Struggle to stay alive in a world destroyed by humans in Endling: Extinction is Forever from developer Herobeat Studios and publisher HandyGames. This survival simulation game will force you to confront the impacts humanity has on the environment, and let’s just say, they aren’t very flattering to us humans. In Endling you play as a mother fox who gives birth to four adorable baby cubs. These cubs become your main focus as you try to keep them well fed and protected, along with keeping yourself alive. While that may sound simple, this is by far one of the most stressful games I have ever played, and I mean that as a huge compliment.
There are many obstacles you have to face as you try to keep your pups alive. From animal predators to humans who want to kidnap you and your pups so they can sell your pelts and so much more, there is danger around every corner. Another obstacle you must face is finding shelter. You can only hunt during the night and must return home or find a new shelter closer to you on the map before daytime comes. If you don’t, you run a higher risk of getting yourself, or one of your cubs, killed. Though the hardest challenge you face, at least in my opinion, was making sure to keep your cubs well fed. I learned the hard way that your cubs will die from hunger and then lie dead outside whichever shelter you sleep in that night for the rest of the game. Very few times have I felt as stressed while gaming as when I was carrying my starving pup running around trying to find food before morning came or their time ran out. And when I was unsuccessful, I genuinely almost started crying. While this was partly due to me being an emotional person, credit must also be given to the game for how they created this intense situation. The visuals, sound design, and story come together to create a truly moving experience, that is, if you allow yourself to fully get invested.
And it’s hard not to get invested in the world of Endling. As you explore to survive you’ll also get a good look at the beautifully devastating art design that showcases the destruction of the environment, many parts of which you can directly correlate with current events and issues. Alongside the striking visuals, the sound design is also very fitting with soft music humming in the background as you explore and appropriately intense music when situations get a bit dire. Diegetic sounds are also used well to help immerse you into this broken-down world. The art design has a distinct and effective style that allows it to not be overbearing with its messages while also ensuring they are clearly depicted.
The gameplay itself is fairly simple and easy to pick up on. The tutorial teaches you all you need to know to survive. Your fox has a strong nose you can use to sniff out food which can be foraged and hunted in many different ways. Some food will require your cubs to know a specific skill in order for you to reach it. Sadly your cubs don’t know many skills on their own. They will learn how to jump and high jump as they grow bigger, but for other skills like climbing and digging, you’ll have to teach them yourself at specific skill training points on the map. This makes exploration very important. The more places you visit, the more skills you can teach your cubs, and the more food you are able to access. And while the gameplay loop itself has the potential to get repetitive, with a roughly 4-hour playtime the story keeps up the pace so that won’t become an issue.
As I stated before, playing through Endling ended up being a surprisingly stressful experience, but in a good way. Let me explain that a bit. The stressful parts I already wrote about above with the obstacles and goals, but it’s the weight of how realistic the game is that really hit home with me emotionally. While I would recommend this game to everyone as it does a wonderful job of showcasing the crushing environmental problems that are becoming greater every day, I would also have to warn them of the potential existential crisis it may cause you to have about the fate of the world and all the creatures in it. Seeing how hard the mother fox struggled to keep her cubs alive made me think about how many humans and animals are doing that every day in the real world. This connection made failing any of my cubs hold a heavy weight in my chest. There are also a few different endings that are determined based on how well you keep your four pups alive. This not only makes for better replayability so you can find out how things could be different but also shows the impact that even the smallest choices can make on the overall picture.
Endling: Extinction is Forever is available now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. A code for the game was provided by the publisher for review. Additionally, you can get a boxed retail version of the game for any console which is ideal for collectors. The PC version comes in a more eco-friendly cardboard box with fewer plastics to help promote the environmentally conscious message of the game itself. And if you want to watch through the opening of Endling, you can watch my live stream below.
