Before You Buy: The Forever Winter

This is a quick and dirty list, not eloquent or professional in the slightest.

The Forever Winter, developed by Fun Dogs Studios, recently entered Early Access on Steam and the Epic Games Store on September 24th. This is an extraction shooter not like any other that you have played as it takes a completely different approach to the genre. It maintains the same aspect of what you're familiar with when it comes to extraction-shooters - enter a raid, collect loot, and get the fuck out - but what makes it different from its peers is that you are not a hero, you are not a badass, you are not important, and you are not meant to survive.

This post-apocalyptic wasteland is ravaged beyond recognition as the war has been ongoing for so long that the year is only known as 20XX as all sense of time has been lost. And you, a mere scavenger, are there to collect whatever you can from giant mechs littering the open battlefields and corpses brimming the claustrophobic trenches to help keep your home operational and its people alive for another day.

Too Long, Don't Want to Read

The game's optimization is pretty bad, but that can be expected from an Early Access title made from a team of twenty (thirty, according to current website) people with such a grand vision.

The controls can feel sluggish due to the how your character responds to inputs.

The Third Person Camera requires work as it can cause your character to block your view when situational awareness determines if you can survive.

The game is difficult. You might as well be nothing more than dirt when compared to warring factions.

The AI is a bit wonky with an added dash of infuriating. Their pathing reminds me of ArmA 3's waypoints assisted by a bad Zeus spawning a squad right on top of you.

The atmosphere, art-style, and soundtrack are top-notch.

Critiques and What to Expect

Optimization

It needs a lot of work. The developers are fully aware of the poor performance and are prioritizing getting it fixed and playable for those with rigs that are not up to date with the newest hardware. Currently, I have all my settings set to Low and I still get between forty-five and sixty FPS, and that is with a top-of-the-line computer.

The open battlefields tend to run at a higher FPS whereas claustrophobic environments like The Innards (your home) or the maze-like trenches of the Elephant Mausoleum will net you fewer frames.

Movement

You wouldn't think anyone would need to say anything about this, but I think it is important to know before getting into the game. Everything feels sluggish. And that is due to the nature of the game. It is meant to be a slow process because, if you do not take care, you will not survive.

But there are other factors contributing to this. For instance, you can only sprint forward, not at a diagonal. This can lead to accidentally getting stuck on the corner of building until you stop sprinting which, in turn, can get you killed if you were fleeing a conflict. If you go into this game thinking the controls will handle like other third-person games like Assassin's Creed or Tom Clancy's Wildlands, you will be disappointed.

Camera

This third-person camera needs some fixes. First and foremost, in my opinion, would be the ability to switch shoulders. Currently, you are locked to viewing over the character's right shoulder, and this can be very detrimental when moving right-to-left around corners since you can't see anything. You can circumvent this a little bit by aiming down sight, but it is still more advantageous to move left-to-right around corners as you can view around the corner without putting yourself at risk.

Another problem with the camera is that your character will block your view; this becomes more prominent when you are in a tight space or are up against a wall. A youtuber I watch said it best: "This game is begging to be a first person." And I would have to agree. Situational awareness is key to surviving, and if you cannot see around yourself because the camera is being finnicky, you are going to die. I definitely do not want this to be a first-person, mind you. I do think it is best as a third-person game, but it needs fixes.

Gameplay

It. Is. Rough. It is not easy. One small mistake will get you killed if you are unprepared. For instance: a soldier blocks your path, so you decide to kill him; unbeknownst to you there were more just around the corner, and they are now running full tilt in your direction; you turn to run but they get line-of-sight and promptly shower you with all the lead they have available.

You are nothing more than a fart in the wind that literally inconvenienced a squad of blood-thirsty, careless soldiers who are on their way to die as well.

You are also a beacon for the enemy to spawn on top of. It is not intentional; you just happen to be standing on or right next to the plethora of spawn points on the map and the game doesn't care if you are in the vicinity. I don't know if this is something the developers are going to address, but I can see why they wouldn't even though it is extremely infuriating if it gets you killed: if they change the spawns to deactivate when you are near, then there is no need to be afraid and constantly be on the move. But I'm sure something can be done to still keep on the pressure without having the game cheat you.

AI

This is something that surprisingly doesn't need too much work. What is there is adequate, but it can always be better. Currently, the AI seems to operate on a predetermined waypoint-like system until they stumble into the enemy; then they make a b-line for them until they are within optimal range and proceed to stand in the open. If they survive, they will fall back onto their original waypoint loop and repeat the process until they are annihilated.

Gear

You have a wide variety of weapons, rigs, and other items to customize your guns and backpacks, but detailed descriptions and other pertinent information are lacking. Until you purchase or acquire an item, you have no idea what the benefits of it are until you put it on a weapon. If you found a foregrip, the item description will just say "Foregrip B. Fits many things."

So, with that variety, you can essentially customize guns like you would in Escape From Tarkov, but without the aesthetically pleasing interface that Tarkov gives.

The standard weapon in the game will be Rifles. Like your AK's and M4's. These will be your bread and butter as they are the easiest to use and the default character specializes in them.

In my experience so far, shotguns have been utter dogshit except when you have a couple Cyborgs rushing you as it then becomes trivial to headshot them. Otherwise? Don't use them for anything else unless you want to die. I haven't used any of the automatic shotguns like the AA-12 yet, so maybe they are vastly superior to their pump-action counterparts.

Pistols are another option. I generally prefer taking a pistol over a shotgun due to everything weighing less and allowing me to carry more crap around with me. I've also had better luck with pistols saving my ass over the shotgun.

Haven't used SMGs a whole lot, but they work just like Rifles, just less damage.

There are also LMGs, Grenade Launchers, and specialty weapons that can only be found in raid. I haven't used any of them, but I'm hopping they're good and relevant.

Aside from all that, you have your Rig, or backpack, to consider. There are different variants that you can earn and purchase and there are also parts you can earn and purchase to further customize them. A Rig's customization layout is that of a numpad: the central being the main portion of the pack, then the outer slots around the center. You can mix and match container types to either carry more general debris or more large items like containers of water or explosives.

HUB

Also known as The Innards, is your little home where you can choose to either run around to each station and vendor to do your business or you can just use the escape menu to do everything. As you progress you unlock new vendors and can also purchase upgrades for your home. These upgrades are currently pretty minor as there are two legitimate upgrades available for purchase and then some cosmetic upgrades.

Conclusion

There's a lot of problems, and most really just come down to the game needing optimized, the AI needing some TLC, and an established endgame to work towards. There's a lot of potential for the game as long as the developers continue to be pro-consumer and continue to listen to the community like they are. In one of their Q&A's people have given suggestions and their responses have been, "I like that, that's fucking awesome."

I'm not exactly sure what the end-goal of the game is. In Escape From Tarkov it is getting to a point where you can buy any piece of equipment you want and running any raid however you want, dabbing on Scavs and PMCs. In The Forever Winter I only see quests needing to be completed and simply trying to survive an excursion as the driving force, because at no point are you going to go toe-to-toe with the enemies on the field unless you are in a party with other players.

All images have either been taken in-game by me or sourced from the Fun Dogs Studios website.