Drago Development and Movie Games have brought us the latest in survival titles with ‘Winter Survival: Prologue’. It’s based in Mount Washington State Park, with a group of friends lost and it all goes terribly wrong from the start. It’s you against the elements.

You begin the adventure by talking to a friend of yours called ‘Joel’, enquiring where you need to make your way back to a cave to find warmth and shelter. From how your character is acting, I can only presume something just happened that has spooked him. You need to use the terrain around you to make sure nothing can find you as anything from wolves to bears lurk in the surrounding woods and it’s you against the creatures of the park.

There is an awesome built-in system called the ‘Sanity System’. This was effective as it tricked your brain into imagining certain animals as they disappeared into certain items within the environment. These mirages, showing themselves but not being there, would make you crouch or jump like an absolute idiot. The game was insane with needing to make sure you kept an eye on all your stats such as food, water, and obviously your brain sanity level. Like all survival titles, you have access to an inventory to store the items in your character’s backpack to help you survive. You have access to a navigation wheel which makes some of the items you place into that quickly accessible. This quality of life feature makes it feel like surviving is easier but that is 100%, not the case.

Making sure you listen to all the sounds in this game is crucial. Listening to things like the animals surrounding you growling right down to the footsteps when you are hiding in a bush waiting for the animal to move past you, will help you live another day. It’s more concerning and suspenseful when you are running and still hear the footsteps behind you from the animal or pack of animals chasing you. The voice acting in this title was quality and brings into the immersion of feeling alone amongst the wilderness of winter in the Mount Washington State Park.

The realistic look of this game was intense with the environment and the character models. Seeing the little heat coming from their breath down to the detail put into the clothing. The environmental surroundings looked great too.

A little more texturing would have helped in some areas though. The alive animals roaming around the mountain looked great with the detail put into them but the one thing that let that down was anything that was dead had really low textures. Anywhere from a paratrooper hung up in the trees which was just a skeleton and clothes to the dead animals that didn’t have much texture to them either looking really fake which would be the best way to describe them. Even though there was not as much detail to them compared to Joel, it was still a pleasant experience for the eyes.

You are prompted from the start of the game with the controls needed then as you enter the game you are directed to learn new things to help you along the way. The movement feels well polished in this game, anything from actually moving around to crouching and jumping. You have a section where you can put things from your inventory into a quick selection which is accessible super easily with ‘TAB’ which is like a navigation wheel.

When prompted to pick things up with ‘E’ there is no delay like in some titles. You rely heavily on your mouse for looking around and doing things like drinking from your canteen. I did find at times, I experienced bugs and frame issues that halted my character on the spot. I did have to reload my latest save a few times throughout to fix this.

If you love your survival games then Winter Survival: Prologue is designed for you. It feels like it’s got that hard survival feeling to it compared to other survival titles I have played. Despite a few bugs that need ironing out, this is one desolate but immersive survival adventure.

Written by: Hayden Nelson