Endling - Extinction is Forever

Endling: Extinction Is Forever is a survival game with a clear message about the need to protect the environment. However, it never rises above mediocrity in any of its individual elements, but the shocking ending really saves the day.

Endling: Extinction is Forever is a tech-savvy game built around well-built gameplay. The repetitive process of hunting for survival and exploring whenever possible seems intentional and draws the player into this world. There are no ordinary moments in this wild nature, and any moments of routine or boredom quickly end with a bear trap or an encounter with a Scavenger. Endling knows what he wants to achieve and doesn't try to overdo it or over complicate it. Every choice matters to the designers, as well as to you when you're trying to survive and feed your puppies.

Endling: Extinction Is Forever is not only a beautiful, touching and important game, but also a unique one, as you control a mother fox, the last of its kind, trying to keep its cubs alive in a world devastated by humans. The problem is, Endling’s gameplay loop is painfully repetitive and the game begins to get boring about halfway through.

While the survival elements of Endling - Extinction is Forever would benefit from balancing and glitch patches, the gut-wrenching story is more than enough to keep players moving forward.

Endling - Extinction is Forever gives a cold hard look at what pollution and human cruelty are doing to the environment. The message is driven home as you fight tooth and claw to raise your fox cubs while navigating a dangerous world. Exploration and survival aspects make for a unique experience, but if your pups die it can be heart-wrenching.

Endling: Extinction is forever has many improvable aspects, from its level design to its core gameplay loop. And yet, its repetitive structure is exactly what it’s needed to fully make you feel like you are the fox with her little cubs, to experience how hard it is to keep on living in a world that is trying in every way to get rid of you. A touching, sincere and heartfelt experience which can be told only through video games.

It feels weird to call Endling - Extinction is Forever’s brutal tale enjoyable, but it was. The unique survival gameplay from the perspective of a family of foxes combined with the dark themes and storyline is a captivating mix. Though the gameplay can sometimes get repetitive, and it would have been nice to have a broader range of random events to experience, it’s still one of the more interesting games I’ve played recently. Keep a box of tissues nearby, though, as it’ll punch you right in the heart.

The events in Endling create sad emotions but they do not connect with how mankind is destroying the Earth. Events happen and we’re supposed to feel something because they happened, but the emotions are diminished because there is no connection to the message or the characters. It held up in the short five hours of play thanks to intriguing survival mechanics, but even those were messed up by an unfortunate, frustrating tug of war between survival and story progression.

Endling may look nice, but it is a monotonous animal adventure with simple fox-feeding gameplay, bland skills, and restrictive exploration.