- Publisher: Headup Games , Thunderful
- Release Date: Dec 7, 2021
- Also On: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
- Unscored
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Dec 20, 2021When viewed through a cinematic lens, White Shadows becomes an easy experience to recommend. The wonderful art direction, cinematography, animation (for the most part) and other elements do come together to create a cohesive and visually surprising journey. There’s variety here, quite a bit of it considering the very short runtime. So even though it doesn’t quite emerge, fully formed, from the shadows of Limbo, Abe’s Odyssey, or Another World, White Shadows certainly makes its mark. However fleeting that might be.
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Dec 10, 2021White Shadows contains a seductive architecture and a perfectly disturbing atmosphere which owes a lot to its sound design. But the trip is not contemplative enough to overcome the lack of energy from which the level design suffers. The game draws on inspirations already very often exploited without managing to stand out during its journey of only 2.5 hours.
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Dec 14, 2021White Shadows does a good job of representing a dark industrial dystopia with an interesting choice of music to accompany some scenes. Yet, some narrative decisions are incoherent, and gameplay is lacking.
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Dec 14, 2021White Shadows is a middling puzzle-platformer with interesting Orwellian themes. Although its black and white world design is commendable, it is limited by bland gameplay and an ungainly eleventh-hour exposition dump.
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Dec 7, 2021The amount of criticism dished out here may paint a negative picture, but White Shadows is by no means a terrible product and so evidently houses a clear visual style and competent-enough execution of puzzle-platforming. Yet for how little it attempts to break from tired conventions or do anything that doesn’t border on aggravating with its pacing, it’s what the game doesn’t do where most of one’s response will likely linger. Maybe the conclusion that it’s all too ordinary and forgettable is bizarrely what is most poignant. That little is offered in the other direction that’s in anyway damaging to the experience or worthy of ridicule, yet neither does anything warrant an expression any better than a figurative shrugging of the shoulders. In the end White Shadows, in all its many off-kilter interspersing of music pieces, plays things safe. A fine, if by-the-numbers entrant whose uninspired delivery we’ve all found ourselves tiredly accustomed to.
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Dec 13, 2021So, some of White Shadows' individual parts are flawed, but I did really enjoy my time with it. If you don't really mind the game's simple puzzles and you're willing to ignore the exposition dump at the end, I'd recommend it. White Shadows offers two hours of creative, chilling designs, joyous musical set pieces and enough screen-shottable sights to fill your hard drive.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 5 out of 14
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Mixed: 6 out of 14
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Negative: 3 out of 14
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Feb 22, 2022
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Jan 12, 2022Excellent game for the first one by a small team. Great atmosphere, sound and story. I played it through in one go.
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Jan 11, 2022