Promoting the genre of survival games is extremely challenging. Years ago, we were enthusiastically welcomed by the first representatives who were able to tie the screens for tens of hours and let the player live in an open world with various options to survive. Today, the situation around the supersaturated market with a gradually dwindling demand for survival games is clear: we remain with proven titles that will entertain even after months of playing, and each new agent must come up with something that interests them.

Fade's Silence did it. Interest. For a weak hour. It offers a frosty environment strikingly similar to The Long Dark, an open world in a post-apocalyptic dress, presenting a story about an individual and his fight against evil, a demonic entity circling overhead, a strange cluster of skyscrapers and tentacles flying in the sky. And then the main character Ash, his daughter and later a few friends who try to help (because you command them). Gradually you collect raw materials, build buildings, produce items, and to make matters worse, a dueling system trying to copy the Dark Souls principles will leave you enough space for a final showdown with hellish forces.

It all looks great, but only on paper. Getting to know the game, the controls, the first steps in the wasteland covered by snow creaking beneath your footsteps, the winter shifting under modest cloak and constant hunger and misery will force every survivalist to dive deeper and deeper into the Fade to Silence universe. If he wants to enrich the open world with a story full of revealing what has actually happened and why the flying fool repeats a few phrases over his back. Where did the pulsating beings come from, who would burst into all directions after death, which means strange entities around you - many questions, but the answers are hidden in sight.

The worst thing about Fade to Silence is that you only need an hour to create a complete picture of gameplay and fun. You can continue. The change is unlikely to happen and certainly not in the desired direction. Fade to Silence is a jagging example of how to set the bar incredibly high and then shame it with shame. In all. The fun curve almost never clings to it over time and keeps falling. Here steeply, there only slowly. The game has nothing to attract. It has a chilling atmosphere, its charm, but the game elements devalue the built feeling that would make the player forget the surrounding world, time and enjoy playing without looking around with the idea of ​​shutting down the game right now or up to ten minutes.

Let's start with the story. In the beginning you have no idea and it will not change much over time. To get deeper under the skin, this requires a long-term wandering from the player. The gradual dosing of information from the world to Fade to Silence is minimized to storyline products, which are also presented in an uninteresting way. If I want to tell a story, I have to draw the player into the storyline. Nothing like this is happening here. Just there is evil and it is cold, daughter is hungry and knocks your teeth, so you scour the fur of hellish creatures, because evil is evil, plus one big bububu. However, you will not be afraid;

The destroyed environment makes a good backdrop, is actually the only plus that does not have to be enriched over time. The bitter winter is an eye-catching appearance due to the unique processing in game titles. Into the nature, taking back everything her arrogant people took, the dwindling buildings, the abandoned wrecks of vehicles, crumbled factories, shelters and cabins. Alternating sunny days with nights when snowstorms are raging and you don't see a step - all of this attracts you. Just to explore the environment, not to follow the story lines. Even so, they are almost comically insignificant, full of ballast, empty dialogues that move the plot catastrophically or not at all. If someone wanted to bring horror to our screens, you just need to look at the books to build up the storyline, and especially how to gradually build up. There's nothing like Silence in Fade. Only the dying world. He is fascinating, but paradoxically his research attracts attention more than a plot.

So we throw a story behind us. You are in the world of Fade to Silence, because you are just there, and although there has been an effort to soak up lore and any sort of garbage (the possibility is unstoppable, but the screenwriter had no experience), you can't. Because you want to explore the world. In fact, it is not possible, although it is here that the fun could come from under the snow. A reason? Or survival. In Fade's Silence it means you have to take care of Asha. The main protagonist needs to eat what is reasonable, and since it is really a scythe, you have to watch the temperature indicator, respectively cold. The solution is simple: if it is cold, you start a fire. You need raw materials to start a fire. To find the raw materials, you have to explore the environment. You can still find the wood on the ground, but it's better to make an ax (but you can't do that at the beginning because you have nothing to do) and cut down the tree. Not any, but only here where you see a logging area on the map. We will not address the fact that trees outside this zone are no different from those in the zone at all. Rather.

You cut a forest, you have hundreds of liquorice, so you make a bow, start a fire, and find that the possibilities that you can do in the production of objects are precious little. For example, you can get food by hunting deer, but to do this you need a bow and arrow, which it has to create using basic ingredients. The individual processes may look complex, but the subjects are not so many. The sophistication backs up before the repeated collection of basic raw materials. You can send members of your party to the expedition, but orders can only be sent to them at base, so you must return frequently. In addition, better equipment can only be accessed through refurbishment and construction at your site, which requires considerable investment. You have to shake again, teleports are minimal.

You might seem to leave the leadership of a growing community to your members. Later, you open the possibility of a sled, where you have the place of wolves dogs (you liberate them while recharging enemy settlements), but the way is thorny and it does not solve silly returning. In addition, there is a fight ahead. Despite the claimed model, the similarity to Dark Souls is rather wishful thinking. While it is true that every hit hurts and you do not walk on the enemy with the arcade throwing, the possibilities of how and what to fight are modest, as in building, manufacturing and in everything. Weak attack, strong attack, roll to the chosen side. As a result, you are circling your opponent, using only a strong attack that will eat almost all the stamina, but it will always remain on your opponent's roll. Monotonous fighting is far from the fun and tactical cult of Japanese production.

Technical workmanship keeps a high standard, which you can judge from surrounding images or videos. It contains no significant errors, for Unreal Engine. Like unobtrusive music. Dubbing has its gaps and is sometimes impersonal. Much more criticism deserves control. The fact that the hero is unable to jump to a few tenths of centimeters high cry and have to bypass objects like in a maze is not so often seen today. Invisible barriers only underline the overall impression of the artificial world. The movement and control of the character is cumbersome, which is nothing compared to the user interface. You always have to watch and click through many menus, manually insert the arrows from the inventory into the right window (a maximum of a dozen, so that you do not get bored), confirm the action to hold the key (we played PC version, not console) is clumsy and doesn't use a mouse.

In an effort to add something more to the gameplay, rogue-like principles of permanent death. In survival genres with an emphasis on Dark Souls combat component not exactly the happiest solution. At the beginning you can choose if you want to play in an exploratory way and therefore the above penalty will not apply to you or after three times you will resuscitate the individual dances again. It is true that some resources will remain in your backpack (by upgrading the character in a special tree) and you may not get everything again, but the processes leading to the progress of the game need to be completed repeatedly. It would make sense to move forward with each death, to reveal something from the story, to keep moving and to open up new possibilities. But in Fade to Silence nothing like this is happening: the plot is lame, the possibility is poor. In addition, death often comes unexpectedly - some entities react remotely, so your car wreck can fall on your head, when you cast a part of your maximum health, you lose weight, outnumbering you to defend yourself, not to mention new adversaries. Even in Dark Souls you came to the right tactics with blood and patience redeemed.

Fade to Silence looks like a game that has a good foundation in it. Or at least the initial idea and vision that the Black Forest Games developers wanted. But the bag full of ideas and ideas could not be transformed into a fun way. Relatively modest gameplay options, continually repetitive gameplay principles based on frustrating grinds, and merging too many game genres have made Fade to Silence a confused and rambling stew. He looks at it very well, sometimes freezing when he explores the world, but that's it. It's not fun to play.