Waking

 Xbox One
Metascore
51

Mixed or average reviews - based on 4 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 4
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 4
  3. Negative: 1 out of 4
  1. TheXboxHub
    Jun 30, 2020
    50
    Ultimately, there is a deep sense of regret from playing Waking on Xbox One because I feel there is something brilliant and life-affirming underneath all that is presented. The meditative sections and use of your personal details are unique and something I enjoyed, and there are certainly some great ideas within. However, Waking will divide gamers, with some loving this intriguing premise and others being put off by the overly long, randomly generated areas.
  2. Xbox Tavern
    Jun 23, 2020
    50
    Waking has almost convinced me that I’m not very good at reviewing games, because it is so difficult to convey what it’s about and how it plays. I’ve taken more time than I normally would thinking about this game and how I was going to explain and grade it. It’s definitely an unenviable, uncomfortable position that I find myself in because indie developers live or die by reviews. In the end I had to ask myself if I enjoyed playing it and the answer is that it wasn’t exactly fun, but it wasn’t exactly bad either because I got what Jason Oda was trying to do. The reality is though, if a developer creates a game meant to be personable, that’s a hard thing to nail down. It will only impact head-on with a sliver of players, and those on either side will like or dislike to varying degrees.

User Reviews

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User Score
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No user score yet- Awaiting 3 more ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 1
  3. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. Xbox_Alive
    Jun 28, 2020
    6
    Waking is a 3rd Person Adventure Game. You play as You. You are in a coma and are tasked with traveling through you own mind and piecingWaking is a 3rd Person Adventure Game. You play as You. You are in a coma and are tasked with traveling through you own mind and piecing yourself back together so you can wake from this coma. The game asks you a few questions about yourself, like your name and size. As the game moves along you are asked slightly deeper questions. The game uses these questions to name NPCs and enemies to tailor the experience to you. This is a novel idea, but dose little more than decorate the surface. There are four areas of your mind you must traverse. Each area felt the same skinned as a different environment. Everything you do costs neurons, and you can gather them from enemies. There is an issue where you wont be able to kill an enemy because you're put of neruons, but you need to kill the enemy to get neurons. The game also randomizes each level so if you die, everythig you learned about the level has to be re-learned. The missions are all the same, causing the game to start to feel stale long before the 20 hours of play the game boasts. The story is engaging for the most part, but becomes lost to the repetitive nature of the gameplay. Visually Waking is lost, the imagery is stunning, but the blurring effect detracts from it. The final stage left me unable to figure out the chain of events I needed to unfold to finish within the five minute constraint your given, not to mention the layout shifts everytime you die. More could have been done to keep this game engaging.… Full Review »