After years of refinement, crafting and survival video games have developed a reasonably efficient system: You are dropped into a spot the place you collect sticks, you utilize the sticks to make an axe, the axe allows you to lower down bushes, and earlier than lengthy, you are making an entire shelter and advancing up a tech tree and making increasingly complicated gear, mastering the wilderness round you.
Winter Burrow would not stray from that formula–at least, not in its first 20 minutes. However whereas it feels similar to different survival video games, most notably Don’t Starve, it units itself aside by way of its tone and method. Winter Burrow applies a comfortable aesthetic to its survival, combining the sensation of hazard with a way that what you are constructing is not a shelter to maintain you alive, however a house.
I performed a brief demo of Winter Burrow at Xbox’s Gamescom occasion in Los Angeles, which gave me a fast have a look at the sport from its begin. A brief cutscene began the demo, establishing the story that follows an anthropomorphic mouse setting off for a brand new life. The mouse remembers his previous residence, the burrow, with fondness, however he and his household moved away to seek out work within the metropolis when he was a toddler, leaving it within the care of his aunt. His mother and father labored the town’s mines for years earlier than they each died, and fed up with that life, the mouse heads again to his previous residence, solely to seek out it in disrepair and his aunt lacking.
From that setup, you set to work restoring the burrow. The early gameplay of Winter Burrow is fairly customary for the style; that you must collect up sticks and grass so you can begin a fireplace, restore a crafting bench, and repair up a simple chair. At first, the sport is a collection of fast forays out into the world across the burrow to seize provides earlier than trucking them again in to make gear and upgrades. And as is often the case, you are additionally managing gauges like starvation, exhaustion, and temperature.
Even in its state of disrepair, the burrow has the sense of being a pleasant place to stay with slightly sprucing up, and that is amplified by Winter Burrow’s storybook artwork model and its cute mouse protagonist. The sport typically provides off a relaxed environment, particularly if you’re within the burrow, doing issues like sitting in your chair. The straightforward chair is definitely your crafting facility for creating new garments that can preserve you hotter and supply extra safety, however the animation for making them has your mouse sitting by the fireplace and knitting, an ideal illustration of Winter Burrow’s cozy method.
“Cozy” doesn’t imply the sport removes the standard stresses of a survival recreation, although. Regardless of solely taking part in 20 minutes, I encountered some stark realities as I used to be wandering round, looking for eight bundles of grass to make a rope or sufficient items of wooden to craft some planks. The operative phrase within the title Winter Burrow is “winter,” and if you return to your loved ones residence, it is snowy and freezing out. The garments you begin with aren’t sufficient to guard you from the nippiness for lengthy, and even with the sweater, pants, and hat I knitted for myself early on, the creeping chilly may shortly change into lethal.
What’s extra, there isn’t any map obtainable in Winter Burrow, no less than within the early recreation. The whole lot is roofed with snow, leaving the panorama considerably devoid of landmarks, and although I did not wander removed from the burrow, I discovered it very straightforward to change into misplaced. The one dependable method to discover your approach house is to retrace your footprints or simply keep in mind the panorama, and in the event you do not make it again earlier than your temperature gauge depletes, you will freeze and die, dropping all the things you are carrying the place you fell.
The chilly is surprisingly harmful and undoubtedly demanding. I acquired caught up trying to find the provides I wanted and solely realized how a lot the temperature gauge had dropped when frost began creeping in on the edges of the display, and by that time, I had no concept how one can get again to the burrow. Whereas I encountered a few giant, harmful beetles roaming that first space, the climate was the actual hazard, and as soon as I might succumbed to it, the usual gameplay loop of working out to seek out the stuff I wanted earlier than returning residence grew to become much more oppressive. Winter Burrow is a cute recreation, however it’s nonetheless a critical one.
My demo ended not lengthy after I began, simply as I used to be repairing a bridge to cross a niche and discover a brand new space. I did not get far into Winter Burrow, however I did encounter a pair different animals, each of whom appeared pleasant and more likely to dish out aspect quests within the close to future. Whereas there have been a couple of hostile bugs round, my sense was that a lot of the battle in Winter Burrow will come from braving the weather, with out a lot in the best way of different hostile characters.
If there was a draw back to Winter Burrow, it was that this early look relied very closely on the identical sort of system that is current in most related video games. I spent lots of time trying to find yet another log or tuft of grass as a result of I wanted only a couple extra sources earlier than I may craft the factor I wanted to proceed. Your pockets fill in a rush, so along with maintaining a tally of your meals and temperature, you will additionally have to handle your stock by dumping stuff in a field within the burrow. These parts aren’t outwardly unhealthy, however they’re fairly rote at this level, and it feels just like the expertise of Winter Burrow will embrace lots of moments if you want you may proceed however must cease to do issues like make house in your bag or run again to the burrow and heat up earlier than you’ll be able to proceed.
With most survival video games, although, the expertise picks up when you’re away from the early recreation and might see what’s on supply if you’re not busy with the work of simply staying alive till the following day. In my early have a look at Winter Burrow, I did not get to see what’s subsequent, however the artwork model, music, and customarily delicate and alluring really feel of the sport have me intrigued. Winter Burrow maintains the core concepts of the survival style, and among the methods it challenges gamers, whereas adopting an altogether much less oppressive method, and I need to see the place that method leads.
Winter Burrow is coming to PC, Xbox Sequence X|S and Xbox One, and Sport Go in early 2025.