The top-down survival horror game from Acid Wizard Studio was released in 2017 after four years in development, hitting Steam first before eventually rolling out to Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch.
It is a stunning exploration of psychological horror and the player's ability to endure...
Darkwood's most talked-about element is that there are no jump-scares, at least not in the deliberate sense. In fact, its creators detested the horror genre because of these cheap tactics.
But you will get startled occasionally, especially if you don't carefully look where you step — and god help you if you play without the sound on.
Audio cues are everything.
“We did not like the usual cheap tricks used in most of those, so we decided to try creating a horror without jump scares. It was an ambitious task, but thanks to our field of view and light mechanics we achieved a dense, creepy atmosphere enjoyed even by people who don’t like standard horror tricks.”