Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Heart of the Forest Review

Back in the day, choose your own adventure books were big business. I can’t tell you how many times I read through one particular one I had (that I can’t remember the name of now…) choosing the various paths and keeping tabs on the characters stats and upgrades – in pencil so I could rub it out and start again – on the front page sheet. These days, titles such as Telltale’s The Walking Dead, Tales from the Borderlands, or even Supermassive’s The Dark Pictures hide a lot of the nitty gritty behind stylish visuals and branching narratives and scenes. Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest brings the genre back to its roots, presenting a gripping tale almost purely through text, though there are some wonderfully drawn images and immersive audio here to back this up too.

We take on the role of Maia as she visits the town of Białowieża to discover her family’s roots, heritage, and to try and answer some burning questions she has inside. As the name might imply, the answers to some of these might not quite be what she expected, but then again they could also set her free to be her true self. Across the games six chapters she – and by extension, us – will be presented plenty of tough choices that will shape not only the narrative, but Maia’s own personality, which in turn affects the options presented to us later in the game.

We are able to keep rough tabs on how we’re doing with several stat indicators, accessible at any time. The main three are her Rage, Health, and Willpower. Frequently when picking a dialogue choice we will be presented with the outcome in relation to these stats; so choosing an angry response will increase the Rage stat, while trying to be diplomatic might reduce it, for example. A symbol next to the option will let us know clearly what we stand to gain or lose, helping us make better informed decisions, even if they might turn out to bite us in the ass later on.

Depending on how full each meter is we may only be presented with one option, with the others inaccessible. Let the Health or Willpower meter go to zero meanwhile will make successfully performing physical or social interactions next to impossible; we might be unable to defend ourselves in a fight, or struggle to reason with someone who is clearly not backing down. Again, being able to see how each option will affect our stats going forward is a great touch and really lets us play the story out in the exact way we want to, at least until the repercussions come bearing down on us later on.

Maia also has several other passive traits that can be built up depending on our actions. I managed to play her quite cunningly so one late game scene gave me the option to subvert the clearest course of action and try something out of left field – to great success. These are less clear in their requirements, but the potential for vastly different replays is there thanks to this system.

Finally, she (and this may be the mildest of spoilers, so heads up) gets to turn into a Werewolf later in the game. At pivotal moments we can choose from several forms to morph into that again will affect the next scene, and where the story goes. I’ll not dive into the tale here because, well, it’s best discovered on your own, and it’s likely that our first playthrough’s will be vastly different depending on the choices you make versus those I did.

I found myself utterly enjoying the story though. It’s well written for the most part – if a bit fond of overly lengthy scene-setting descriptions – with interesting characters and interactions, plenty of tough choices, and scope for vastly different outcomes on repeat plays. Despite only having mostly static background images to compliment a lot of text, Heart of the Forest still manages to get a fantastic atmosphere across, with some wonderful ambient audio helping to set the scene. An in game journal lets us refresh character names, relationship status, Maia’s stats and details and more, and only very rarely did a scene last a tad too long, though most of them can be cleared in a matter of minutes depending on your reading and decision making speed. The game will also warn us when a big change is coming, at one point literally telling us that this is a choice that will have huge impact going forward. While some might bemoan this as immersion breaking, I was appreciative of this method as it helped me understand why I ended up where I did a little better. Depending on our stats, it will also clearly point out when an option or avenue comes into play thanks to each ones level; because we had zero rage, for example, Maia was able to think more clearly in the moment, whereas higher rage would have presented a different set of dialogue. All of the above meshes together to create a gripping tale that has enough twists and turns of our own doing to really make it feel like our story, not just one we’re following along with.

Conclusion

Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest  managed to capture what I enjoyed about the choose your own adventure games of childhood and wrapped it up with an engaging tale, full of interesting scenarios, characters, and outcomes. There’s minimal visual/audio presentation, but what’s here still helps to craft a great atmosphere in addition to almost 120,000 words full of thousands of variations. If you’re after something along the lines of Telltale’s best work, then Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest comes highly recommended.

This game was reviewed based on Xbox One review code, using an Xbox One console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.