discussion Wintermute is...exhausting.

[Beanie]

So, not having played the game for some time I was very excited when the story mode was releases and it drew me back to the game again. However, I have to say that I found the experience quite taxing, as the title suggests.

I don't think it was unreasonable of me, as a sandbox player, to expect the mechanics of the game to be the same in the story mode. I was under the assumption that the sandbox was a test-bed for such mechanics for their inclusion ion the story mode. Apparently not necessarily so..

Episode 1 was fairly reasonable, I thought. There was one moment right at the start where I had issues. The "Build the fire up for the night" quest I misinterpreted. I took it to mean "Survive the night by keeping a fire going" when in fact it meant "Put 9 hrs worth of wood on the fire at once or the blizzard will never end!". So, keeping the fire going all night and all the next day did me no good and I had not enough wood to continue once I realised my problem. Cue restart.

The rest of Ep 1 was fine, though I did find some amusement in Grey Mother's fetch quests. But I told myself that it was the first episode and that there would be plenty of new players that didn't know the ropes that needed some instruction. Episode 2, I was sure, would be much better.

So... episode 2. Things were fine at first. I did the rifle repair quest. A quite epic journey of wolf dodging and near starvation turning to triumph when I shot a deer and tracked it to where it had dropped. I returned to Jeremiah, sure that my admittedly somewhat rusty skills were more than a match for whatever else was required of me.

"Kill me some deer" he said. "So that I know you can take care of yourself." It didn't take an x-ray machine to see through his thinly veiled excuse to feed him, just like Grey Mother. "Hmmm." I thought. "Didn't I just do this last episode? Oh well." So off I went.

Then there was plant gathering... and then fishing... so many things I already knew how to do that I was praying an update would add in a "I can do this already!" button to bypass these quests. But I persevered.

Then came the bear quest. Oh boy! "Shoot bear in face at six locations." Got it. Oh, he mauled me. Oh, he mauled me again. Wait, I thought. In the sandbox, a bear maul is near fatal, yet counter-intuitively I have to face six such maulings? In fact, I was mauled three times in quick succession at one point when I cornered him and thought I might get credit for shooting him in such a manner. Sadly for me, his plot armour was significantly more resilient than my clothing. I didn't die, but ended up wearing nothing but two sweaters and a pair of gloves. Inadvertantly, I had triggered what I shall now refer to as "Iron man story mode" where I spent the rest of the episode without trousers or underwear, trudging without much concern from place to place. Frostbite threatened, but never materialised, thanks to the simple expedient of building a fire every so often.

And about fires. My iron man mode also left me bereft of a hatchet for nearly all of episode two simply because I hadn't found a whetstone before I had destroyed two of them. So fires were made of books, sticks and reclaimed wood. Not exactly the long-lasting blazes I would have preferred.

Eventually, however, my naked survivalist version of Mackenzie downed the bear and the story moved on. By now, I had exhausted all the locations in Mystery Lake, so my mostly naked avatar had no choice but to continue to wander barely clothed. Wolves became a welcome sight, simply because I had no other recourse for food except cattails. My rifle had no rounds, so it was hand to hand for me! Every time I would hear a growl and turn to see a wolf stalking towards me, the music from the Spock vs Kirk battle would play out in my head and I would run towards the wolf. Since I had few clothes, there was little to lose and I often still got away with nothing more than sprains much of the time. The wolf, however, was wounded and I simply had to follow it for a nice meal when it died.

The dam was a bit annoying. Having got into it during an aurora I got the lift working and... bugger! I don't have a prybar? Then I recalled I had left it up at the collapsed tower because I had been unable to climb with (then) so many supplies. I remember thinking at the time..."What am I going to need this for now that I have been all over Mystery Lake?" and dumping it. Now, however, I needed it. So a quick reload and my mostly-naked self was off to retrieve it. After many harrowing adventures, including a side trip back to Jeremiah's to steal his pork n beans tins (tip: if you click on them and select eat, instead of take, it doesn't alter your rep with him), I got back to the dam.

There then followed a tedious interlude whilst I waited for another aurora, during which a couple more wolf fights and raiding the cattails nearby kept me going. Finally, I was able to get through the dam and finish the episode.

Phew! Was that as exhausting to read as it was to play? A lot of going back and forth. A lot of running around nude in the snow (so much so in fact that I thought I was watching The Grey at one point!) A lot of hand to hand with wolves and altogether too many times seeing the bear mauling cut-scene.

I'd like to say my skills in the sandbox are what got me through, but to be honest, the story mode is very easy in comparison. I should have died so much more than I actually did.

So what are my thoughts after this apparent marathon?

I guess the overwhelming one is just frustration at the scripting over-riding logic. The bear quest is the big culprit here. By all means put a quest in to kill the old bear. But don't punish players that think outside the box or rely on sandbox knowledge to tip the balance in their favour. I get that there is a limited amount you can do in such instances from a programming perspective, but there has to be a better way than that.

Don't assume that players will follow your quest chain exactly as you imagine. For example, I never bothered to unlock the clothing from hides blueprints and it came back to bite me on the butt later (literally in the wolves' cases!) In fact, I had no idea that the unlocks were there. A subtle hint might have been nice. I'd have probably chafed at the need to supply the quest-givers more gear etc. but it would have been worth it. But I had no idea, so I just moved on.

On the plus side, I finished it! Though I feel that my Mackenzie looks like a cross between a hobo and an escaped mental patient by the end. But it was doable, no matter how much I (or the game) tried to mess things up.

In future story episodes, it would be nice if the player was left go about accomplishing tasks in their own way. Less hand-holding and guidance and more "Do this however you can." Not everything will lend itself to such player agency, of course, but it would be nice if the majority of future quests didn't rely so much on "Go to X, Kill Y" and were just "Kill Y".

So, it was frustrating. The story was fairly simple for the most part, and I think I can see where they are taking it re the final encounter in the dam and a few things scattered elsewhere, so I am interested in seeing the rest play out in due course.

I just hope my Mackenzie gets to wear a few more clothes next time.

[Lrrr Ruler of OP8]

To be honest, The second The Grey Mother asked me to fetch stuff for her, I went back to sandbox, and I haven't progressed passed that (also because I'm afraid of the save game loss we have on PS4 at the moment). I think your largest criticism here, in which the progression is too strict, is completely valid. In the sandbox, I can kill a bear with a single head-shot, some shelter, and and hour of bleed out time. From what you describe, I would probably get a little frustrated by having to sit through all those helpless maulings. I think its a great idea to have a kind of a hunt, where you have to shoot it in a couple of locations, but maybe add some places in those areas where you could hide after a shot. In summary, I think you have the prevailing opinion about having future episodes being more open ended. "Kill the bear however you can, but be warned, that hide is mighty thick".   

[Stanimal032]

Agreed. Episode 2 is exhausting. 

[MarrowStone]

By the way a crowbar is guaranteed to spawn in the backpack of a corpse in the elevator.

[RossBondReturns]

Think of the Bear Hunt as Revenge for The Hunted 2.

[Kris-thepilgrim]

I really was looking forward to this game and I understand that the expectations for years cannot fulfilled.

But the greymothers quest was quite annoying and now I am sitting in front of Jeremiah and have all the wonderful quests to do which you already succeed. The gamefeeling for me is very linear. Like the beginning. When I quit the game and start all over again, I have to do this little tutorial over and over again. I was surprised that I wasnt allowed to gather the berries (dont know the right word for now). That was...really strange.

And a few "days" later Macenzie was allowed to gather the berries.

Well, I will play this game till the end and maybe it will change in Episode three. But the two Episodes are very linear, follow an exact route which I cannot escape. And that is not what I expected, when they released the storymode because the sandbox was your own choice. Your own choice which way you want to go. Your own choice to kill a bear (or at least to try to). Your own choice to craft your clothes and weapons.

This is what I really miss in storymode.

Your own choice and different options to play the game. The struggle with npcs, maybe they help me or kill me or I have to kill them. Whatever.

And no I dont want to kill Greymother, even she is a very bitter person (her story didnt bother me at all when she revealed why she hated the man and she was so happy that he get killed by a wolf - I was really sad about her thoughts). But I cant escape this, I have to gather the pearls every time to get past this episode. And when I start all over I will gather wood and food for her again and again and...

Everything is better than to be a honk to serve the npcs to get answers or hints about your missing Friend (Ex Wife).