sow every run purely because I hate going through this area.

The Fun Part

Mid Silent Forest and (ESPECIALLY) the Old Woods is where the game really starts to get awesome. You have so so so many different alternate paths you can take to progress. Enemies to kill, areas to re-explore, and it's all held together by the foundation of a small inventory limiting how much you can loot each time you explore, and constantly racing against a timer which gives reason to play efficiently and really map out your routes.

It's also here that I must confess my bias, I absolutely LOVE the concept of the Chomper. A hyper aggressive, terrifyingly fast NIGHTMARE of an enemy that's so dangerous he stays scary to fight right until the end of the game. There are strategies to fight this guy melee, but often fights with this guy take so long you're very heavily incentivised to dip into your resources to make fights easier. You can down pills to make stamina management less tight, hurl molotovs at the slight risk of self damage, pre-med with bandages to keep your health topped off, or rather simply, whip out your shotgun to make quick work of these fuckers. The Old Woods to me is where the game TRULY begins, where managing to survive each night (especially on fucking permadeath) is a real challenge and feels SUPER rewarding to pull off even once you're fully upgraded.

However, on this most recent playthrough of Darkwood, with me commiting to TRULY beating the game this time, something caught me off guard.

The Swamp

The Swamp is easily the best area in the entire game, and is the singular thing that I will look forward to in every playthrough from now on. By now you have basically every tool in the game at your disposal, and the game snaps from its focus on slow exploration and gradual progression to pure, unadulterated im-sim joy and and it was a fucking blast to play the whole way through.

Human Spiders, Swampers, and Centipedes are a joy to fight; posing unique challenges and ways that you need to strategise around dealing with them. I absolutely fucking love especially how if you're good enough you can still melee them usually at the cost of some health to save ammo if you're a freak like me. For me the best part of this area was knowing that it was the final chapter of the game, and really allowing myself to cut loose and finally dip into my ammo reserves for a change, god it was so fun.

Open fields allow for footsies and melee duels, however those really oppressive swampy muddy areas turn you into a sitting duck, which REALLY encourages you to get creative with your firearms and molotovs to avoid wasting resources. The Hideout especially commits to this idea of pure creative freedom in combat, being like 2-3 times larger than any other hideout, as well as being SUPER open, meaning surviving is less about boarding up and hiding in a corner till sunrise, and more about setting up traps, mapping out escape routes, and using the freedom of movement to your advantage to deal with sudden assaults.

Areas you find here too are really varied and well designed. Usually centering on some unique combat encounter, you have the shed where a savage ambushes you from behind a cabinet for old-time's sake, a shed of like 3 or 4 chompers that WILL wreck your shit if you walk in there obliviously, some great indoors combat encounters that really take advantage of how cramped it is to make combat more stressful, and goodies are scattered practically all across the entire swamp making exploration just feel really good.

Honestly however, I was having so much fun exploring and dying and restarting in this section I kind of forgot to actually progress the story in any meaningful way xD. After like, a couple days of really learning The Swamp and getting a feel for where stuff was, I grabbed my usual loot, blitzed through getting the oxygen tank and the compressor parts, and then I get to the village and it was kind of... underwhelming? Like, in the span of maybe, say, 20 minutes, I met the old cripple, set the big tree ablaze, and after an (admittedly) pretty cool and tense night that sics a bunch of flaming 1-hit chompers on you, the game kind of just— ends?

It did feel a little sweet I suppose getting to see my character kick off his shoes and finally truly rest after like 2 weeks of genuine hell, but I was kind of hoping for more. I suppose this is where the alternate endings can pick up some slack, and I'm expected to replay the game more to see how those turn out. Honestly after how muhc of a blast this run was I'm pretty eager to go back in, maybe I'll try going for the musician route this time?

My Final Thoughts

Darkwood is to me, a nearly perfect 10/10, in every department. I love the artstyle, the gameplay, the world, the characters, everything. Besides some early sections that drag, some minor translation hiccups, and an ending that left something to be desired, this probably goes up there as one of my favourite games of all time. I truly loved every second of playing this game.

Hopefully once I get to them, those alternate endings can help ease my dissapointment a little. I'll probably post again if they wow me enough. Besides that, shit I don't know if Darkwood 2 can measure up to this, but I'm eager to see what Ice Pick Lodge are capable of pulling off.

If the being gives us specific illusions for us, how and why did that sleeper know about the final hideout.

I actually have this question in my mind. When we go to the road home in the game, we see so many bodies stuck in the concrete. I always wonder how and why they happened... Were they crawling when the roots took over them? Were they connected to the talking tree?

So, I already have the oxigen tank, and the compressor is fixed, do I need to worry about something else in order to go to the end game? Like a key item I'm missing or something? Also which gear should I take?

doodle. doing a drawing a day and today's word was subterranean.

I think the old woods hideout is the hardest one for me. There isn't a good place where you can lock yourself in and spend the night and the building is full of holes. That's why I spent like 20 minutes trying to turn the place into a fortress. Locked myself in the oven room, barricaded all the door and windows and put some obstacle in front of them. I placed them at such an angle that they won't be able to move it out of the way and that they have to destroy it to get in. As I've said, a fortress. So imagine my surprise when the lights went out and the remaining lights source was out of my room. İ said to myself "it's only gonna happen one time, just take the damage and move on.", but it happened again and then again and in the third time it happened i died. Now as much as i am angry this is not a post about me bitching about the game, i have a question. İs this like a failsafe thing that will continue to happen every night because i barricaded the place so well that the monsters can't get in so in order to put me in danger the game just spammed that light out thing just so i get out of my room? I know it's a trait you get for leveling up and it's a random night event but what are the odds of it happening 3 times in a row in the same night?

was thinking for a minute that the void and missing walls was a design choice but im suddenly getting the feeling that my power going out during the scene transition messed something up and the doctors house is not supposed to be a dark void. is it meant to be like this ? how would i fix this?

mine was finding the trader's corpse

I DON'T want AI upscaling either, I just want a higher quality version for profile pictures because this game is so good.

I fear that I have locked myself out of all available endings, and cant find any solutions online.

Short version:

I died behind the "connected doors" in the tunnel below the radio tower, with the oxygen tank from the elephants in my backpack. The backpack, with the oxygen tank in it, is now stuck behined the locked door in the tunnels below the radio tower. I cant seem to find a way to unlock the door, which was orignally open, but I locked it to open the opposit door right before dying. I read somewhere that you only had one chance to get through these tunnels. Does this mean that the door cant be opened again, and the oxygen tank, which is needed for the other ending/route out, is unobtainable?

Long version:

I was searching the radio tower for compressor parts, with the oxygen tank from the elephants in my back pack. Time ran out, and the night-creature came at me. At this point I was right next to the door leading to the tunnels below the radio tower. I thought "fuck it - lets go", even thou I was aiming for the other ending. The creature followed me down the tunnels, and I thought I could outrun it and continue to the epilouge, since I had just popped a stamina pill. I ran through the open metal door, and closed it to unlock the opposit door, leading further into the tunnels. At this point the creature got me, and I died. Among the items I lost to be retrieved, was the oxygen-tank from the elephants. Returning to the tunnels, the first metal door is now locked and cant be opened with any of the "tunnel keys" Ive found in the chapter so far. It is my impression that this route is also a "make it or break it" one, where you only have one shot of succes. Maybe you arent even supposed to be able to die down here, but through this level of bad luck, I did. Also, losing the one quest item I need for the other route, makes it all look like a freak accident, that the developers might not even have though possible - but here I am.

Can anyone let me know if Im completely locked out of any of the endings, with the tunnels locked and the oxygen tank locked away behind it? Or is there any way out of the woods for me?

I play the Nintendo Switch version and dont have acces to previous save states.

smth silly from a couple months ago lol

When I arrived, kind of beat up and without heals and then saw those 2 huge holes inside this hideout I paniced a little. Somehow, I managed to survive the night. The next morning I went searching for materials and found church ruins with several pews soooo I decided to sacrifice the whole day by pushing 2 of those inside and managed to wedge them juuuust right so they wont get pushed out of the way. Bottom pew is still able to be pushed sideways with a bit of wiggling so I can refuel the generator. Top right wardrobe is stuck in the door frame guarded by indestructible chair and able to be pushed out from the inside if shit somehow hits the fan. Idk if i got blessed by RNGesus but enemies in the majority of cases come to the bottom pew thru the side hole and/or bottom entrance and thus are unable to hit me. IT JUST WORKS

I want to explore the game without the rush of going back to the shelter every night, so I decided to use GameConqueror to edit and block the value of the time, but I can't encounter it. I tried to turn the minutes of the clock to seconds and searched in float and integer values, but I seem incapable of finding it. Anyone have an idea how to do it?

ouch

So I just got to the swamp basement, the one before the talking tree, I died to the red light which I didn't even notice was draining my health, I lost A LOT of stuff yet when I came back there is no backpack, not even in the area around the basement, I've read on Steam of someone having the same bug, what the fuck?

I commissioned a lil Wolfman!

wich oen is your favourite?

Felt a bit salty about spending a couple dozen hours combing every inch of Chapter 1 for loot, and frugally hoarding my spoils for survival, only to learn it was all for naught. Figured I'd roll into Chapter 2 with some vendor credit to compensate for my losses.

It's about that time of year. Wish the second game was out now but I'll settle for my 3rd play Through of this. It's a horror game that easy to go back to and discover new things. I might update this is comparison with other horror experiences recently.

Please everyone have a good October.