Project Winter Review (Hotfix)
The game has proximity, the mechanics are decent, and the objective of the game often keeps players moving and communicating, which ends up making it a very social experience. This social aspect is, in my opinion, the only reason this game has the level of replayablity that it does.
I have met just about every one of my friends that I regularly talk to on this game. I don’t think there is a game better for that sort of thing. The unfortunate downside to this being such a social game is that it naturally relies on the community to make it a fun experience. You will meet some of the funniest and chill players in this game, and then the lobby will eventually die and the next one you hop into will feature players pulled up from the deepest circle of hell.
My advice is to find those players who you enjoy playing with, and cling onto them for dear life. Too many games with the wrong players will leave you unhappy and drained extremely quickly.
The playerbase is rather small, at least as far as the regulars go. This is a good thing and a bad thing in my opinion. Its small size and variation in experience level and playstyle causes the game to be very cliquey and fosters a community that often feels like high school all over again.
As far as the gameplay goes, it can be surprisingly entertaining. There are so many hilarious moments that happen just about every time I play to this very day, and that says a lot as I have a ridiculous amount of time played. The pace of the game can vary quite a bit. Sometimes your whole lobby will be doing absolutely nothing and other times you have 2-3 people who run off together immediately and try to finish the objectives as fast as possible. Both of these extremes can negatively impact the game in their own ways. If the players do nothing then you sit there for 30 minutes just to die to the blizzard at the end, and if you speedrun the objectives then you don’t let the game progress in a way that will allow for those unique and funny plays that make it worth playing.
There is also a very small skill gap in this game, and instead there is more of a ‘knowledge gap’ that separates the community based on ability. Also, unfortunately, the pvp aspect of the game is much more effective to rely on than deception. Experienced players realize this and are able to get themselves out of situations that they realistically shouldn’t be able to get out of. I believe these things are some of the key reasons that new players don’t come back to the game; and it all comes down to them not feeling like they have a meaningful impact on the result of the game. I honestly can’t blame them for that. I do think this can only be fixed by the community members though, as I don’t see anything the developers could really change with the game that will stop experienced players from ‘abusing’ players who are new to the game.
Overall, I really love this game and I have spent an ungodly amount of time on it for a reason. I think there are a lot of changes that would benefit the game a lot, but in the end the only way to balance a game like this while also keeping everyone happy, is to give us many more custom game settings. Also these settings need to work consistently, as I have seen a ridiculous amount of bugs in custom games, and it is already hard enough to normalize them. Everyone has a different view of what an ideal game is and I feel like changing up the normal mode game mechanics will cause more issues than it will solve, unless there are custom settings implemented that enable players to play with the older settings.
TL;DR very interesting and fun game where you will meet the best and worst people the world has to offer.