It’s been a big year for survival games, from the early highs of Palworld to the likes of Once Human, Soulmask, Enshrouded, and Nightingale all contending with established favorites such as Rust, Valheim, and Ark. The latest contender on the scene, The Forever Winter, blends that desperate struggle to stay alive with a co-op extraction shooter format inspired by games like Escape From Tarkov and Gray Zone Warfare, and it’s just arrived in early access on Steam. While initial impressions of its world and setting are strong, early issues have caused reviews to struggle – but a promising player count means it has plenty of room to grow.
In a dark future where giant megacorporations battle over scarce resources with gargantuan war machines, you’re very much a small fish in a big pond. The Forever Winter isn’t about being a mighty force – it’s a tight, terrifying survival game where you scrabble down ash-strewn industrial hallways, desperately scavenging for resources and attempting to stay away from the watchful eye of the superpowers and their devastating death robots.
Developer Fun Dog Studios wants “to push users to the edge of their comfort zone and reward them for taking calculated risks to overcome dynamic and horrifying circumstances.” It encourages players to work together to survive the nightmare; you’ll be able to share valuable resources to help others out or pass on some water to save a passer-by who’s dying of thirst.
The Forever Winter’s early access launch on Tuesday September 24 brings the game to Steam in an early format with four maps to explore, with initial plans to further improve and hone the game over the course of the coming year or so. At launch, it quickly racked up a peak active player count of 12,661 on Steam – a resoundingly impressive number for the first game from a small indie studio of just 30 veteran developers. Reviews, however, are currently struggling, with just 48% of the 513 responses so far recommending the game.
Among both the positive and negative reviews, there’s a common sentiment that the game feels very early, with bugs and punishing design choices impacting the experience. That’s perhaps to be expected of an early access launch, but if it’s something you’d rather avoid you may wish to hold off for now. In particular, Fundog notes that it’s already deploying hotfixes to resolve players being unable to connect to one another, and is also working on a fix for a crash happening at the Elephant Mausoleum.
The other notable concern is the game’s water system. Your base’s water level constantly decreases over time, with players remarking that it still goes down when the game is closed. More critically, once your water supplies empty, your entire stash is lost, costing you all your hard work. “This is a well-crafted game world and lore paired with decent extraction mechanics,” one top-rated review reads, “However, this water mechanic needs to change if it wants any sort of chance to stay relevant long term.”
The Forever Winter is out now on Steam, with a 10% discount through Tuesday October 8 meaning you’ll pay $26.99 / £22.49. You’ll find it right here.
If you’re waiting to see how development progresses, you can fight alongside your friends in the meantime with the best co-op games on PC. Or take to the action on the other side of the field and jump into the best robot games.
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