Night in the Woods

 Switch
User Score
7.6

Generally favorable reviews- based on 160 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 110 out of 160
  2. Mixed: 25 out of 160
  3. Negative: 25 out of 160

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  1. yertre
    Feb 6, 2021
    7
    Night in The Woods is a well written piece of semi-interactive fiction, and mostly delivers in this regard. The walking is painfully slow, as is the overall pacing. If you can deal with that, the game's story is quite relatable and touching. It deals with the theme of displacement, but the story takes an abrupt turn after 8 hours which may not sit well with some.

    The ending was also    Night in The Woods is a well written piece of semi-interactive fiction, and mostly delivers in this regard. The walking is painfully slow, as is the overall pacing. If you can deal with that, the game's story is quite relatable and touching. It deals with the theme of displacement, but the story takes an abrupt turn after 8 hours which may not sit well with some.

    The ending was also rather weak, but the writing and mini-games more or less make up for it. As I said, if you can deal with the pacing, there are some great moments here, and I think this game means a lot to a lot of people for good reason.    … Expand
  2. Fault-boy
    Jul 18, 2018
    7
    It's a well-written game with a weak ending.
    Feels tiresome by the lack of active moments (neither having a rich and diverse exploration as a Point n' Click or action as a platafomer or even flexible as an intimate life-sim like Animal Crossing) and repetition of the same routine, heavily compensated by the quality of the writing and the fun little mini-games.
    The ending was really a    It's a well-written game with a weak ending.
    Feels tiresome by the lack of active moments (neither having a rich and diverse exploration as a Point n' Click or action as a platafomer or even flexible as an intimate life-sim like Animal Crossing) and repetition of the same routine, heavily compensated by the quality of the writing and the fun little mini-games.
    The ending was really a let-down. Felt rushed and unnecessary.    … Expand
  3. Bullish
    Mar 27, 2019
    7
    There's no puzzles, there's no fighting, there's no platforming, but there is something that gets its claws in you. Maybe it's a little bit of a second life game. I don't know, but it really sucked me in for the first half. By the time the second half rolled around, Mae was getting a little too emo for me and I was ready for the game to end.

    Spoiler: i don't know if the monster in the    There's no puzzles, there's no fighting, there's no platforming, but there is something that gets its claws in you. Maybe it's a little bit of a second life game. I don't know, but it really sucked me in for the first half. By the time the second half rolled around, Mae was getting a little too emo for me and I was ready for the game to end.

    Spoiler: i don't know if the monster in the hole was supposed to be allegorical but I would have liked to have seen it nonetheless.    … Expand
  4. apa-sl
    Mar 16, 2019
    6
    I cannot share the enthusiasm around this game (and I really love adventure games). I could not get sucked by the story (although it was quite interesting) nor the main character. I have definitely missed some good old school more complicated puzzles (or even any at all?). As I really enjoyed Thimbleweed Park or Earthworms or The Inner World series - this one is not 100% for me.
  5. nusco
    Jan 10, 2019
    7
    Night in the Woods looks like a cross between a point-and-click adventure and a platformer. It's neither: it's a well-written piece of interactive fiction. It pivots around the conversations between its socially maladjusted protagonists, and is pushed around by scripted sequences and a handful of minigames. The experience feels more like reading a novel than playing a game. It is, however,Night in the Woods looks like a cross between a point-and-click adventure and a platformer. It's neither: it's a well-written piece of interactive fiction. It pivots around the conversations between its socially maladjusted protagonists, and is pushed around by scripted sequences and a handful of minigames. The experience feels more like reading a novel than playing a game. It is, however, a good novel.

    Don't be mislead by the cute graphics. Night in the Woods collected awards for venturing where others games wouldn't, into serious themes such as mental health and social desease. The dialogues between the college dropout Mia and her quietly desperate small-town friends elicit a lot of chuckles, but each chuckle is counterbalanced by a tiny heartbreak. One way or the other, it's hard to play through this game without feeling emotionally involved with its cast of lovely jerks.

    Many people loved this game, and many were touched by it. Unfortunately, the story derails in the last act, suddenly shifting from understatement to throwaway maximalism. It's like the authors didn't dare write an entire game centered around intimistic dialogues, and felt the need to spice it up with some implausible action.

    Even with that gratuitous fourth act spoiling the soup, there is no denying that Night in the Woods is a courageous game. That's what independent games should be.    … Expand
  6. Zenek73
    Jul 12, 2019
    7
    The game is good but loading screens every 5 minutes? It's quite simple graphically game - so for me it's the biggest drawback. It's strange and it would be great if it could be fixed!
    And... I'm bored after the end... I thought it's much better
  7. RedPixel
    Jun 16, 2018
    5
    Night in the Woods is barely a "game", to my mind, and is more like interactive fiction although I'm not sure there are actually any important forks in the story that unfolds. It all felt very linear, like I was being pushed to experience a specific next chapter of the story, and sometimes had to choose things I didn't want to choose. I found it very tedious most of the time to have toNight in the Woods is barely a "game", to my mind, and is more like interactive fiction although I'm not sure there are actually any important forks in the story that unfolds. It all felt very linear, like I was being pushed to experience a specific next chapter of the story, and sometimes had to choose things I didn't want to choose. I found it very tedious most of the time to have to keep clicking through dialog and even though I had choices about what I said here and there, most of the choices didn't have any consequences.

    I should mention that I liked OxenFree, and in some ways the storytelling gameplay of that resembles Night in the Woods. It took me a little while to settle into / start enjoying OxenFree, so I wondered if this might be the same, but it's not in the sense that there are actual significant forks in the story in OxenFree, and your choices do have significant effects on the story.

    In playing Night in the Woods, I did eventually get into its sometimes trippy mojo and came to tolerate the load screen after load screen game play, and wanted to hear the story out. But if I'd known what this was before I bought it ("not really a game"), I probably wouldn't have.

    I do like the aesthetic of the game, including both music and visuals, and enjoyed the mini games that were the dream sequences. I don't think the controls were well mapped for playing on the Switch, and found "band practice" in particular very annoying (four strings, all A, B, X, Y keys). X is overloaded to be a game save and exit (why?!), but is also access to your journal.

    I really appreciate the creative effort that went into this game and the complex issues that were tackled in the story line (although I think the complexity and depth of that story ends up undermined by the weird backstory of what happened to Casey). There is a lot that's good here, just not what I was hoping for.    … Expand
  8. Sonicblaze
    Apr 3, 2019
    7
    Here’s the thing; the game is beautiful and features really well written dialogue. That’s what’s going for it. Unfortunately the story itself is not great and the game itself is barely a game. It’s essentially a story you click through. Very slow paced. And the presence of loading screens, while not long, are extremely frequent which is confusing as this is a very low graphic game.

Awards & Rankings

34
#34 Best Switch Game of 2018
53
#53 Most Discussed Switch Game of 2018
97
#97 Most Shared Switch Game of 2018

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
85

Generally favorable reviews - based on 17 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 17
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 17
  3. Negative: 0 out of 17
  1. Nintendo Force Magazine
    Sep 5, 2018
    80
    It's the cast that makes Night in the Woods so memorable. [Issue #34 – July/August 2018, p. 20]
  2. Gameblog.fr
    May 7, 2018
    80
    Night in The Woods is a surprising narrative game whose childish graphic style hides a resolutely adult story, through the themes it addresses between two laughing dialogues of a rare quality.
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  3. God is a Geek
    Mar 27, 2018
    75
    The Switch port is almost excellent.
    Read full review
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