Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart Of The Forest Demo Impressions – TheGamer

Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest is a VN set in the same setting as Vampire: The Masquerade - and the demo is pretty impressive so far.

The most recent Future Games Show revealed thatWerewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest will be released in Q4 2020 and that a demo was live on Steam. We've had a chance to play through the Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest demo, and we were impressed by the brief time we spent with the game.

Heart of the Forest is a visual novel that uses a version of the rules from the Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop RPG, as they are both parts of the same franchise. A new edition of theWerewolf: The Apocalypse tabletop game is still in development and will be released next year. The first thing we noticed about Heart of the Forest is the striking visuals, as they manage to be both beautiful and frightening in equal measure, which is vital for setting the tone of the game going forward.

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Heart of the Forest opens up in a dream sequence, as the main character experiences the sensation of being connected to nature. The game shows its tabletop roots straight away by putting stats on top of the screen, in the form of Rage, Willpower, and Health. There is also a more in-depth character sheet in the top right corner of the screen that can be selected at any time. The player's choices throughout the game determine their character's abilities, and the story is said to shape around their decisions. A character's current Rage or Willpower score can affect their decisions, however, and holding back anger for too long will eventually lead to it bursting forth.

TheHeart of the Forest demo stars a woman named Maia Boroditch, who has traveled to the village of Bialowieza in Poland, where her family originally came from. Maia has been having dreams about the forests here and has come in search of answers. The player's choices will determine Maia's "Goal", and working towards her goal will win back spent Willpower. Maia will get the chance to meet some of the locals and explore the forest, where she begins to get in touch with the spirits of the land and realizes there is more significance to her arrival than she knew.

The writing inHeart of the Forest is stellar and it helps to bring the player into this dark and foreboding world, which is helped by the excellent artwork that accompanies the story. One issue we have is that we tried playing vastly different versions of Maia (one who embraced her werewolf heritage and one who shied away from it) and there didn't seem to be much of a difference in terms of the story. Then again, the demo only covers the brief prologue and the first chapter of the game, so it's not too surprising for there not to be too much of a deviation in terms of story.

As a visual novel, it's impossible to talk about Heart of the Forest without comparing it to another recent visual novel set in the World of Darkness - Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York, and there are definitely similarities between the two. Heart of the Forest uses similar gameplay to Coteries, which is helped by the use of the tabletop rules, some gorgeous artwork, and even a similar world map. Heart of the Forest is the more compelling game so far, as it's introducing us to a new corner of the World of Darkness. There were times when Coteries felt too similar to Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines in terms of its story, whereas Heart of the Forest is treading new ground and exploring unfamiliar concepts.

TheHeart of the Forest demo is brief, but we were left excited with the prospect of what's to come. The World of Darkness' connection to video games has mostly been involved with Vampire: The Masquerade and the time has finally come to see what other creatures lurk in the shadows.

The demo for Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest is available now on Steam. The game will be released in Q4 2020.

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Scott has been writing for The Gamer since it launched in 2017 and also regularly contributes to Screen Rant. He has previously written gaming articles for websites like Cracked, Dorkly, Topless Robot, and TopTenz. He has been gaming since the days of the ZX Spectrum, when it used to take 40 minutes to load a game from a tape cassette player to a black and white TV set. Scott thinks Chrono Trigger is the best video game of all time, followed closely by Final Fantasy Tactics and Baldur's Gate 2. He pretends that sorcerer is his favorite Dungeons & Dragons class in public but he secretly loves bards.

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Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart Of The Forest Demo Impressions - TheGamer