5 Things You Should Know About Fade to Silence
Fade to Black.
Fade to Silence, the latest title from Black Forest Games and THQ Nordic, released with an icy breeze in its wake this week. The eternally wintry land of this world is a cruel one, but it’s also bleakly beautiful, and intriguing. We gave it a spin at EGX Rezzed and now it’s released, we’re going to tell you five things you should know about it before you buy. Get your snow boots on.
1. Survival is key
You can play single player or co-op, but whether your alone or have company, survival in this world is key. In Fade to Silence you’re cast as Ash, the leader of a post-apocalyptic settlement. To provide for you followers you must go out into the vast map in search of resources, but beware of blizzards, they’ll do more than nip at your nose.
Gameplay is about predicting and interpreting the world’s dynamic weather system, judging when is best to forge ahead with your findings, and when seeking shelter might be best. But things aren’t totally brutal; the map indicates to players where is good to hunt and where is full of enemies. You can be the judge of whether some wood is worth a fight.
2. Gather your followers
Here, follower count really matters. With highly skilled workers coming into your settlement, the player gets access to higher grade equipment and resources. That means no followers means pretty rubbish gear. If members of your settlement feel like their not being heard (‘Where’s all the wood I wanted for my wood pile, Ash?!’) they will leave you high and dry.
It’s not all rainbows either, sometimes tough moral choices will mean life and death for your settlement members. But you’re the leader, and leaders have to make the tough calls.
3. Doggos do what they want
We spent most of our time with the EGX demo on a sledge pulled along by huskies. Such good doggos. In the demo this travel system was a little clunky, alternating between sticking to a set route and going wildly off track. Hopefully that system has improved since then, but if not, its still a pretty nifty way to get around.
If you do go massively off the rails, you can re-summon you sledge with a click of a few buttons, putting it back on the road you’ve probably just fallen off. HEE-YAH.
4. Take a big swing
Combat is a pretty simple affair, mostly boiling down to lots of dodging and swinging. Players are equipped with a quick attack and a power attack, with some exciting animations that make it look like you really are doing some damage.
From the quick glimpse we got into combat, this didn’t look to be the games strongest card, but what really did attract our attention…
5. Watch out for the city in the sky
… was the floating city in the sky that kept dropping cars on us.
And thats the really interesting thing about Fade to Silence, the weird things you encounter. Knowing that this is a post-apocalyptic world does give us some indication as to why there might be a big old city upside-down in the sky, but why has it got tentacles? Why is it throwing cars at us whenever we get within range?
Death is a weird character too, intent on seeing our demise, yet reviving us for further icy torture after we die. Combing hellish creatures that look to be straight out of Doom with the weird technological artefacts that remind us of Horizon Zero Dawn, this is a narrative that encourages forging on in the snow.
As you progress through the narrative of the game, the player also unlocks snippets of memory. We saw only one of these during the demo, but the atmospheric vignette left us intrigued to see more.
Fade to Silence is out now on PC, PS4 and Xbox One. Check out their steam page here.