Taking a step outside of our reality as humans can sometimes be hard to do, especially in reflective light. Putting players in the role of a mother fox in a scary time and dangerous area are developers Herobeat Studios and publisher HandyGames with their latest game Endling - Extinction Is Forever. The title alone puts an emphasis on the serious atmosphere this game takes on and even while there are plenty of cute animations and moments to love, there are plenty of challenging and scary times to overcome.

Story

Following the escape from her forest home being lost to a fire that she narrowly escapes, our mother fox gives birth to four cubs. After taking a second to choose how they look, the challenge begins of learning the land around your new, likely temporary, home and finding food for the cubs to thrive. It isn’t long before the humans in the area find your hide-out and trick one of your cubs into capture!

Now the focus is torn between two priorities: maintaining the livelihood and upbringing of the remaining three cubs while actively searching for your kidnapped baby cub. While there may not be an opportunity to make progress on your reuniting, every new night is another chance to explore further than before and maybe even teach your cubs how to do a few things themselves.

Gameplay

While the game does seem to take place in a 3D environment, all of the pathways and progress you take are on a path that lead on a 2D plane. It’s a unique take on the 2.5D experience and does well to show how massive the map really is while still forcing players to stick to a guided pathway.

Every night you will have to try and find some food for your cubs. You can track scents, where green trails will lead you to food and purple trails will lead you to clues to find your kidnapped cub. When it comes to gathering food, some are easy picking such as berries and knocking an apple out of a tree, but if it is a live animal then you will have to sneak up on it. There are different approaches to different animal, such as both the fish and rodents can be pounced on, but a rabbit will require you to wait in a bush until it gets next to you for a surprise pounce. Once you have the food, you can either carry it back to your den or simply drop it on the ground to feed your cubs. Luckily, you don’t seem to need to eat so you are only hunting for the sake of the children.

As you progress through the story, which means you are finding more clues that will lead you to your cub, you will find that when you start out on a new night some previously blocked pathways may be opened. This is to contribute to the progress the humans are making on their own tasks that we don’t really know much about. All we truly know is that they are the enemy, being near them will get us hurt or taken away, and call me skeptical but I bet they caused the fire that started this mess to begin with.

Of course, you can open some pathways with some of your own actions, but it is mostly done by a fresh night after some story progress. So make sure you take the chance to search around the map that you do have access to because you never know what you will find and your cubs will only learn new tricks, such as climbing, when you come across a situation that practically forces them to learn it. Once they learn a trick, they can help you with scavenging as well.

Some things to keep in mind is that you are a wild animal and you are roaming the wilds. This means you need to have caution as you approach different things. Some predators a big threat to your cubs, so you will need to stealth around them so they don’t attack you. There are going to be traps to avoid and things to consider, such as if you are currently injured then you won’t be able to fight off an encounter with a predator or human. You will need to always stay vigilant!

Audio and Visuals

While there is a more calm atmosphere in the general exploration and downtime, the music is very well designed to make all moments have an extra layer of feeling to them. From the relaxation of looking for the next berry bush to the stress of being injured and then being chased, the music and sound effects play well together to make the moments of the game an experience.

The aesthetic of the game is kept to a kid-friendly level where you never see anything gruesome in any way. Even when eating pray or getting caught in a trap, there is nothing bad in the visual and the whole game is kept to a ‘G’ rating honestly. They didn’t put a focus on making the visual aspect build up the moments and rather just gave a colorfully clear appearance of the interactions for players to experience themselves.

Replayability

I’m not sure there is much replayability to the game as once you beat it the map will be the same and the clues are the same the second time around. So, there won’t be anything new to explore and nothing you won’t already know about your little missing cubs’ whereabouts. The game is a decently long experience as it is and there is plenty of map to explore though.

What It Could Have Done Better

While I get that they wanted there to be key moments for cubs to learn anything, I don’t see why they couldn’t all learn at the same time. When my first cub learned to climb the tree and the other two stayed down, I tried a bunch of things to get the other two to try it out but they wouldn’t. I was worried this was a bug at first but it wasn’t and I just don’t see why they can’t learn together when they explore, eat, play, and sleep together.

Verdict

Endling - Extinction Is Forever is an impactful experience that is made as an entertaining survival game! I can see any animal-loving, survival game fan playing this game fully. There is always something special about getting a different perspective on tough situations and it isn’t often that someone wonders what the animals are going through in hard times. Starting the game off in the middle of a forest fire really put a serious tone on the game right from the initial load up and even as the game had relaxing explorative moments, the tone fittingly remained.

Endling - Extinction Is Forever is now available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG. You can still get the physical edition of the game as well.