Played from – to: (2021-11-15 – 2021-11-16) - Beaten on PC via keyboard.
‣ 4/10 – This game is a travesty.
‣ Game Audio / Soundtrack - 6/10
‣ Graphics – 8/10
‣ Atmosphere – 4/10
‣ Side Activities / Exploration – 4/10
‣ AI – 5/10
‣ Movement – 4/10
‣ Final notes: If I had to quickly sum up Among Trees, I would say that this game is a bland, generic, one-dimensional boring experience. Sure, the trailer makes it look interesting and many like me might get drawn in because of the art style and visuals, but that is the only decent thing about this mess. Nothing in this game is interesting or unique. At first, I thought building your cabin is going to be deep and fun, however you just find the required materials and with a click of a button instantly build additional rooms. There is just nothing here that is worth your time. Among Trees is just a simple generic survival game. The environment barely changes, resource gathering is very repetitive and there is zero tutorials or guidance given in the game. Also, the movement is very bad, lakes are somehow instantly very deep, and you can barely climb out of them before freezing to death. Speaking more about death I felt like it was too punishing, hell more punishing than Dark Souls. Once you die you cannot retrieve your equipment you simply have to lose all the progress and start over from where you saved. This is a big problem because bears one shot you and you cannot outrun them. Anyways the moment you start the game you are simply dropped in this lush world in front of your cabin and basically left to fend for yourself. There is no explanation where you can find useful loot, resources or what your objective is. Nothing! No story, no tutorials jack fucking shit. Alas for the time being Among Trees is a very bare bones experience with nothing unique to offer I would even dare say it is not worth 10 bucks. There are way better and worth every cent survival games out there ignore this dumpster fire.

It's a pretty relaxing and chill survival crafting game on the first couple hours. The graphics are pretty and the atmosphere is chill. The only real threat are bears which spawn in preset areas and stay in them, but properly using stealth to get through them is almost impossible and you'll need to after a while to get more non renewable resources. The decision to have some of the main resources you'll need be non renewable (I think?) is very odd to me. But to be fair, those are at least very signposted with the giant towers. The later game renewables are impossible to find even with a guide since their spawn location isn't fixed, so endgame just becomes a boring scavenger hunt with an insane time limit since days are so short.

The theming of this game is also very odd. It's supposedly one of those games were you retreat into nature to live a simpler life or whatever, but the most important resources you'll need are metal pipes, bolts and nails that you collect from ruins of manmade structures. Is this an admittance that you can't survive on the wild on your own as someone who grew up in an urban society? Or did the creators just didn't think about the dissonance? Or maybe that's not the message of the game at all and there's no message because it's just a quick cash grab survival crafting 1/3rd of a game? We'll never know because the devs abandoned it.