Where the forest ends Review Summary

Fun, addictive combat and shooting with beautiful graphics and great low-price value, though bugs, poor polish, incomplete localization, and thin content hold it back.

Game is fun and addictive: Many players describe the game as very cool, addictive, well-made, and worth playing. The overall gameplay experience is consistently praised as enjoyable and engaging.

Combat feels satisfying: Combat is frequently highlighted as satisfying, juicy, tactical, and phenomenal, especially melee combat. Players find the combat system both impactful and enjoyable.

Beautiful and pleasant graphics: Graphics are praised as beautiful, juicy, good, and very pleasant to the eye. Visual quality is a commonly appreciated aspect.

Great value for low price: Players often mention that the game is surprisingly entertaining and fun for its very low price. Many consider it a worthwhile purchase due to the amount of enjoyment relative to cost.

Satisfying shooting mechanics: The shooting feel is described as good and pleasant, with gunplay receiving positive feedback. Players enjoy the firearm mechanics.

Numerous Bugs Reported: Players frequently report bugs, including game-breaking issues that can make the game unplayable. This affects overall stability and enjoyment.

Incomplete Chinese Localization: Chinese localization is incomplete, with machine-translated text and missing translations for dialogues, options, and story content.

Unpolished and Raw: The game is glitchy, unfinished, and needs significant refinement, with rough edges that detract from playability.

Too Little Content: The game is very short with minimal content, leading to shallow story and limited replay value.

Poor Control Feel: Controls are described as feeling bad or not responsive, detracting from the gameplay experience.

Top-down shooter gameplay: The game is consistently described as a top-down shooter, with variations including isometric and twin-stick perspectives. This core perspective shapes the combat and exploration experience.

Melee and gun combat: Players can engage in both melee and ranged combat, with options to choose between guns or melee weapons. Melee combat includes various weapons and charge attacks.

Boss fights included: The game features boss fights with readable movesets, including a specific boss encounter in a sewer arena. These provide challenging combat encounters.

Autosave with checkpoints: The game uses an autosaving system with checkpoints, though some note the checkpoints are distant or single-checkpoint based. This affects progression and difficulty.

Four throwable types: Players can carry four different types of throwables, such as grenades, in addition to firearms. This adds tactical options in combat.

Mixed optimization performance reported: Players report both poor optimization, with low frame rates and stuttering, and good performance with stable frame rates on various hardware. Experiences vary widely, indicating inconsistent optimization across systems.

Ultra settings cause performance issues: Multiple users report that ultra settings lead to freezing or frame rate spikes, particularly when loading large areas. The game may struggle to maintain smooth performance at the highest graphical settings.

Steam Deck performance and audio issues: On Steam Deck, the game can lock 30 fps at medium quality with a 10W power limit, but combat background music does not play. These issues affect the portable gaming experience.

Missing upscaler option: The game lacks an upscaler option, which could help improve performance on lower-end hardware. This omission limits players' ability to optimize their experience.

Visual artifacts and reloading problems: Players experience visual artifacts and unexpected reloading during gameplay, which can disrupt the experience. These issues may be related to graphics driver problems or game bugs.

General positive recommendations: Several clusters express overall positive sentiment and recommend the game without major caveats. Reviewers wholeheartedly endorse it or encourage others to give it a try.

Not recommended in current state: Multiple reviewers advise against buying now due to bugs, lack of polish, or missing features. They suggest waiting for patches or improvements.

Worth it on sale: Multiple reviewers suggest purchasing only at a discount, citing short length or mixed quality. They agree it is not worth full price but offers value when discounted.

Good value for price: Reviewers feel the game is worth its asking price or provides good entertainment for the money. It is considered a decent value proposition.

Appeals to zombie fans: Reviewers note the game will resonate with fans of zombie themes, survival horror, and top-down action. It is particularly recommended for those who enjoy the genre.

Game completion: 5.5h.

Story completion: 5.5h.

Session length: 6.0h.

The game appears to deliver a strong opening about ten minutes with Phil, then combat turns boring, punishing, and tedious for many players. Positive reports about tool-based progression and narrative-driven design exist, but the clearest time-to-fun evidence is early fun followed by a drop.

Reported time to anchor: 10m.

Friction: Combat becomes boring quickly; Easy to die and forced area replays; Slow, dull cautious approach; Pacing issues and unclear action/survival identity; Enemies spawning behind the player every battle; Unfinished or not fleshed out content.

Old-School Retro & Eurojank Fan: Top-down shooter played for nostalgia and old-school arcade feel, with tolerance for rough edges. Motivation: Reliving the feel of older top-down zombie shooters and childhood games. Stance: buy.

Value-Conscious Sale-Seeking Player: Treats the short campaign as filler between bigger games and only commits at a discount. Motivation: Getting cheap zombie-shooter entertainment that is worth the discounted price. Stance: sale.

Casual Melee Zombie Slayer: Casual, melee-focused zombie slaughtering with little concern for story. Motivation: The simple, satisfying power fantasy of mowing down zombies with melee attacks. Stance: buy.

For the Windows <8GB VRAM cohort, the available review reports playable performance with some visual caveats.

Windows <8GB VRAM: positive. The reviewer achieved around 40-48 FPS on Ultra with V-Sync, though some visual artifacts and loading issues were visible.

Steam Deck: The Steam Deck audit reveals a largely positive native performance profile: users report great support from launch, smooth 30 fps gameplay at 10W on medium settings, and good performance on handheld devices. The main friction is controller support, which is described as spotty and lacking ideal DualShock compatibility, though the developer plans improvements. No Proton Experimental toggles, external launchers, crashes, or unreadable UI were cited. Overall, the game is playable with controller-related tinkering or caveats.

Comparisons to Other Games: Reviewers compare the game to various titles like The Last Stand, Diablo 2, Sam and Max, Dark Souls, The Last of Us, and others. Clusters 13, 21, 22, 44, 56, 63, 69, 71, 72, 79, 81, and 82 show a wide range of comparisons.

Price-Content Mismatch: Some reviewers feel the sale price does not correlate well with the final product, as stated in Cluster 10. However, others find the discounted price acceptable or cheap, as seen in Clusters 26, 36, 41, 57, 66, and 78.

Short Game Length: The main story is very short, with completion times ranging from 4 to 6 hours. Clusters 4, 5, 12, 16, 35, and 40 all mention different short completion times, and some note the content is comparable to a prologue.

Developer Passion and Indie Status: Developers are praised for putting a lot of heart into the game, and it is noted as a small indie or solo project. Clusters 11, 29, 37, 54, and 33 highlight the passion and budget constraints of the development team.

Bugs and Fixes: The game had bugs, including a soft-lock, but developers quickly fixed many. Clusters 15, 75, 76, 65, and 32 discuss bug fixes and remaining issues, with some reviewers noting no game-breakers.