497 Words About: Surviving 3 Nights in Darkwood
Something knocked on my door exactly eight times, and then it went away.
At some point my girlfriend walked into the room and asked me why I was yelling the words, “Go away!”
I didn’t even know I was talking out loud.
I discovered the videogame Darkwood because I follow the videogame critic Ragnarox on YouTube. I love his videos for their depth, as well as his method of just talking about why a videogame is good rather than just giving a superficial glance and an empty numerical rating. I made it about 20 minutes into his review of Darkwood before I paused and rushed to buy it on my Playstation 5 where I played it exactly three times before stopping.
The warning given to the player at the start of the game is honest: Darkwood is not an easy game, and it does not hold your hand.
The player controls a man who has somehow snuck into a region of the former Soviet Bloc of eastern Europe that is currently impossible to reach due to a giant malevolent forest. The trees cannot be cut down, and villagers within the forest have discovered this ecological nightmare is causing physiological effects on their body. Along with these nightmares, there are strange, malevolent creatures inhabiting this land, and that’s where my screaming becomes relevant.
The player begins in an abandoned house that effectively becomes their home base. During the day I can explore nearby regions of the forest, scavenging for supplies like wood, nails, gasoline, and scrap metal. The purpose is to construct barriers on windows, weapons I can use for defense, and traps to place in and around my house for when night arrives.
I never made it to night on my first playthrough of Darkwood because I kept dying.
Somehow, playing on my PC years later, I managed to survive three nights in a row.
These weren’t pleasant nights, because darkness IS, in the purest sense. Upon reaching night if the player has not lit the lights in their house their character will sit in a dime’s circumference of light, while a void-black haze consumes the world. My character huddles in a ball while gray mist swirls and forms screaming faces.
The worst part is the sounds.
Sitting in the dark the game provides some ambient noise, but often the audio that plays is simply the sound of swaying trees, branches cracking, dogs barking, and occasionally someone or something knocking on the outside of the house, testing for weaknesses.
I knew something was coming, but on the fourth night a “man” with antlers burst into my room screaming.
According to my girlfriend, I was screaming too.
Darkwood is a true survival horror videogame. Every second and item slot counts as the minutes tick by. Players learn quickly to gather their resources and respect the dark because, as a note outside the house reads, “It’s not a question of if, but when” they will be coming for me.
Joshua “Jammer” Smith
10.3.2024
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