Preview of The Forever Winter. A New great competitor to Escape from Tarkov and the Dark Zone Mode from The Division

Despite the growing popularity of extraction shooters, truly good projects have been extremely rare. Only Hunt: Showdown and Dark and Darker have achieved notable success. Everything else is either an unsuccessful parody of Escape from Tarkov or an underdeveloped concept. Marathon from the creators of Destiny is expected to release next year, but according to recent news, the game has been heavily reworked and turned into something resembling Apex.

And now, in the absence of competitors, The Forever Winter enters early access — an extraction shooter with a very bold game design concept and stunning visuals. Despite the overall rawness of the project and obvious optimization issues, we spent dozens of hours in TFW and couldn't tear ourselves away from the engaging gameplay. A true uncut gem amidst all the recent big-budget releases. In this article, we will discuss the key features of the new extraction shooter and why you should pay attention to it.

Former developers of Horizon: Zero Dawn, DOOM Eternal, Killzone, Hawken, The Witcher 3, and Mass Effect founded a small indie studio where they can create games without dubious investments, demands, and instructions to add what players have long been tired of. Their first project became The Forever Winter: an extraction shooter where gamers, in the role of marauders, have to witness the horrors of a senseless and ruthless war firsthand.

The Forever Winter plunges you into a brutal, war-torn world where survival is the essence of existence. The struggle between the main factions — European, Eurasian, and Evrusian — has lasted so long that all sides have already forgotten the original reasons for the conflict. The politicians who started the war are no longer alive, and the remnants of the armies continue to fight each other out of sheer inertia. Death has become commonplace, and cruelty and immorality have triumphed over kindness and humanity. The Forever Winter vividly demonstrates the full meaning of the phrase «war is hell».

The developers have created a very dark and oppressive world, where the main narrative is conveyed through overly detailed locations and enemy design. During the day, battles between giant robots take place, turning entire squads of ground troops into ashes with their rockets. Drones fly everywhere, soldiers in exoskeletons shoot, tanks adorned with bodies as additional armor rush by, and crazed cyborgs run along the outskirts. The map is a true chaos of screams, gunfire, explosions, and the sounds of bodies being dismembered. In this turmoil, a group of players needs to gather resources, loot bodies, complete missions, and avoid attracting attention. Any thoughtless action or excessive noise will instantly make you the main target on the battlefield.

At night, the sounds of war subside, and giant automatons come out to collect the bodies of the wounded and dead. Nearby, zombie cyborgs scurry in small groups. Despite the lack of weapons in their hands, they can easily take down an entire squad of armed players. Therefore, night in the game, although it gives a sense of calm compared to the daytime chaos, is no less dangerous for loot runs.

Each of the available maps provides an insight into the game's world and its universe. Locations like «Mech Trenches», «Scorched Enclave», and «Underground Cemetery» offer more than just strategic battlefields — they allow you to see the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse. The artistic design impresses with an unusual mix of real-world elements and science fiction in the spirit of «Terminator 2: Judgment Day», «The Animatrix», and «Warhammer 40,000».

The developers initially planned to release an art book based on this dystopian universe, but eventually decided to create a full-fledged game instead. According to the lead designer, the team simply took all the existing artwork and transferred it into a three-dimensional environment. No one even thought about coherence, meaning, and interconnectedness. But in the end, all the artistic material came together into the multi-layered universe of The Forever Winter, which now feels cohesive and in some sense prophetic.

After the success of Escape from Tarkov and the Dark Zone mode from The Division, a separate genre called extraction shooter formed in the gaming industry. The essence of this genre lies in the rather hardcore search for useful items on the location, which ultimately need to be extracted safely. This described hardcore nature is a special mix of PvP and PvE, where everything alive on the map tries to kill you by any means to take the gathered resources. Thanks to the maximum difficulty and constant blood-pumping risks, extraction shooters quickly gained popularity among gamers and significantly shook up the entire gaming industry.

Unlike other representatives of the extraction shooter genre, The Forever Winter does not have player-versus-player battles. The developers even came up with a subgenre for their game called PvEvE. That is, battles between factions controlled by a global artificial intelligence will unfold before your eyes. You can hide in a secluded spot and just watch as the computer-controlled characters annihilate each other. Of course, you always have the option to dive into the thick of things and start shooting indiscriminately, but such an initiative quickly ends with a return to the lobby with empty pockets.

The Forever Winter is harsh towards players. Just like in Escape from Tarkov, no one will coddle you. Enemies will always outnumber and outgun your group. Each raid is an unpredictable adventure where anything can happen. Therefore, you will spend a considerable amount of time in the central hub, preparing for a new foray into the combat zone. There, you can buy supplies, take on missions, upgrade character abilities, and attach accessories to your guns.

Despite its early access status, the game already has plenty of weapons that can be upgraded and rebuilt. Most of the guns are taken from real life. Here you have the AK-47, M4, FN SCAR, and even the SVD. The variety of available mods allows you to choose different tactical situations, whether it be stealthy progression or full-blown battles with exoskeletons. There is also the option to buy loot containers and frames to which these containers attach. For example, you can attach a huge storage unit and «vacuum» the entire location, but you will lose the ability to pick up enemy weapons. There is also special loot that requires a unique compartment for large items. The main thing is not to splurge on cool accessories for a meaningless raid. In case of failure, all your acquired goods will remain near the place of death. If you can't retrieve them on the next run, you can say goodbye to your gear.

Depending on the growth of your reputation with traders of a certain faction, more exotic guns and accessories will appear on their shelves. Relationships with merchants can be improved by selling unique items and completing quests. However, if you mindlessly shoot everyone during raids and cause massacres, you can say goodbye to a positive reputation. In The Forever Winter, you always have to sacrifice something.

The most important resource is water, the lifeblood of the hub. The amount of water determines how many days you can go without logging into The Forever Winter. One canister equals one day of inactivity. The timer runs in real-time, regardless of whether the game is turned on or not. Once the tank in the hub is completely empty, the area resets. All progress, including quests, inventory, and reputation, will be completely reset. Additionally, at critical levels, many services and features in the hub become unavailable. While major publishers force players to return to projects for battle passes and cosmetic improvements, the developers of The Forever Winter set a harsh condition that can easily ruin all progress. It's harsh, but it very much fits the setting chosen by the developers.

In terms of feel, The Forever Winter resembles Escape from Tarkov but without cheaters, dense foliage, and constant inventory sorting. Several large maps are already available, where loot spawns in random locations. You don't need to constantly move through specific zones in search of valuable items. It's enough to just wait out a local skirmish between factions and loot the cooling bodies. You definitely won't be left without loot, but getting it out of the location is a much more difficult task.

Encounters with enemies are always tense and unpredictable. A group of enemies can easily run past you in search of a more serious target, or they might start chasing you even if you haven't been particularly conspicuous during looting. You get killed very quickly in the game, and medical supplies don't restore health in a matter of seconds. If you take a rocket launcher or an anti-tank rifle on an excursion, there's a risk of attracting the attention of mechs and tanks. While the latter can still be destroyed somehow, it's better not to even try with the former.

The Forever Winter implements a threat assessment system that affects faction encounters. Mechs mainly fight other robots and occasionally attack tanks. Soldiers attack warriors in exoskeletons and cyborgs. Of course, all these restrictions work only up to a certain point. Sooner or later, one squad will accidentally hit a mech with a rocket, and an artillery bombardment will begin, turning the battlefield into a meat grinder. The threat system also applies to the player. The chosen weapon affects how quickly you will be noticed. 50-mm rifles, rocket launchers, and large-caliber machine guns are excellent at dealing with equipment and large squads. But it's important to remember that ammunition is not infinite. In most cases, we lost all our equipment and collected loot when passing robots began to chase us across the entire map.

As in Tarkov, looting involves making decisions. When you open a box or search a body, you need to wait a few seconds to examine each item. At this moment, you are extremely vulnerable and can catch a stray bullet from a sudden patrol. Yes, there is an option to immediately press the «Take all» button and put all the unexamined items in the container at once, but then you won't be able to identify them until the end of the excursion. Without examining items during the raid, there is a risk of missing the opportunity to use an additional medkit, ammo, or other equipment.

Unlike Tarkov and Hunt Showdown, where a match can last up to 40 minutes, in The Forever Winter, one excursion lasts about ten minutes on average. You enter the map, gather loot, and exit. It's simple until you take on the local quests. They are quite diverse: kill a boss, collect a certain amount of resources, rescue prisoners, or extract a mech pilot and carry him to a shelter. Some missions are similar in design to EFT: go there — don't know where, bring that — don't know what. With quests, excursions gain more meaning. The main thing is not to try to kill bosses alone.

For completing quests and successful excursions, you earn experience, which can be spent on character upgrades. There are several heroes to choose from, each with a specific set of perks. For example, a girl can move across the location faster than anyone, but she can't carry large backpacks or use large-caliber weapons. And a black giant can equip the entire available arsenal without skill upgrades and carry the largest containers, but he gets stuck in passages due to his height and runs the slowest. At a certain point, you will have the chance to upgrade your hero's prestige. In this case, you will lose all acquired skills but gain increased stats, including health and the ability to carry more loot.

Despite its solid game narrative, The Forever Winter is not without its flaws. At the time of release, the project had serious optimization problems. Graphics settings did not prevent FPS drops, and frame generation systems like DLSS only appeared in the latest patch. The game is built on the Unreal Engine 5, which has already caused trouble for owners of weaker hardware. Yes, TFW undeniably received stunning visual effects that work great for the atmosphere, but the authors had to sacrifice overall accessibility. Early reviews on Steam were sharply negative precisely because of poor performance. In subsequent patches, some global issues were resolved, and the reviews have now changed to «mostly positive».

The Forever Winter has a lot of bugs typical for early access games. The artificial intelligence needs serious tweaks, as the entire «main action» relies on its shoulders. The developers are aware of this and are working hard to improve the systems. The sudden spawn of enemies in unexpected places is also infuriating. It often ruins the entire stealth playthrough. In some areas, you can fall into «out of bounds,» and the local item collision leaves much to be desired. The locations, although visually beautiful, sometimes hinder movement due to the decorations.

The Forever Winter has a long way to go before it is fully polished. This is the classic path of any early access game. Many features are not yet implemented, and what is currently available will be reworked multiple times. The project has enormous potential, and the developers clearly do not plan to stop there. The Forever Winter makes you want to return for new experiences.

Special praise goes to the soundtrack composed by Jason Willey. The music complements the eerie and tense atmosphere, using maximized witch house, melancholic dark ambient, adrenaline techno, and industrial that emphasizes the feeling of hopelessness and survival. We haven't seen such a unique combination of melodies in one soundtrack for a long time.

***

At the moment, The Forever Winter has every chance to become another star in the niche of extraction shooters. Hardcore gameplay with an innovative PvEvE system offers fresh and unique emotions. The richly detailed world and meticulously crafted style are so impressive that sometimes you want to pause the war and examine all the details that the developers spent a lot of time on. The music in the game is so good that it's worth listening to on repeat outside of the gameplay.

Despite the optimization issues and the overall rawness typical of early access games, the solid foundation of The Forever Winter gives a clear idea of what kind of project awaits us in the foreseeable future. And this is not another rainbow glitter with a ton of useless junk, but a real game where gameplay and emotions come first. We sincerely hope that Fun Dog will keep its promises and bring The Forever Winter to version 1.0. If you have a powerful PC and nerves of steel, be sure to give it a try. There is a free demo available on Steam.