Wales Interactive’s latest is also the debut title from German studio Trapped Predator, and it’s clear they’ve been paying attention to the output of their publisher as Heart of the Forest takes a lot of good inspiration from WI’s best. There are a few small niggles along the way, but on the whole there’s an enjoyably creepy thriller here.
The story follows a group of four people as they get together for a hike in remote German woodland The Black Forest, so named for the trees historical ability to block out the sun. Couple Laura and Anna meet up with friends Nick and Simon as the only four who respond to Simon’s advert to go on a hike. After getting to know each other, they begin what should have been a five hour journey, but soon takes a turn for the bizarre.
We learn before the group leave that someone has recently gone missing in the forest, with this giving Nick – who isn’t a big fan of hiking anyway – pause for thought. However, after meeting the girls he soon puts on a brave face and carries on anyway. However, it’s not long before the group stumble upon various bizarre scenarios and meet some strange characters that may or may not have something to do with any disappearances.
I found the overall tale – at least the version I got on my playthrough – enjoyable, with lots of twists and turns that kept me guessing. There were a few moments where the characters would make choices that were illogical – in the traditional horror manner, I suppose, such as choosing to split up directly after agreeing to stick together – but generally the story flow was good. The foursome are split up at various points throughout, and seeing each person’s scenarios and how that affects the group as a whole was interesting.
I did find there were a few too many times where I expected to be presented with a choice only for the script to choose for me. One early example was when Anna asks Laura if she’d like to go to see one other character, or stay where they are with another, but we get no actual decision here. There isn’t a ‘main’ character as such, so we flit back and forth between the four depending on the scene, but I’d have liked to see a few more choices fulfilled by the player in these sorts of instances. There are also long stretches where we don’t get to choose anything; my controller actually turned off at one point because it had been that long since I’d had anything to interact with.
The crew are affected by our choices not just in how the story branches, but also in how corrupted they are by the forest. Pick the wrong options and the corruption gets higher, resulting in them potentially having a bad time. I can’t say it was super clear why they were more or less corrupted at points, though I did like the way we get a visual effect when important decisions are made. We can also see the story tree at any time, as well as our current and prior progress along it which will help with repeat plays for sure.
Performances are decent throughout, if a little awkward at times. Most of the scenes feel natural enough, whereas others – especially when there is extra tension or frights going on – don’t quite land as well as we’d hope. But this didn’t really impact the enjoyment of the story here, and I look forward to a few more playthroughs to see alternate paths and try to get more of the five possible endings.
Conclusion
As a debut FMV title, Trapped Predator has done a great job of following in the wake of publisher Wales Interactive. The tale is engaging with plenty of twists, turns, and reasons to replay. We’d have liked a few more choices, more frequently to make along the way and we hope that whatever they bring us next can fine tune what is already a solid base in their production and story telling.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
