Developed by Different Tales, Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest is a narrative video game set in the World of Darkness. It follows Maia, an American student of Polish ancestry, as she explores the Puszcza Białowieża, the last primeval forest of Europe, and discovers her family's roots and her own true nature, as well as the impact that her actions and decisions have in the world around her.
The World of Darkness mythos is too complex to cover in one review, but in the TTRPG, werewolves were creatures of the Wyld, and the last defenders of Gaia, or Mother Earth, against the Wyrm-seduced, Weaver-touched humans. While in the distant past, werewolves had been the monster at the edge of the village, preying on humans to cull the population and maintain a balance -- or so they want to believe -- in the past centuries, they have almost gone extinct as humans forced them to flee their natural habitat. This has led them to lash out in Rage (one of the most important mechanics of the game) or adapt and lean into their own human half to survive and navigate the modern world.
Heart of the Forest takes place in the Polish town of Białowieża in the summer of 2016 and is based on very recent and very real events -- the 2016 conflict between local loggers and environmental defenders surrounding the fate of the Puczska. Depending on the player's paths, Maia will unearth real past tragedies that contributed to taint the area, slowly but surely, for millennia. There is a lot of nuance; for instance, while the game is firmly on the side of protecting the environment, the writers are very conscious of the new wave of Far-Right Environmentalism and are not afraid to condemn it.
World of Darkness has always played with real-world history, but the taste of Heart of the Forest is very different from, say, a Vampire: The Masquerade chronicle set during the French Revolution; Kindred might be looking at the event from the vantage point of the privileged dead, here history is told from the point of view of the Earth itself and the echoes of the small creatures that lived and died at that time, and those echoes are still trapped at that moment -- in this plane, the ground is still soaked with blood, and the trees are still burning even a thousand years after the massacre, before snapping back to the present day.
But what about horror? The idea of the Wyrm consuming the whole of creation is scary, but the horror of Werewolf comes from leaning too hard into the monster within to fight a monstrosity. The Rage that allows werewolves to defeat their enemies is, after all, a gift of the Wyrm, and Werewolf society is obsessed with purity and the concept of "taint." Many of the monsters of the Pucszka will seem perfectly affable in the first playthrough, only to rip their friends to pieces in another one. The Rage which "gets things done" can be horrifying and do more harm than good, but not doing anything also leads to death.
Heart of the Forest is based on the TTRPG Werewolf: the Apocalypse system, which Different Tales adapted to their text-based narrative engine, Ink, adding a beautiful soundtrack, an eerie soundscape and vivid artwork to every scene. The art does not literally represent what is happening in each scene. Given the game's mechanics, where every character can and will react differently depending on Maia's mood and outlook, this would be impossible. The animated illustrations evoke emotions, much like a collage of memories -- or, in the case of the oniric sequences or the scenes set in the spiritual Umbra, a splatter of dreams.
Mechanically, Heart of the Forest is a very different play experience to Vampire: The Masquerade - Night Road, another text-based multiple-choice video game that World of Darkness released in the past month. Night Road was a wild ride, and Heart of the Forest, despite its action scenes, is a very introspective journey. Night Road's mechanics were exposed, allowing players to know which stats they would increase or roll with each dialogue option, while in Heart of the Forest, the consequences are not that straightforward. The story was built to rise up the character's status, almost hoarding Abilities by the end of the game.
Heart of the Forest has a character sheet, but the dialogue options are much more subtle, and each replay feels like slowly sliding down a mountain slope where the tiniest tilt can radically alter the landscape, revealing snow or a forest fire. Maia's character sheet gest simpler, not more complex, after her initiation ceremony; it's the world around her which can be infinitely complicated.
Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest releases on October 13 on Steam for Windows, Mac OS and Linux. It was created by Different Tales in collaboration with Paradox and World of Darkness, written by Artur Ganszyniec, Marta Malinowska and Joanna Wołyńska-Ganszyniec and illustrated by Ireneusz Konior, Waldemar Zdziebko, Magdalena Pankiewicz, Monika Lipińska and Rafał Kucharczuk.