Arctic Awakening review: An eerie mystery not fully realised

Arctic Awakening looks like the perfect fit for the hole left behind by 2016’s Firewatch. Set in an unforgiving landscape, mystery lurks both above and below the ice. Despite never being a true fight for survival, this first-person narrative keeps you guessing, forever looking over your shoulder. 

Yet, it’s whether GoldFire Studios’ new release can live up to the expectations placed on it that’s the real question here. There’s a lot to like, but also glaringly obvious shortfalls. It’s dangerous to go alone, especially in the Arctic North; before you begin your journey alongside Kai, it’s worth reading this Arctic Awakening review. 

The Escapist recaps

• Arctic Awakening is a first-person narrative adventure from GoldFire Studios, a small, independent team. 
• The Arctic Awakening game is best described as a walking simulator, heavily focused on a slow burn pace for optimum immersion. However, its slow pacing doesn’t always work well.
• One of the best features of the title is its visuals – the landscape is a feast for the eyes, both vibrant and haunting when it needs to be. 
• In a bid to survive the elements and find answers, your choices impact the adventure. Yet, they don’t always feel significant in the moment of making them. 
• There are some promising in-game mechanics in Arctic Awakening, but often they don’t prove as useful as they could be. Consequently, certain elements feel underbaked. 

Feeling ill at ease in the wilderness

The atmosphere, or lack of it, can make or break a game like Arctic Awakening, especially when action takes the backseat in favour of steady exploration. In GoldFire Studios’ adventure, you’ll always feel ill at ease, even when nothing happens. 

From the moment your plane is struck, you’re left wondering what went wrong, a question that only grows when you see the devastation of the plane wreckage. This is the seed of unease that continues to grow throughout the game, and helps to make even the most mundane, uneventful exploration feel higher risk. 

Oftentimes, you’ll resort to checking the distant treeline for movement or looking behind you, yet normally, there’s nothing there. Arctic Awakening isn’t scary; however, it does a fantastic job of making you feel like something could happen at any moment. Not even the serene music that plays in the background can quiet that niggling worry that danger is close by. 

It definitely helps to carry the experience, though it isn’t enough to completely eradicate the obvious issues with the game. Chiefly, its disjointed pacing and storytelling. 

A lack of refinement hinders immersion

Walking simulators can quickly become tedious and repetitive if it walks you through every aspect of the game. As a result, it’s sometimes nice to get a bit of respite and a brief fast forward to a more compelling section of the story. That being said, this needs to be done well to avoid leaving players feeling out of sorts. 

Each transition should feel seamless, like in What Remains of Edith Finch. In Arctic Awakening, however, it feels choppy and unrefined. One minute you’re fading to black after burning a tree, the next you’re on a cliffstop with a rope dangling behind you. It’s jarring. Not to mention, it completely pulls you out of the immersion of the game. 

There’s a lot of stopping and starting, an issue only compounded by the meditation mechanic. When Kai’s vision first started to blur, the colour draining from the screen, it was unnerving. Not knowing if it was hunger, this reviewer quickly ate something to see if it would help. It did, though food wasn’t the problem. Mere moments later, Alfie then informs you about cairns where Kai should meditate to improve his mental wellbeing. 

Although a potentially interesting mechanic, it provides nothing useful. Despite removing the visual disturbances, there are no untoward consequences, such as hallucinations or increased panic. Without this, it begs the question why mediate at all? It forces you to stop, often when you don’t want to, and again, takes you out of the experience. It could be a really unique feature, but it needs work. 

Lastly, Kai’s voice actor doesn’t hit the mark. There are times when the inflictions in his voice work well, like when he makes a playful quip, but that’s where his emotive range seems to end. It’s arguably more noticeable because of Donovan’s excellent voice acting, which makes you feel like you’re going through the turmoil he is. Kai’s indifference lessens the tension the atmosphere so carefully built. 

A feast for the eyes

No matter the various issues Arctic Awakening suffers from, it never falls short visually. There are so many times when you’re left in awe of how beautiful the scenery is, the way the colours filter through the tall pines or are reflected on frozen lakes. With so much beauty, it leaves you wondering why there isn’t a photo mode, though granted, it would feel out of place in such a game.

The stylised aesthetic will captivate with striking imagery that lingers long after Kai and Alfie have moved on to a new location. One area that sticks out in particular is when you first find the large satellite dish. The way it emerges, almost devoid of colour in contrast to the rich greens of the trees and brilliant blue of the sky, is hauntingly stunning. 

There’s so much that Arctic Awakening gets wrong. Or rather, that it never fully realises. If the game mechanics and pacing matched its visuals, Arctic Awakening would be a tour de force to rival Firewatch. 

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