Fade to Silence plunges players into a brutal, eternal winter, a world ravaged by an Eldritch horror. Developed by Black Forest Games, this survival action game, available on Steam, Humble Bundle, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4, throws you into the frozen shoes of Ash, a survivor battling not only the elements and monstrous abominations but also the encroaching corruption that plagues the land. While not directly related to the often simpler concerns of tool management in games like My Summer Car, mastering resourcefulness in Fade to Silence is paramount to your survival. Let’s delve into how you can navigate this harsh landscape and effectively manage your “tools” for survival – your resources, followers, and even your own resilience.
Overview of a Frozen Apocalypse
Unlike games where tools might respawn easily or be readily available, Fade to Silence emphasizes scarcity and the constant struggle for survival. You, as Ash, are tasked with not just surviving personally, but also ensuring the survival of your daughter and any followers you manage to recruit. This means scavenging for supplies, crafting essential gear, and cleansing the land of the pervasive corruption. The world is expansive and unforgiving, demanding careful exploration to secure the resources needed to keep your base secure, warm, and your people fed. Combat is reminiscent of Dark Souls, requiring strategic dodging, parrying, and utilizing light and heavy attacks against terrifying creatures.
Gameplay: Tools for Survival and How to Utilize Them
In Fade to Silence, your “tools” extend beyond just crafted items. Your followers are crucial tools, aiding in base construction, gear crafting, resource harvesting, and even combat expeditions. Cooperative multiplayer allows a friend to join as a follower, further enhancing your survival capabilities. The game incorporates a permadeath mechanic through “flames of hope,” which act as lives. Losing them all means starting over, adding significant weight to every decision and encounter. However, shards and boons can be obtained to provide persistent upgrades, offering a sense of progression even through setbacks.
The game masterfully uses its Lovecraftian themes to create a deeply atmospheric and unsettling experience. The creature designs are grotesque and terrifying, perfectly embodying the Eldritch horror influence. The vast, snowy landscape is both beautiful and desolate, reflecting the hopelessness of an eternal winter. While traversal on foot is possible, it’s slow and arduous. One of the more unique “tools” for traversing this world is the sled pulled by rescued wolves. Though sometimes buggy, it offers a faster way to navigate the expansive map.
Corruption nests dot the landscape, spreading red webbing and spawning grotesque horrors. Cleansing these nests, a process of absorbing the corruption (and button mashing), liberates resources in the surrounding area. Larger nests are outposts, providing safe havens with access to your stash, fire, and teleportation crystals, allowing for faster travel between your main base and these outposts. These outposts become vital “respawn points” of sorts, safe locations to regroup and plan your next venture.
Fade to Silence diverges from traditional survival sandboxes by incorporating a storyline, delivered through cutscenes, dialogue, and dream sequences. Voice acting is generally weak, and facial animations are lacking, except for the chilling voice of the Eclipse, the Eldritch Horror antagonist. This constant, mocking presence is a unique narrative tool, reminding you of your insignificance in the face of cosmic horror.
Your followers are not generic NPCs; they are fully voiced characters with backstories and personal storylines to uncover. Each follower carries a sense of being unhinged, fitting the game’s theme of eldritch survival and adding depth to your “toolset” of survivors.
Combat, while straightforward, is fluid and visually appealing. You are primarily equipped with a sword and bow, with weapon upgrades being variations of these. Fire and explosive arrows offer some tactical variety later in the game. The combat system relies on basic attacks, power attacks, parrying, and dodging.
Learning enemy attack patterns is crucial, but once mastered, combat can become predictable, especially against single enemies. The challenge escalates when facing multiple enemies or venturing into higher-level regions with inadequate gear.
Hypothermia is a constant threat. Exposure to extreme cold rapidly decreases your maximum health, and regaining it is a slow process. Cleansing corruption or reviving followers also reduces maximum health, adding risk to these actions. Healing is deliberately slow, even with items, emphasizing the harshness of the environment. Blizzards are particularly deadly, necessitating a desperate search for shelter to survive.
The Eclipse itself is not merely a background element. This menacing, tentacled moon actively attacks you when you are in its path, launching debris and eldritch blasts, making it a dynamic environmental hazard. The game’s atmosphere and thematic consistency are its strongest assets.
Resource management in Fade to Silence is largely delegated to your followers. You designate areas for resource gathering, like specific trees or hunted animals, and your followers handle the actual work. Your personal resource gathering focuses on chests, bags, and points of interest, making efficient use of your time.
Base building involves selecting structures and locations, with followers handling the construction. Base defense is a key element, as your settlement will be besieged by monsters. Defending your base alongside your followers can be engaging, though the limited build area restricts strategic depth. Once built, followers can craft items, each possessing unique skills that determine their crafting capabilities.
Much of the raw resources you gather are corrupted, requiring followers to cleanse or process them. Smelting ore, crafting medicine, and producing better gear all rely on follower tasks and take in-game time. This introduces a time-gating element to progression. While resource gathering and crafting are inherent to survival games, Fade to Silence leans heavily into waiting periods, which can feel less like strategic gameplay and more like enforced downtime. Impatience often leads to death as players venture out unprepared.
Follower trust increases over time as long as basic needs like firewood and food are met. Regular interactions unlock follower backstory and eventually lead to skill upgrades to expert level, a process primarily driven by waiting. Since advanced crafting and building rely on expert followers, this time-gating significantly impacts progression speed.
Resources are finite and location-specific, adding a layer of pressure to expand and explore. As your camp grows, resource consumption increases, pushing you to unlock new gathering locations, creating an artificial sense of urgency amplified by the time-gated mechanics.
While you can choose not to recruit all followers, it’s generally detrimental to progression, as fewer followers mean longer wait times for essential tasks.
Permadeath, while present, is somewhat mitigated by the ability to find or craft additional lives. However, losing all lives results in a complete restart in a largely linear and non-random world. This lack of replayability makes permadeath feel more punishing than engaging, particularly given the significant waiting periods in gameplay.
Verdict: A Chilling Experience with Icy Mechanics
Fade To Silence offers a compelling atmosphere and a genuinely brutal winter setting, rich with Lovecraftian horror. Base building, sieges, and the cleansing mechanic are engaging features. The sled dog transport, despite its quirks, adds a unique element to exploration.
However, some mechanics work against the game’s strengths. Its linear structure and time-gating clash with the permadeath mechanic and reduce replayability. Transitioning to a more open survival sandbox could have better leveraged its strong atmosphere and engaging base-building elements. Despite its flaws, Fade to Silence is a worthwhile experience, especially for fans of Lovecraftian themes, and is recommended, particularly on sale.
Pros:
- Immersive Atmosphere and Setting
- Engaging Follower and Crafting Mechanics
- Fluid and Enjoyable Combat
- Effectively Conveys the Oppressive Winter
- Exciting Base Sieges
- Online Co-op Capability
- Visually Impressive Creatures
Cons:
- Simplistic Combat System
- Limited Weapon Variety
- Significant Time Gating via Follower Task Completion
- Permadeath Incongruous with Linearity and Lack of Randomness
- Occasional Framerate Drops on Standard PlayStation 4
- Predictable Enemy AI
