Fade to Silence

Call it persistence. Call it perseverance. Call it a will to live. Rarely does the chugging machinery of simply existing feel like anything but the most herculean of tasks. Drinking water, consuming sustenance, and getting in a few tired winks staves off an unceremonious death, day after day. Looking at the mere act of survival in such clinical terms can often put your life in perspective. Most things–a paying job, valuable friends, video games, 90s pop–become extracurricular frivolities meant to supplement the great circle of life, maybe adding style to the substance. By not stripping away those added bonuses, the act of surviving is often much more pleasant. A job makes buying food easier. Another spin of “MMMbop” may just put a smile on your face.

Unless you are a particularly sadistic Sims player, the survival genre is less about enjoying the act of staying alive but rather dedicated to clawing through brutal worlds as one of the lowliest links in the food chain. Fade to Silence works hard to separate itself from a crowded pack of similar games that often find themselves in early access for a year or longer. In many ways, it succeeds towards these aspirations but not without stumbles along the way.

Players are greeted to the demonic growl of an unknown entity, taunting the motionless body of Ash, the player character. Like a dementor from Harry Potter, the being stares at a small flame on the ground before snuffing it out and plunging its spectral mass into Ash who violently awakens. Alone in a small stone crypt, Ash finds a torch to bash his way through frozen lifeforms that have blocked the exit. Instead of being greeted by the warming light of sunshine, the camera pans out to show a cobbled-together encampment on fire with a small girl helplessly standing on the roof of one of the huts.

The game’s brief tutorialization begins, directing players how to lock onto a foe and use light and strong attacks to whittle down health while being mindful of a stamina bar. Using the torch as an improvised sword, combat feels competent if not slow. Players are informed they can parry an attack by blocking at the right moment to negate damage and not risk the stamina loss from absorbing a full blow. Enemies, it seems, can also explode so dodging or running is advised–I later found out that predicting when an enemy will rush at you and explode is very much an imprecise science.

What followed was the first example of how unpredictable, bewildering, and punishing a survival game like Fade to Silence can be. Upon felling the first two tutorial enemies the frozen ground underneath Ash’s feet began to blister with red veins of energy and glowing pustules that exploded with damaging pops. A prompt came up informing me to run and I slightly hesitated. Ash’s frail body began to lose health drastically as tiny explosions went off during a full run down the hill towards his daughter.

With only a sliver of health remaining I had to “cleanse” a large crystal by mashing the X button while trying to beat back some kind of Hellvine with sluggishly timed parries that only seemed to work because the game was trying to be nice. Surprisingly, I didn’t bungle the first five minutes of this game. You know… the part before everything starts actually getting hard and survival comes into play.

Permanent winter is not a revolutionary concept for any form of entertainment but one that isn’t always capitalized on in games. Snowy levels in platformers have tortured players with their ice physics, while wintry settings have always tested the mettle of action heroes. Fade to Silence threads Lovecraftian bits of horror throughout its freezing temperatures, ensuring the cold is not the only thing nipping at players’ skin. The grounded reality of trying to eke out an existence in a world that not only asks you to eat and sleep but stay warm is made further deadly by otherworldly threats that also affect the sparse resources you collect.

Parsing through how the world got in this terrible state will take time. Narrative is delivered in small parcels through conversations and dreams Ash has when sleeping. Tantalizing questions are often immediate as Ash walks into the wilderness to “find answers and unearth the past.” Players can activate that ever-popular video game sixth sense that highlights objects and points of interest. Off in the distance pieces of scenery are highlighted red and yellow, indicating some kind of importance. In the sky hovers a massive ball of skyscrapers that will rain down the twisted metal of cars and buildings when the player is under its shadow.

There is an obvious connection between Ash and this evil presence that claims it is partially responsible for whatever calamity took place. You wonder why he is gifted with the power of cleansing corruption and why he is destined with multiple lives. Nods to humanity reaching too far into the unknown and failing to preserve the environment are thrown in for good measure. As players fill their encampment with other survivors, they will tell their own stories and open up more about their lives.

Though intriguing enough on the surface, Fade to Silence‘s narrative arc is spread thin over the unpredictable pacing of a survival game. After a couple hours, the malevolent presence will begin taunting you about staying warm or not being able to hunt a reindeer with the same handful of lines that were used in the opening part of the game. Ash will begin to repeat his seconds-long dreams and your small community will begin repeating their one-off observations and lamentations. Any subtlety in the dialog is also affected by spots of bad to mediocre voice acting (Ash’s daughter being of particular cringe) and frequent moments where audio cuts out completely.

The only way to progress the story is to actually progress through the game, a feat easier said than done. I relish in difficult games but the survival genre can be tricky. Losing any signs of progress to bad luck or a bad run has turned me away from the likes of Don’t Starve and Terraria. I just don’t have the time to go back from square one all the time, especially when there are other punishing games to be had. One of my favorite aspects of Fade to Silence is how some of player progress is retained through perma-death scenarios.

Soon into my first run, I realized that my severe lack of health would not get me far. One of the few ways to recover health is through healing potions or by sleeping for several hours at a shelter with an active fire. Resting at a shelter requires firewood or a campfire. To craft a campfire, players must possess a full stack of 12 firewood. Because survival games often thrive on players figuring out mechanics and recipes, I don’t judge developer Black Forest Games for its lack of advanced tutorials. But in my ignorance and panic, I deconstructed pieces of pristine wood (a step up in quality from basic firewood) and arrows to make fires to boost my health. I could already feel failure consciously creeping in. So I decided to restart my save file.

Players are given two options when starting a game in Fade to Silence. Opting for a casual playthrough means supplies are not limited but achievements/trophies are unavailable as are any boons picked up. Survival difficulty is the way to go if you want more than just the baseline experience. On my second playthrough I was happy to see that I kept a warming shard found right outside my camp. Collecting enough of these shards provides permanent boosts to the rate at which your health, stamina, hunger, and cold meters deplete. Upon perma-death, players have access to the Circle of Torment, a tree that grants a boon upon starting a completely new game. Whether it is starting out with your dogsled or a large supply of firewood, these post-death bonuses dull the sharpness of absolute death.

Despite knowing that I had these advantages, a quick and untimely death by car from that malevolent ball from above inspired me to go for try number three. A typical “run” of Fade to Silence involves the player going for increasingly longer stretches into the wilderness to build up a supply of crafting components to build simple items like an axe, sword, armor, and a fur coat. These will allow you to venture out and cleanse small enemy points that spit out supplies or a shard for your trouble. By hunting reindeer or chopping down a tree, players unlock a gathering spot for friendly survivors to collect resources from. The ultimate goal for each chunk of the map is to capture an enemy outpost by eliminating nearby cleansing points and fighting a tougher enemy.

It’s a simple and engaging enough loop that anyone familiar with this formula should be able to handle themselves admirably. The process of slowly building up resources to take on a harder outpost gives players goalposts to work towards. Environmental hazards will throw a wrench in this process, however. At first, players will need to watch out for blizzards which are so cold that the only respite from them is a shelter. Then come tornadoes and hulking masses of enemies that feel impossible to kill.

Fade to Silence sufficiently raises the stakes through each new section of the map. The question, however, is whether this increase feels fair. Shortly after completing my first outpost which graciously activates fast travel between your home base and other unlocked outposts, I found my first survivor. Knowing that I needed the help of others to craft better gear, I obviously invited them under my roof. Survivors are a blessing and a curse. Players can use them as a companion when venturing out in the wilderness or let them hunt and gather supplies.

Survivors also consume resources at a rapid pace and can become a hindrance without proper preparation. Enter in base building, a simple yet crucial element of Fade to Silence. Over the course of the game, players will need to construct different buildings to take advantage of the full crafting list. Building huts means a survivor requires less resources for daily upkeep. Unfortunately, it seems as if Ash is not capable of building, only directing where buildings will be placed in his camp. This wouldn’t be such an issue if survivors did not get tired and building/crafting didn’t take so long.

Because the world of Fade to Silence has been corrupted, trees and animals have been tainted. To take advantage of these tainted supplies, a survivor who has a skill such as woodworking at a high enough level must be tasked with removing the corruption. This also applies to having a survivor craft health items or new weapons. After around ten hours into the game I reached a mild roadblock in progress. I was working towards my second outpost but had trouble with a new enemy type that could teleport and kill me in three hits. Obviously I needed better armor but to craft it would require a new building to be constructed that allowed for better materials to be made. To make that building meant that one survivor couldn’t hunt, couldn’t collect wood, and couldn’t fix any tainted materials. The building process would take a long time because that survivor also needed to rest. I could direct all four survivors to work on the building to speed up the process but again, they would not be doing anything else.

To rub salt in the wound, making higher quality crafting materials takes up hours of time, another precious resource. Eventually, the process of keeping your camp well stocked, keeping your survivors’ morale up, and staying alive is a lot to juggle. Infighting can break out and drop morale but Ash can also increase his trust in each survivor and, if the maximum amount of trust is reached, it will carry over into subsequent playthroughs.

Base management comes to a head when your camp is attacked by enemy raiding parties. Once enough time has passed, a group of enemies will attempt to attack your camp and destroy all that you’ve worked for. At first, these raids are manageable. Soon enough, they are less so. Ash and his group will need to build walls around the entrance to the camp and eventually gather enough supplies to make actual defenses. Again, to make some of these advanced buildings and upgrade the most basic of structures, better materials will be needed.

Fade to Silence often blocks progress with progress. Again, I ran into this problem when I felt like I had a good handle on my current situation. I began to rely on my dogsled to get me from place to place faster but was always nervous about some rogue enemy killing my furry friends. At one point I sneaked into a cave that contained several supply crates and was greeting by an obvious endgame enemy that I could not damage with my current gear. Of course I ran. Part of this sting can be taken away by inviting a friend to engage in survival co-op but this can only happen when you’ve both unlocked your first survivor. Survivor AI is okay but the risk of them not acting in self-preservation or standing in a dangerous spot is not one I often wanted to take.

Often, the systems in Fade to Silence just don’t feel robust enough for their own good. The appeal of the world can wear thin after running through the same snowy peaks and barren trees. The map is quite large and peppered with interesting landmarks but aside from combat and gathering, there isn’t much to do. I can see the appeal of a casual run on the game because it makes the game more manageable on all fronts but it does strip away much of the challenge.

While a better enemy variety would make combat more interesting, it would also make it more difficult. Adding harder elements on top of increasingly difficult odds may frustrate more than anything. Honestly, melee combat ranged from laughable to painful. Most slow-moving enemies can be taken down by using the heavy attack, backing away a few seconds to let stamina recover, and repeating the process. Upgrading the bow can save a lot of time but a few enemies close the distance too fast and take away too much health. I would have loved to see craftable traps or explosives, as the game only embraces the occult aesthetic in a few ways.

Black Forest Games had Fade to Silence in early access for quite some time. As a smaller studio, I applaud what’s here as a fun game that you can sink a lot of time into. There are many technical shortcomings that do affect the story and gameplay (it’s very frustrating to have a loot bag floating feet above the ground knowing you will never be able to get it). But more time needed to be put into the crafting mechanics, a crucial element of any survival game.

The list of items that can be made is basic enough for most players to wrap their head around but not complex enough to diversify the pace of the game in the long run. In this case, the otherworldly component should have trumped any sense of realism. It also doesn’t help that the time it takes to progress is largely dependent on a large camp of survivors, who require an even larger time investment.

With just a little more time in the cooker, Fade to Silence could have fleshed out these mechanics. This is the kind of game that thrives off an expanded scope. The vision for this unique world is there and, for the most part, it delivers.