Up today we have a mini review, and rant, on the game Project Winter.
I am pretty sure when the developers created this game, what they intended was not what what we currently have in the game. Nobody would develop a game that would make you feel constantly paranoid. That would just be cruel and most certainly would not last. Considering the game is online only and the goal is to monetize it, you would certainly have what you envisioned to be taking place. I suspect that vision was a laid back detective kind of game. However, what we now have is far from that!
What the game has become is a game where your fellow civilians kill you more than the damn traitors. Sounds kinda stupid,huh? I mean, your Fellow Civilians should be killing the Traitors? Right? By killing another Civilian they are just making themselves easier for the Traitors to kill and win the game!
Yet, this is exactly what is going on in every single game!
The problem seems to be multi-fold. Firstly everything a Civilian does is “Sus”. (For those not in the know, that means “Suspect or suspicious,) If you help them, you are sus. if you don’t help them, you are Sus. If you save their lives it is forgotten in a nano second and you are now Sus. If you kill a traitor,you must be the traitor. If you kill two traitors, granted a rare feat, but possible with bad players, you are then seen as even more Sus. If you attack moose and kill them, then give them food, you are Sus because you need to heal. If you place objects needed with other players supervision, into the radio/power station, and 15 mins later it is Sabatoged you are Sus. If you go out to open bunkers, save your fellow Civilians from wolves and/or bears, then stay back the next trip you are Sus. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES ARE YOU EVER CONSIDERED INNOCENT. A lot of this has to do with problem number 2.
Problem two is the fact players are playing the game with their friends. I understand you want to play with your friends, however, if every game you play is with friends, then you suspect all other players. The simple fact that EVERBODY has an equal chance of being one of the traitors does not seem to sink in. Thus if you save them from the traitors, you are immediately blamed, because you killed their friends. I was litterly named a traitor and suspect because I coughed into my mike. Yes, every one who smokes, has allergies, or a cold, is guilty and must be Sus. Wtf?
The third problem seems to be that none of these younger players has critical thinking skills. It is like when their mother shit them from her woom, they were given shit instead of brains. Let me give you an example, just one of many,so you can have an idea of how adle-brained stupid these kids are today.
I helped craft and opened bunkers for items needed in the first objective, the Power Station, then I went off in one of the 3 possible directions looking for the Helipad. I encountered to two players who shot at me and I ran; they finally managed to trap me in small area and one had managed to cut me off. So left with no chance of flight, I fought. They both had guns but sucked at aiming them. I was able to kill both of them, before one of the others Civilians shows up and downs me. After a whole lot of persuading, way more then I should had to do, after all the help I had been giving the group while the two Traitors had not been helping at all. It should have been a no-brainer and I guess in a way it was. The fellow Civilian had no brain and took a really long time to decide to finally resurrect me.
When we got back to the camp everyone was told what happened and seemed to be cool with it. However, not even 10 mins. later, before I could even heal myself from my fight for my life with the traitors, one of the other Civilians downed me, accusing me of being Sus because I did not go with them when I was almost dead. Then they say they will let me live if the ghosts tell them to do so. They revive me and down me again. The ghosts freeze me because…DUH, I killed them and they were the Traitors. So of course they now, finally, permanently kill me. So let me sum up it all.
I helped with first objective, nearly died trying to help with the second objective. I was killed 3 times by my fellow Civilians, and judged by the Traitor ghosts. I was beaten, humiliated, greifed, and murdered for HELPING them win the game.
Now imagine that similar situations played out in almost all of my games yesterday, because that is what happened. Again and again, I helped and I ended up killed by my FELLOW Civilians. Not once did it occur to any of these simple-minded fools that I had been helping most of the game. I only managed to survive one fucking game, all day, because of this friendship combined with stupidity dynamic.
Project Winter is a game about survival but it is completely going to fail at surviving. The inclusivity and trust only friends mentality will be the downfall of this game. Unless the game developers figure out that they need to separate friends to create a more equal game environment for all players, they might as well kiss monetizing this game goodbye.
Well, that took longer than I thought. Sorry, if I ranted too long. I do truly hope that this honest review will be helpful to some people out there in their deciding whether they want to play this game or not. You can either bring a lot of friends and never get better at playing because you are only as good as your friends are or you can skip the headache. Do you really want to be paranoid every player outside of your group? Your choice and good luck!
Axe
Axe's Asylum 
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