Through the Woods

Written by Nathan Carter on 6/24/2015 for PC  

It's really hard to find good survival horror games these days. I'm not talking about games that use cheap jump scares and gross out scenes to scare you. I'm talking about games that make you fear the unknown. Games where you are terrified of the environment, where the atmosphere is the scariest part of the game. When I played through PT I rejoiced because I thought we would finally see the return of not only Silent Hill but the return of true psychological horror games. Well, we all know how that turned out. There is hope however as I recently got the opportunity to check out Through the Woods, a horror game that was recently Kickstarted and wants to create a horror game that features a dynamic narration, great audio design, and a discovery of the lore through exploration. They also want the game to focus more on psychological terror rather than jump scares.

I got a chance to play through a very early preview build of the game, and while it didn't last long (only about 10 minutes), I love what I played and cannot wait to play more.

As you would expect, Through the Woods starts off in the middle of the woods. You play as a woman who only has a flashlight at her disposal. As the game starts, you start hearing and conversation between the main character Karen and another person. The conversation continues as you play through the demo. It is unclear who she is talking to but if I had to guess, I would say it's either a cop, or a therapist as It sounds like an interrogation. The conversation gives you hints about what is going on as the events in the conversation have already happened and you are playing them out as Karen. What would a mother do for the love of her child? Well we are about to find out as Karen's child has gone missing, and she goes through the woods to try and find him. Apparently she has heard old wives tales of children going missing thanks to an urban legend but only as she goes through the wood does she start to believe the legends are true. You only have a flashlight at your disposal and to make your way through the woods, you have to follow a trail of reflectors that Karen thinks was left behind by her son, because as she states in the interrogation, her son loved to collect reflectors.

As you hear more from Karen in the interrogation room, fear slowly starts to creep over you as the story starts to sound more outlandish and the guy listening to it isn't buying it one bit. This is also when creepy stuff starts happening in the game. Doors opening on their own, terrifying sound cues start coming in, and you will meet the first monster of the game which looks like a giant troll creature. My first instinct when I saw the monster was to run, I didn't look back until I found myself in a cave, I looked back to see where the monster was only for a bunch of rocks to collapse, blocking the entrance and trapping me inside the cave. This made me jump out of my seat and these are the types of scares that I love in both games and movies where the unexpected is that scares you. The atmosphere is fantastic and you are kept on the edge of your seat the entire time because you never know what will happen next.

Then I got to the final part of the demo. Karen makes her way through the cave and starts to make a grizzly discovery. Littered around the narrow hallways are old children's clothes and toys. She makes her way out of the narrow hallway into a big opening where she discovers what could amount to an antique shop filled with all of these toys and clothes, and then she sees it, the big bubble jacket her son wore all the time. this is where the demo ends and man they sure do know the perfect spot to end a demo but I instantly wanted to play more. Story is a huge part of what makes a game great in my opinion and I absolutely love narrative driven stories. Not only do I want to find out what happened to Karen's son but I also want to find out who she is talking to. At first it makes it sound like she is talking to a police officer because her son is missing, but as more of the story is told, it sounds to me more like she could be talking to cop as she is under arrest or a therapist in an insane asylum because the person she is talking to sounds like he isn't believing a word she is saying.

The other thing I am looking forward to is seeing what other kinds of monsters might make an appearance in the game. From the Kickstarter page, they say that audio acts as a gameplay mechanic to let you know when a creature is lurking nearby and that each creature will have their own audio cue. Using your flashlight will obviously help you see in the dark but this may attract monsters so you have to decide what the best course of action will be. If you can run away (like I did), hide or try to blind the creature with the flashlight. Personally I love to see a horror game that doesn't seem to have some kind of combat mechanic to it as it increases the tension knowing you can't just shoot your way out of a sticky situation.

The game absolutely gave me the same chills that I got when I first played Silent Hill 2, a game where the atmosphere and what you don't see is terrifying. You start hearing things, you fear opening doors and going around every corner because you don't know what will be there. That's the vibe that I got with this game and I cannot wait until the final game is released to discover the mysteries of what exactly happened to Karen's child.