The Forever Winter
" Immersive tactical shooter with deep loot and survival mechanics but hampered by bugs and performance issues "
The Forever Winter Review
The Forever Winter is an ambitious PvE extraction shooter set in a grim, war-torn world where players scavenge amidst battles between powerful factions. Players praise its unique art style, immersive atmosphere, and challenging gameplay that rewards tactical play and patience rather than brute force. The game offers a solid core loop of looting, avoiding or engaging enemies, and extracting safely, with a strong emphasis on "rat" playstyle and survival. Developers are highly engaged with the community, regularly releasing updates to improve performance, fix bugs, and adjust mechanics like the water system.
However, the game remains in early access with many rough edges. Technical issues such as bugs, AI problems, desync in multiplayer, and performance challenges are frequently reported. Gameplay can feel clunky due to awkward movement and animation, and some features like weapon customization and mission content are still limited or incomplete. Despite these flaws, the game shows great potential and a passionate dev team committed to evolving it into a standout title in its genre.
Highlights
Players especially appreciate the game's distinctive and dark art style, atmospheric worldbuilding, and soundtrack, which create a compelling and immersive experience. The PvE-only extraction shooter gameplay is praised for being challenging yet fair, encouraging stealth and strategic decision-making over direct combat. The variety of weapons and customization options, though limited, add depth to encounters. The developers' responsiveness to community feedback and steady stream of patches have notably improved stability and mechanics like the water system, enhancing the overall experience.
Criticisms
Common criticisms focus on the game's early access state marked by numerous bugs, performance issues, and technical glitches such as player ragdolls causing clipping or getting stuck, desync in multiplayer, and AI pathfinding problems. Movement and combat animations are often described as clunky or unsatisfying. Some players find the mission content repetitive or incomplete, with certain objectives unfinishable due to missing spawns. The UI and control bindings lack customization, frustrating some users. Additionally, the introduction of paid DLC and skins amid these issues has drawn criticism.
Pros
- • Unique and immersive art style with a dark, war-torn atmosphere.
- • Challenging PvE extraction gameplay rewarding tactical play and patience.
- • Developers actively engage with the community and release frequent updates.
- • Solid core gameplay loop with loot, stealth, and survival elements.
- • Strong soundtrack that enhances the immersive experience.
- • Varied weapon customization adds depth to combat encounters.
- • Game supports both solo and cooperative play styles effectively.
Cons
- • Numerous bugs and glitches disrupt gameplay and immersion.
- • Performance issues and optimization problems on many systems.
- • Clunky and unsatisfying movement and combat animations.
- • Multiplayer suffers from desync and communication challenges.
- • Limited mission variety and some unfinishable quests.
- • UI and control bindings lack customization options.
- • Enemy AI pathfinding and behavior are often inconsistent.
Rating Criteria
The Forever Winter is a tactical shooter where you and your squad must loot the dead to survive under the shadow of terrifying and gargantuan war machines locked in a never-ending conflict. Millions of deaths later the war continues with our latest update!