Lack of interest in this game was disappointing. Marketing campaign was pretty good and the game received solid amount of hype from the journos, and yet there is comparatively little talk about it and it vanished from Steam top sellers pretty fast.
Well it could be the fault of the developers and their choice (or need, as the case may be) to do such an early/long early access release. This led to a lot of people who usually raise awareness to these types of games (obnoxious e-celebs, streamers, facecam let's players) to pounce on the game early while it still had a lot of attention from the second gameplay trailer and indiegogo campaign and maybe even do a 15 minute first impressions ""review"" before burning out or quitting because the game
was too hard for them did not hold their hand.
This doesn't explain the fact that the more """professional""" game journo publications like your PC Gamers and RockPaperShotguns still haven't produced a review for the release version, despite covering the game quite a bit during the indiegogo hype. Destructoid still hasn't finished its review despite being provided with a review copy, and all they published was some low-substance article a day before release:
https://www.destructoid.com/review-in-progress-darkwood-455237.phtml
Here is a choice quote from the article which explains why a lot of people will have trouble playing/writing about the game:
it does a poor job of communicating what players should spend their time doing
I remember the very first alpha version when you did not get the multiple hints to check on the Underground Entrance but it was merely the only location marked on your map at the beginning of the game, and that was enough of an implication for me to investigate it first. I made the correct guess that refueling the generator is probably important because, I don't know, light is probably a really fucking good idea in a survival horror game?
This is a game whose systems, along with the player's experience, naturally push the player towards doing things. Combat seems hard and pointless? It is almost as if one is only meant to fight as a last resort. Yet in one of the early alphas, a youtuber called SplatterCatGaming ran around trying to kill dogs and savages with a plank&nails and rage quit the game after dying repeatedly. You don't know
what you should be doing? I don't know, how about you check the things that you fucking need to survive: gas, nails and wood for barricades at the very least, and go explore to fetch those. Moreover, this is a game where the advice that the NPCs give you is actually helpful: don't get into fights, don't venture out of Dry Meadow until you are prepared, make sure you are back at the hideout before nightfall, etc. And that's not to mention the numerous hints added to the game specifically to address the above criticism, like a note taped to the generator telling you that refueling it is important - a note telling you that light is important in a freaking horror game where nights are pitch-black!
So yeah, it seems that journos have no trouble regurgitating the same low-substance commentary about the game that we've heard for 4 years, but they have much trouble actually playing it once they realize that it is not designed for mentally deficient people. That is not too say that Darkwood is some sort of golden standard of difficulty, but apparently the game's current state is enough to give a lot of people trouble. I would actually argue that the game had been made too easy, from the beginner-friendly Dry Meadow that is almost boring if you are an experienced player, to the aforementioned removal of enemies from certain key locations.
