Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview

Our Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview looks at the upcoming horror graphic novel game, set for launch in Q4 2020. It will release for PC on Steam, but you can grab a demo right now!

Our Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview has tons of content. We’ll be looking at the game from our experience with the demo, analysing the Story, Gameplay, Graphics and Sound as we always do.

There are only 30 mins in the demo, so it doesn’t cover the entire game or final product.

This Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview is our first impression of the 30-minute demo. It is followed by the content that the developer provided us about the game, with tons of information and some free wallpapers! So sit back, relax and enjoy.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview

Story

We’ve played few graphic novel games that are as engaging as this Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview. It creates suspense as you read through the text and listen to the narrative.

Decisions are hard to make, since each choice leads to a specific consequence. You’ll either progress through the visual game or die. At least you’ll learn to make better decisions. We loved this aspect for our Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview.

Here’s a summary of the plot:

Do you hear the roar? It raises from within you. Thrown into an eternal struggle between nature and humanity, you will turn your rage into a weapon and uncover the secrets of your ancestry.

Welcome to a narrative adventure game based on the legendary role-playing system Werewolf: The Apocalypse. You play as Maya, a woman in her twenties from the United States, who is searching for clues about her family in the last primeval forest of Central Europe.

What she doesn’t know is that she will find herself in the middle of a conflict between forces beyond her understanding.

It honestly sounds like a write-up for a novel, one that I’d be more than happy to write myself as a horror author (see more info about my Silent Hill books here).

Hell, it’ll be to easy to set up a Choice of Games interactive adventure book for this, since I still have a contract with them to produce those type of book-games.

Anyway, enough about me and back to the Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview. The story does what it’s meant to: draw you in and hold your attention. I’d go as far as saying that it’s one of the best stories I’ve played in a game like this for a very long time.

Gameplay

What we love about graphic novel games is the use of stats to help us to survive. Our Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview reveals that there is a detailed statistics system that works well.

However, this game is more than just making choices. There are certain abilities and properties you need to be aware of, which we’ll detail here below.

Disclaimer: the developer gave us this information for our Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview, but it summarises it better than we ever could.

• Rage is your main resource. The higher your Rage, the more go-getting and aggressive you become. However, this makes your perception quite binary, and you become unable to see all the shades of grey. Low Rage brings empathy and openness but also makes you fearful and less willing to act.
• Willpower is the resource you need to control yourself, and also to not get carried by your Rage. If you let it drop to zero, you won’t be able to deal with many problems and situations. You gain Willpower by exploring the world, becoming better acquainted with it, and understanding it.
• Personality describes the kind of person you are in the game world. There are 5 auspices available, which determine the ways you can approach any character, obstacle, or situation.

Your personality is very significant, which we need to highlight in our Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview. At some stage in the game, you’ll need to decide what your true nature is.

• New Moon: A child born on the new moon is destined to be a master of stealth, trickery, and guile. Such werewolves are known as “Questioners of the Ways,” and they are granted latitude to break — or at least bend — the rules of Garou society that other werewolves are not. A new-moon werewolf is called a Ragabash .
• Crescent Moon: The wan light of the crescent moon illuminates the spirits and the riddles they tell. Garou born under this moon are ritualists, spirit-masters, shamans, and mystics. Such Garou is called Theurges .
• Half Moon: The werewolf born under the half-moon is a judge and balancer. Caught between extremes — man and wolf, Garou and human, adaptation and tradition, spirit and flesh — such Garou have to be able to make wise decisions on behalf of their fellows. Such a werewolf is called a Philodox .
• Gibbous Moon: The ample, but not quite full, the light of the gibbous moon shines on the Garou destined to be storytellers and lore keepers. Such werewolves are renowned for their memories and their creativity, and among the People, are called Galliards .
• Full Moon: Garou born under the full moon are spirit warriors, the deadliest and most vicious of their kind. A werewolf born under the full moon is called an Ahroun.

Graphics

We found the artwork absolutely stunning for our Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview. It lays the text of the story in gorgeous settings, with images that are animated. You won’t be sure whether to read the words or look at the visuals.

The unique setting of one of the last primordial forests of Europe. The design of each character is superb, with the type of art style that you won’t find anywhere else.

Later on in this Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview, we’ll share the developers thoughts on why they chose this art style for the graphic horror game. For now, let it suffice that we found the visuals a wonder to behold.

Sound

Fans of my game reviews will recall that I love games with voice-overs, as I’m a lazy game text reader. While this horror game doesn’t have this feature, it doesn’t lower our opinion for this Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview.

The sounds are still engaging, as you’ll hear specific things in the backround that relate to the story. Cars, buses, footsteps… it creates the perfect atmostphere.

The music is also worth mentioning in our Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview. It sets the tone for the story and will put you on edge at times. It’s a decent score for a horror graphic novel game.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview – Developer Diaries

We received additional details about the game for our Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview. We really want to share it here, and it sheds more light on what we enjoyed. It is so rich in content, we couldn’t keep it for ourselves.

Characters

• Maia: the protagonist. A young American woman with Polish ancestry. She is haunted by strange dreams and vaguely aware of the mysteries that surround her family. Maia comes to Bialowieza to learn the truth about her origins, and about herself.
• Anya: Maia’s friend from Norway, a fellow student who came to Poland to study medicine. She’s an activist.
• Bartek: Maia’s Facebook friend, son of an influential local businessman. Knows a lot about local history.
• Daniel: A local tourist guide. He knows the forest and its legends better than anyone. Daniel is a nice guy, but Maia can’t help but feel there’s something wrong about him.
• Kornel: A German eco-activist who came to Poland to save the Puszcza from deforestation. Ex-military who chose to abandon violence.
• The Puszcza – (?)

Why we chose Puszcza Bialowieska as the setting for the Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview

The Bialowieza Forest, also known as the Puszcza or Puszcza Bialowieska, is one of the last primaeval forests in Europe, located in Poland. It’s a special place where nature exists in its most primal form right next to the big industry.

The Puszcza is a vast area full of myths and legends, which you will also find in our game. The first people settled here 2,000 years ago, but their presence remained relatively limited.

This makes it a perfect setting for a World of Darkness story like the Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview. The forest is where the wild survive in large part because of human influences, as in the light of the changing climate care and protection are absolutely crucial for the ecosystem. In recent years, large protests were held in the Puszcza against deforestation.

This lets us ask questions that have always been relevant to the Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview.

Where should our interference in nature end?
Aren’t we morally bound to interfere?
How far would you go for a good cause?

What real-world legends and events we used in the Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview demo

The Barrows. This is a real resting place of a tribe that lived in the Puszcza 1,500 years ago and mysteriously vanished. (Read more here).

Kazan the Wolf. Kazan was the most famous wolf in Poland and the symbol of protection over his endangered species. In 2001, he died after caretakers failed to notice he was wounded in a fight against another male wolf.
Please see the translated article from the Bialowieza Forest Encyclopedia.

Places of Power. There are numerous legends of Places of Power located across the Puszcza. In the 1990s, diviners from around the world used to gather in the forest and search for these sites of magic.

This google image search will show you how they look in real life.

What inspired our art for the Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview

We aim for the art to support the narrative in a way that intrigues and attracts the player. The use of the collage technique, which mixes photography with manual drawing, lets us create artful, moody illustrations that convey the feeling of savage, psychedelic horror.

We focus on symbolism and emotions rather than on photo-realistic portrayal of the locations and characters in the Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview. This will ensure that our screenshots will stand out amongst other projects of the genre.

Together with the narrative and bespoke audio, the art will submerge players in the emotions of the story. All the while, it will leave enough space for the players to imagine and interpret the events and characters in their own way. This way the story becomes a relevant, personal experience that will remain in your memory for a long time.

Our main inspiration for the Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview is the art of Dave McKean, especially his legendary covers of the Sandman graphic novels. We also studied artists like Elke Trittel and Wangechi Mutu.

What are werewolves in Werewolf: The Apocalypse

Werewolf is a mythical creature: a human able to shapeshift into a wolf beast. In the early mythos, wolfmen were believed to be sorcerers using devilish magic to transform themselves into animals. The legend evolved and in the modern myth lycanthropy (the werewolf disease) is believed to be spread by werewolf bites.

The transformation is said to occur during the full moon, and the only way to kill a werewolf is to use a silver bullet or blade. This is not to be confused with a real clinical condition called lycanthropy.

It’s a psychiatric syndrome characterized as a belief that one can transform into an animal. Werewolf: The Apocalypse is a legendary role-playing game first released in 1992 by White Wolf. The player becomes a Garou, commonly referred to as a werewolf.

Their kind is locked in a two-front war: against the spiritual desolation of urban civilization, and supernatural forces of corruption that seek to bring about the Apocalypse. The game takes place in a fictional version of our Earth, a secret world, where werewolves, vampires, and other legendary creatures secretly live beside humans.

However, it’s a dark reflection of our world filled with corruption, apathy, violence, and hopelessness. The setting is also described as Gothic-Punk.

And what an amazing setting for the Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview!

What is World of Darkness?

World of Darkness is one of the most important role-playing brands, which revolutionized the genre in the 1990s.

It was the first to shift the focus from mechanics to narrative and
storytelling, and to present the world from the perspective of monsters, portrayed as tragic figures. Games set in the World of Darkness universe soon became incredibly popular and made a lasting impact on pop-culture, changing the perception of legendary creatures.

About Different Tales

Different Tales is a storytelling studio co-founded by The Witcher head story designer Artur Ganszyniec and project lead Jacek Brzeziński (The Witcher, Hitman, Dying Light). Over the last dozen years, Different Tales members have worked on fantasy franchises with a cult following, mobile games for the mass market, artistic experiments, critically acclaimed
products that were meant to exceed the boundaries of the medium.

Follow Different Tales:

• Website: http://differenttales.com/
• Facebook: facebook.com/differenttales/
• Twitter: twitter.com/differenttales

About Walkabout Games

Walkabout Games is an independent game studio collective from Central and Eastern Europe. We provide support and guidance while ensuring your creative freedom. Our goal is to help produce and publish fantastic gaming experiences. We focus on ambitious, mostly story-driven and open-world projects.

Follow Walkabout Games:

● Website: walkabout.games
● Facebook: facebook.com/WalkaboutGames/
● Twitter: twitter.com/Walkabout_Games

Free Wallpapers!!

We bet you read our entire Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest Preview just for the free wallpapers, huh? Well, we won’t disappoint. Here you go.