- Publisher: Headup Games , Thunderful
- Release Date: Dec 7, 2021
- Also On: PC, PlayStation 5
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Dec 20, 2021Overall, if you like dark, dystopian and gritty gameplay experiences, platforming that comes with a difficulty curve that takes some learning, and controls that are simple enough for even gaming casuals to pick up and want something short enough that you can sit through in an evening or two, then White Shadows may be the next game to add to your list. It’s not revolutionary, and there may be better out there, but it’s a good first effort from Monkel.
-
Feb 2, 2022White Shadows is a dark and gritty Orwell-inspired puzzle platformer. You must explore a grim industrial dystopia that will send chills down your spine. It comprises excellent ideas but it fails to evolve in the latter stages.
-
Dec 8, 2021White Shadows does nothing to hide his sources of inspiration: Limbo and Inside. A dark and obscure location is the right place to set a dystopian, anthropomorphic future story which can be read as a hermetic social metaphor. Though fascinating, White Shadows does too little to explain to the players where they are or what exactly it is that they’re doing, and its very simple mechanics don’t help. At the same time though, you often feel like you just can’t leave, like when watching a Lynch movie.
-
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.
-
Dec 7, 2021The best way to describe White Shadows is that it feels like playing through the winner of the Best Animated Short Film at the Academy Awards. The visuals are incredible and the world is bristling with life and imagination. It's a shame that there's so little gameplay on offer, and what is there is hamstrung by poor controls and glitches. White Shadows might have been better suited as a short film, but as it stands it's a middling video game that drags down an exceptional presentation.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 3 out of 6
-
Mixed: 1 out of 6
-
Negative: 2 out of 6
-
Apr 8, 2022
-
Jan 11, 2022