At the end of everything, hold onto anything.
— Official Tagline
Night in the Woods is an adventure game focused on exploration, story, and character. It features dozens of characters to interact with. The game was funded with a Kickstarter that exceeded its $50,000 USD goal. Night in the Woods was developed by Infinite Fall, a studio found by Alec Holowka and Scott Benson while being published by Finji. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, and PlayStation 4 on February 21, 2017. The Xbox One version was released on December 13, 2017. The Nintendo Switch version was released on February 1, 2018. The iOS version was released on September 9 2021. And lastly, the PlayStation 5 was released on December 13, 2022.
Overview
You control a young woman named Mae Borowski in game and explore your childhood town of Possum Springs. Players use simple platformer mechanics which allow for the exploration of Possum Springs. Scott Benson described the key actions for the player as "explore, converse, see and touch", while Alex Holowka described their approach of the game as "narrative-focused" rather than "gameplay-first". Players make decisions that will affect how the story plays out. On the other hand, Benson stated, "it's more like 'do you hang out with this person?' Okay, cool. That person might not know you as well by the end of the game, but this person you hung out with, you're going to get to see their storyline." [1]
Plot
| Spoiler warning! This article contains major plot details about the game. |
Mae Borowski drops out of college and returns home to the former mining town of Possum Springs. She seeks to resume her former life and reconnect with childhood friends. However, things have changed and her friends have grown as people since she went to college, while Mae's mindset has stagnated. Mae's friends include Bea Santello, a somber crocodile, Gregg Lee, an energetic fox and his boyfriend Angus Delaney, a quiet bear.
Mae spends multiple days exploring Possum Springs and hanging out with her friends. When she sleeps, she starts having strange and vivid dreams. At the town's Harfest or Halloween Festival, Mae witnesses a teenager being kidnapped by a mysterious figure she believes to be a ghost. The four friends begin working together to figure out what is going on, with Mae's mental health slowly deteriorating as she experiences more of these dreams. After searching through the forest, the four stumble across a group of cloaked figures in the woods. Upon being discovered, the group are chased by the figures and Mae falls, lapsing into a coma.
After waking up from the coma, Mae visits her friends and reveals that she has a depersonalization disorder to either Bea or Gregg, depending on who the player chose to spend the most time with. She states that she saw objects and people as just mere shapes and lines. She felt a deep sorrow for everything around her and laments to Bea/Gregg that nothing was there for her and that everything was just "stuff in the universe."
While being wounded, Mae proceeds to venture out into the woods by herself, attempting to find the cloaked figures who chased her and her friends. A cloaked figure confronts Mae but Gregg, Bea and Angus eventually find her. The group enter the old coal mine and meet the mysterious group, who are revealed to be a cult. The cult turns out to be behind the kidnapping and subsequent murder of several residents. This includes Casey Hartley, who was a friend of Mae. They targeted those whom they deemed useless to society and whom they believe "will not be missed", bringing them into the mines to sacrifice them to a god-like entity called the Black Goat. The cultists hope that the Black Goat will revitalize the economy of Possum Springs. The cult's leader allows the group to leave but threaten them never to reveal what they had seen. The group leave and ride up the mine's elevator but a member of the group attacked by Gregg attempts to assault Mae. The others manage to save her and the elevator falls, causing a cave in and presumably trapping the cultist down there.
Depending on who the player interacted with the most throughout the course of the game, Mae will interact with either Bea or Gregg and talk about the events of last night, and what happened during their time in Possum Springs. The other friends join them afterwards, and Mae tells them that although they will all be forced to grow and adapt to life as it goes on for better and for worse, they can enjoy their time together now. The game ends as the four decide to forget about their current problems for the time being and practice for band.
Weird Autumn Edition
On October 30, 2017, it was announced on the official twitter for Night in the Woods [2] that the game would be getting an extended edition titled Night in the Woods: Weird Autumn Edition, named after the in-game song, Weird Autumn. It was released as an update patch for the game on December 13, with all future copies of the game already containing the content update. It contained various forms of new content, with new dialogues, new characters, new areas, and new mini-games, such as the inclusion of the bass in Mae’s bedroom to replay band songs as well as new ones. Old and previously cut content was also added, such as both supplement games being added in the extras menu and the visit to Germ’s house being reintroduced in the game.
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