It’s 2022 and there are still people insisting that gambling and politics are (or should be) separate issues. The Spanish studio Herobeat Studios comes to silence these crazy people with Endling – Extinction is Forever, a title that seeks to raise awareness of the importance of taking care of the environment.
Endling – Extinction is Eternal It is available for PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Warning: have tissues nearby
On April 4, 1996, the scientific journal Nature coined the term Endling, an individual who is the last of its kind. Once the endling dies, the species is extinct forever.
In Endling – Extinction is Eternal, the Spanish studio presents us with the last fox on Earth, who has just given birth to four little puppies. As if the scenario wasn’t dark enough, an individual steals one of the descendants.
The vixen will not only have to worry or take care of keeping her cubs fed and safe, but she will also embark on a journey so that she can recover what has been taken from her.
The story takes place in the middle of an almost post-apocalyptic world, where flora and fauna can be counted on the fingers of one hand. A dark and dramatic scene. A title that, if a little blood runs through your veins, will not only leave you in tears when finished, but will also invite you to reflect on the importance of taking care of the environment. If we do nothing about it, the nightmare taught to us in this title will come true.
More than just exploration
From a mechanical point of view, endling It’s a very simple game. It is, words more, words less, an exploration platformer. Our main objective is to keep the little hatchlings alive, so we will go in search of food. For them, we can hunt animals, such as fish or mice, rummage through garbage cans or follow a vegetarian diet. To search for different types of food, we have our super sense of smell. Once we activate it, a thin green line on the screen will guide us there.
Now, getting the food in question and exploring the map isn’t exactly an easy task. In fact, as the days go by, it becomes more and more complicated. Different threats await us along the way. For example, the scavenger kills us with one hit, so you have to be very careful when walking near it.
There are animals that will also become our enemies, such as owls. You have to go into stealth mode near them because otherwise they will directly attack one of the hatchlings. The fight against this bird will also mean that we are seriously injured, which will make us walk with difficulty and will not allow us to perform certain actions.
There are multiple threats that present themselves throughout history. And they will crescendo as we go. Luckily for us, if the mama fox dies, nothing really bad happens. The game simply restarts from the start of that day.
But, as I warned, gaming isn’t exactly a joyous experience. Little puppies can die too, but there’s no turning back. My recommendation is that you always be careful to give him food.
Although the mechanics are simple, the gameplay is somewhat exhausting, not because of technical complications, but because of all the weight behind the main story. Even so, perhaps because of its short duration, I enjoyed the gaming experience at all times.
Bringing beauty out of this chaos is a virtue
Just by looking at the photos – or by watching the trailer – we can deduce that, in general, endling It is an aesthetically beautiful game. In that sense, I take my hat off to the design and art team behind the title. Not only is it extremely beautiful visually, but they have also managed to show, in all that beauty, all the chaos and desolation that they seek to portray.
Throughout the experience, several visual changes are worth highlighting. The first of these concerns the subtlety with which colors and shadows change throughout the day. The other, and perhaps most important, is the way in which, as the days pass, the panorama becomes darker and darker, something that can be seen through the background. These are very subtle changes that are made, very detailed, but they are impossible to overlook when you are immersed in the title.
So the team behind endling not only did he manage to do something extremely cute visually, but he also accompanied it with something extremely heartbreaking.
It should be noted that the graphics section stands out not only for its beauty, but also for its intuitiveness for a gamer. The colors used and the construction of the environment itself help us to differentiate without major problems which is the background and which is our domain (that of movement) as well as which are the elements with which we can interact.
They finally heard my prayers
In the last review I wrote (Ruin Mage), I complained about something I had noticed over several games: the lack of importance that the developers gave to the sound part. Luckily, at Herobeat Studios, they understand that music and ambient sound are key elements when it comes to telling a story.
Although the game impresses with its story and graphics, the music used reaffirms and enhances each of the elements that the developers wanted to highlight. The game has all the elements to excite us and the music is one more to push us in this direction.
The soundtrack not only accompanies these most dramatic and devastating moments, but also serves to warn us of certain threats, such as the scavenger. In this way, music is not only a narrative resource, but also plays a fundamental role in gameplay. The latter more driven thanks to the ambient sound, to which I recommend to be very attentive since it marks us several times with what we are going to find on the road.
Required configuration
MINIMUM: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system – OS: Windows 10 64-bit – Processor: Intel Core i5 / AMD FX-6300 – Memory: 8 GB RAM – Graphics: GTX 760 2 GB/ Radeon R9 270X 2 GB or better – DirectX: Version 11 – Storage: 6 GB of available space
RECOMMENDED: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system – OS: Windows 10 64-bit
CPU: Intel i7 / AMD Ryzen 7 – Memory: 8GB RAM – Graphics: GTX 1070 4GB / Radeon RX 5700-XT 4GB or better – DirectX: Version 11 – Storage: 6GB available space