Arctic Awakening is the episodic work of Goldfire Studios and has reportedly been in the works for around five years. The adventure pits you as the main character, Kai, who is involved in a plane crash in the arctic circle and is left with nothing but wreckage and a pre-ordained, court-ordered emotional therapy bot to get you through this.
Now, my preconception of Arctic Awakening was a blend between The Long Night and possibly some Subnautica-esque discovery (complete with secrets littered across the map) situation, and — although this is pitched as a narrative adventure — it instead left me wanting a bit more freedom when trying to survive.
With most of your actions being preordained and planned out beforehand it doesn’t leave a lot to be explored off of the linear path until the game wants you to — one area at a time. Based on the first episode alone I assumed I would be exploring the winter wilderness at my own pace but in general I was led around by the friendly and very talkative bot.
I will say that iti seems to flick between pacing a little erratically. It is either completely devoid of chatter or completely overflowing with dialogue — in the forms of conversations with characters over the watch system or with your robot companion both one to one or through recordings.
In episode one of Arctic Awakening I found myself attempting to return to the camp and following a string of lights which felt like it took forever and featured little to no dialogue, which at first made me feel as if I was going the wrong way. Eventually I did find my way back and then dialogue continued as normal after.
Counter to this is episode two, where you are bombarded with a lot of notes, memories, dialogue, conversations and all sorts. It’s so heavy, to the point that I was actually standing around waiting for it to finish at times just so I could progress further. At one point my character commented that he needed to get some rope to scale a wall but I was standing at the foot of the mountain with the rope in hand, and I couldn’t actually use the rope until that audio block had finished playing.
The setting of Arctic Awakening is actually nice to look at, with a big emphasis on interacting with objects, lights, coloured items and more. But, it is entirely up to you with what you choose to interact with and what you choose to keep. I’m a bit of a kleptomaniac in games so I find myself picking up anything and everything that I can, and I was happy doing so, especially as I realised that some of the items are collectable such as mugs and toys.
Some of the items that you collect are actually helpful. Food and drink are a necessity and allow you to run faster when eaten, some items are practical but are mainly used for specific instances/
There is also a sort of stress meter which requires your character to practice breathing techniques at rock cairns (the little stacks of rocks travellers leave behind), this can kind of mess up the pacing of things — with your heartbeat racing as if you’re going to keel over for not breathing properly — but at the same time highlights the stress that Kai is going through as the mystery of this abandoned frozen landscape unfolds.
I do wish that there was a bit more freedom with the usage of the items that you have, as well as something to tell you what is worth bringing with you. I’m not 100% sure if there are missable moments from not picking up items, but I did find a specific moment at the end of episode 2, which was quite touching, where you can leave a photo that you picked up in a certain place and I would assume that if you didn’t just scoop it up — like I did — then that moment wouldn’t happen.
One of the main descriptive points found on the Steam page for Arctic Awakening is that “you are not alone”, however I do find myself feeling quite continuously alone as characters are constantly just out of reach as you chase the remnants of old camps and fires. For some, I imagine it would spur them on, but, for me, at the time, it felt disheartening as it created a sense of urgency to find them only to be led to a “your princess is in another castle” type scenario.
Overall, I enjoyed the atmosphere and the mystery of Arctic Awakening, but I do think that it is a very slow burn, and takes quite a while to get to the meat of the experience. Episode one didn’t quite reel me in as much as I would have hoped but episode two did help set the course for what is to come, but the very long walking sequences do drag on and replace suspense with boredom.
You can find Arctic Awakening on Steam.
