“ICE quoting Halo is definitely as shut as I will get to hell this week”, I mentioned to myself earlier. “Maintain my beer,” interjected Manor Lords publishers Hooded Horse, earlier than diving right into a flyblown burlap sack and fishing out the press launch for Darkwood 2. Did you ever play Darkwood? It is the survival horror sport about being a horrible hermit in a horrible, horrible, top-down forest. It is the sport that persuaded Adam Smith to mercy-kill his canine. The brand new one is about in “the scorched deserts of a dying sea” that’s slowly being engulfed by evil timber.
This dramatic change of setting is not even essentially the most startling factor in regards to the sport. Neither is the truth that Hooded Horse, hitherto recognized for banger technique video games, are publishing it. No, essentially the most shocking factor about Darkwood 2 is that it is being developed by Ice-Choose Lodge, builders of Pathologic, with unique Polish creators Acid Wizard monitoring the manufacturing from afar like lurking creatures within the underbrush.
Pathologic and Darkwood are, I believe, neck and neck for the title of Video Sport Most Possible To Really Give You The Plague. Asking the makers of 1 to make a sequel to the opposite is like, I do not know, placing Jack the Ripper in control of the Manhattan Mission. To prime all of it off, the important thing artwork jogs my memory of the primary menu artwork for Soul Reaver. Really, this can be a videogame tailor-made to my tastes, although I do have some issues about Ice-Choose Lodge’s capacity to craft a top-down horror sport. I might additionally prefer to know extra about how they’re faring given latest, very disturbing allegations about their now-departed co-founder.
Darkwood 2 is about amid the saline wreck of a real-life physique of water, the Aral Sea. Mendacity between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, it was the third largest lake on the earth at 68,000 sq. kilometres, however started shrinking within the Sixties after rivers had been diverted to Soviet irrigation initiatives.
Right now, it is largely poisonous mud, although there have been makes an attempt to replenish the waters. Darkwood 2 takes place within the Nineties. Assuming the sport sticks to real-life historical past, that will be following the abandonment of Soviet Russian efforts to revive the lake by the use of a large canal system, and through a section of irrigation system constructing over in newly post-Soviet Uzbekistan. All that is in keeping with Wikipedia, anyway – should you occur to be a correct historian of the Aral Sea, I might admire your enter on the screenshots and trailer.
As for the way it performs, Darkwood 2 appears to be like to be treading squarely in its predecessor’s stinking, gore-filled bootprints. It is a foetid real-time exploration and scavenging sim during which visibility is swallowed and splintered by encroaching trunks. It is nonetheless about scraping collectively sources and fortifying a lair with barricades and traps, earlier than the solar goes down and the actual monsters come out. However there are new monsters to find – hark at that giga-catfish within the footage – and there are “new causes to wish for the morning gentle”. Set a number of years later, the sport appears to construct on the occasions of Darkwood, however Hooded Horse guarantee us that it may be handled as a standalone story.
There are marshes to squelch by, meandering paths amid dunes, and deep waters to row over (I’d most likely row fairly quick). There shall be no quest markers or waypoints, none of your trendy cartographical frippery, solely the insanity and desperation of native people combating to maintain the invading trunks at bay.
All this appetising distress however, returning gamers could have misgivings in regards to the departure of unique builders Acid Wizard. The primary sport’s creators suspended operations indefinitely in 2022, after failing “to create a piece atmosphere that will not be damaging to our private lives”. They’d struggled to seek out an viewers for his or her follow-up mission, the jarringly upbeat soccer sport Soccer Youngsters.
“Crafting the world of Darkwood was a really difficult and lengthy journey for the staff,” Acid Wizard co-founder Gustaw Stachaszewski feedback in a press launch for Darkwood 2. “After an expertise like that, you turn into emotionally connected to your work. We all know that the followers have been eagerly awaiting a continuation of Darkwood. For years, the thought of handing over our child to a different studio was one thing unthinkable for us. However, after it grew to become evident that working collectively isn’t viable anymore, we determined that Darkwood ought to stay on, even when indirectly by our work.
“We’re genuinely excited to move on the torch to Ice-Choose Lodge – creators whose work on Pathologic has impressed us for years,” Stachaszewski goes on. “The staff at IPL actually will get what makes Darkwood a singular expertise. We imagine they won’t solely honor its spirit however will create one thing actually distinctive. As for us, we’ll be within the background, ensuring it stays true to the unique imaginative and prescient.”
In the identical launch, Ice-Choose Lodge’s government producer Alexander Souslov has some extra ideas for individuals who may query the mix of developer and writer right here – once more, Hooded Horse are higher recognized for city-builders and 4X than spooks and squalor. “I imagine essentially the most fascinating issues are created when folks with very completely different backgrounds work collectively on artistic initiatives,” he observes. “Ice-Choose is thought for its give attention to narrative and on the design of semiotic methods. Hooded Horse, alternatively, is famend for its experience in technique. What sort of sport may come from that?”
Ice-Choose Lodge have been on an advanced journey of their very own, these previous few years. The builders introduced Pathologic 3 in October 2024. Due for launch in January 2026, it consists of story supplies and different components that had been as soon as purported to be a part of Pathologic 2. There was a specific amount of frission over this and the dropping of the unique sport’s open world components, with our personal Brendy (RPS in peace) commenting of 1 demo that it felt concurrently designed for and designed to bother returning Pathologic gamers.
Then, in March this 12 months, founder Nikolay Dybowski immediately left the studio after Pathologic gamers found that he had been accused of kidnapping and abuse, with allegations courting again to 2021. Former Ice-Choose developer Aleksey Luchin responded to those stories, branding Dybowski a “manipulative sociopath that is superb with phrases.” I’ve requested Hooded Horse and Ice-Choose in the event that they’d like to supply any additional touch upon Dybowski’s departure. Extra positively, Ice-Choose Lodge had been among the many first Russian builders to communicate out in opposition to their nation’s invasion of Ukraine, telling social media followers that “against the law is being dedicated in our title. This isn’t solely against the law in opposition to our mates. It’s a crime in opposition to our dignity.”
There isn’t any launch date but for Darkwood 2, however you may learn extra on Steam and the Microsoft Retailer. You may additionally wish to try Alex Wiltshire’s outdated interview with Acid Wizard about how the unique Darkwood “kills permadeath”. We by no means reviewed it, however Darkwood seems nonetheless on our record of the most effective horror video games on PC. Here is hoping Ice-Choose Lodge can do it justice.
Replace: Ice-Choose Lodge have declined to supply any additional remark in regards to the allegations directed at Dybowski. A PR consultant pointed me in direction of the studio’s current Xitter assertion from March 2025, during which they announce that Dybowski has left “to give attention to private initiatives and his personal life”.
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