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Darkwood
Darkwood builds tension through careful exploration by day and defending a hideout after dark. At ≈ $0.75 from 
GOG, it is at this site's tracked low. Choices shape the story, and the world rearranges in a new game. Steam PC offers full controller support and adjustable difficulty, including a Nightmare mode with permadeath. It suits players who want slow-burning horror and deliberate preparation rather than a hurried action loop. At $1.99 from GOG, Darkwood is at this site's tracked low; Simplified Chinese, English, Polish, Russian, German, Spanish, Portuguese-Brazil, Italian, Turkish, Hungarian, and French are confirmed interface languages.
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All-time low ~ $1.99across Steam & third-party storesat the recorded all-time low
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Price History
Past 36 months · Updated dailyHistorical Low~ $1.992026-10Current Low Across Stores~ $1.99NuuvemAt its historical low now
Prices cover Steam and 39 authorized stores; only legitimate offers are counted. The chart shows weekly market-wide lows and Steam's official price across the past 36 months.
01About Darkwood
Explore a shifting, hostile forest by day, scavenging resources and encountering locals with their own agendas. At night, find shelter, fortify your hideout, and endure the dangers outside. Your choices shape the story, while the woods and points of interest rearrange with each new game. Steam player reviews: 94% positive from 22,409 reviews.
Credits
Developer
Acid Wizard Studio
Publisher
Hooded Horse · Acid Wizard Studio
Lowest recorded in 36 months
$1.992026-10-14 · NuuvemBase game · same records as the chart above; USD history, not a regional Steam low.Language support
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | Yes | Yes | — |
| English | Yes | Yes | — |
| Polish | Yes | Yes | — |
Show 8 more languages
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Russian | Yes | Yes | — |
| German | Yes | Yes | — |
| Spanish | Yes | Yes | — |
| Portuguese-Brazil | Yes | Yes | — |
| Italian | Yes | Yes | — |
| Turkish | Yes | Yes | — |
| Hungarian | Yes | Yes | — |
| French | Yes | Yes | — |
Steam PC edition data · 2026-10-19
02Before you buy
Controls and difficulty
The Steam PC version has full controller support. You can play the story with unlimited lives or choose Nightmare difficulty with permadeath.
Languages
Steam PC lists English, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese subtitles. Full audio is not listed for these languages.
03Frequently asked questions
What do you do in the game?
Explore and scavenge by day, then shelter in and fortify a hideout to survive the night.
Does the world change between runs?
The woods and points of interest rearrange with each new game.
Do choices affect the story?
Yes. Choices affect the story and your dealings with the locals.
Popular Steam reviews
Native-language selection · 10 reviewsSelected helpful reviews in this language show both recommendations and criticisms. This selection does not represent the overall positive rating; opinions reflect the version reviewed.
RecommendedSteam player
I managed to beat the entire game before pyrocynical released his sloppy yapathon. Good game.Show moreShow less
27.5 hours at review1,565 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
I really, really wanted to like Darkwood. One of my favorite reviewers was in love with this and I decided to play it for my spooky Halloween game this year. Unfortunately the core gameplay loop became repetitive and I lost all interest in actually finishing it. This is already a niche game (survival horror that effectively manages both survival and horror elements), so it definitely "isn't for everyone" but even for fans of the genre I can't recommend it. While the game tries to hide it and mixes things up with special events, the core gameplay loop consists of: shopping/repairing your current hideout, scavenging & exploring new areas for about 10 hours of game time (one second IRL is one minute in-game), final preparations to defend yourself at night, and then finding something to do on your phone during the 9 hours of night time. The biggest problem with this game is how night is just a huge waste of time. Environments become dark at 18:00 and after 20:00 the darkness will actually start damaging you outside of your chosen hideout. There are unique events that happen at night but most of them are just psychological horror SFX, like creepy ambient noises and lighting changes. This is all without considering the monster attacks at night; You will need to huddle in a corner behind a wall of defenses in order to protect yourself at night because of how poor your vision is. When I quit the game a few days into Chapter 2, my defenses didn't even matter because there was a new enemy who could just spawn inside of my hiding room. While night time advances at double speed of day time, it's still a huge waste of your time. Lights on at 20:00, sunrise at 7:00, and a one hour time skip (sleep I guess?) will start the new day at 8:00. You need to start returning to your hideout at at least 18:00 so this means literally half your day is wasted by the night. Enemies become predictable and very frustrating to fight with the clunky combat system. They like to pretend to wander at night, triggering traps and opening random doors, but they always psychically know where you are despite you making no noise. During the day time the simplistic AI likes to rush straight at you and many track you if you sidestep. Aiming a gun causes a cone to be drawn, drastically reducing your FOV. This means when an enemy lunges at you and lands behind you while aiming, they'll be invisible to you until you swing around. New enemies will spawn in explored areas but the loot they drop is almost always just EXP food. Ammo scarcity means that you'll be relying on traders all game to keep more than one weapon loaded. Enemies in Chapter 2 are practically mini-bosses with their unique movesets, fast attacks, and quick movement. Combat eventually became so frustrating that I was annoyed by running into anything. I hate to review games without finishing them but I am done with Darkwood. I loved the game during the first and second hideout and enjoyed the atmosphere and difficulty changes in the third hideout's area. Unfortunately, Chapter 2 became really miserable for me and I have no motivation to finish the game. I definitely understand how someone could love this game but I don't have the patience to finish a game that I feel actively wastes my time. Your mileage may vary; This a game that "isn't for everyone" within a genre that "isn't for everyone".Show moreShow less
17.5 hours at review700 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
The fat furry man finally made a video of this game. People will finally hear of this masterpiece. It's absolutely my favorite horror game and I wholeheartedly want to see it get the recognition it rightfully deserves. <3Show moreShow less
64.3 hours at review1,046 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
Apparently commenters don't understand how the Steam rating system works so let me preface this review with this: Up/Down does not mean the game is good or bad; it means whether or not the REVIEWER RECOMMENDS the game to others. Good/Bad vs Recommended are two entirely different things. With that said: on with the review! Probably a great game; but just not for me :( I loved the atmosphere, the art, the mood, the setting, everything... except the gameplay. I just cannot get into these long, slog survival games so, if you're like me, maybe this review is for you. I really wanted to get into this game but I am just not patient enough to slog around for hours looking for ONE item that is holding me up in progressing. I just can't do it. If games like "Don't Starve" and the like do not appeal to you then this one probably will not as well. I wish I could mark this review as "Informative" instead of "Up/Down" because the game definitely has a lot of love and care from the devs put into it and I'm sure it's fantastic if you enjoy these kinds of games! You can watch my livestream gameplay of the game over on my YouTube ChannelShow moreShow less
1.9 hours at review563 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
Full disclosure: review copy provided by developer/publisher! I'm about one... maybe two good jump scares away from being institutionalized. Playing as an Indonesian schoolgirl with a magic phone, an archeologist with amnesia, and a toddler with diapers full to the brim has had an ill effect on me. My heart just can't take it – my mind just can't take it. The filaments that hold my fragile psyche aloft are pulled taut, straining as each frayed fiber falters and my sanity slips closer towards the cold, dark depths of derangement. Which isn't super great, really. But I'll gladly surrender my faculties for a game as fun as “Darkwood.” “Darkwood” isn't a “Slender” or “Amnesia” clone. This is a game in the vein of old school horror where atmosphere was king – you'll hear lots of comparisons to the “Silent Hill” series. The key to good horror is cultivating a crushing, foreboding world environment... one that fosters paranoia and unease the whole way through. Sure, jumpscares are necessary to finally break the tension, but the best horror games are dripping and oozing in atmosphere. The whole world should FEEL hostile, not just the denizens that inhabit it. This game doesn't want you playing it, no. It wants to play you. Here's what you can expect playing “Darkwood:” your hands should be clammy with an itch you can't scratch, not now. Your face should be inches from your monitor, blinking only when necessary, scanning wildly back and forth for something, ANYTHING, to betray the game's ill intent. As you talk with each bizarre NPC you should feel nervous, wondering when the conversation will go from benignly creepy to malignantly violent. And when you finally encounter an unspeakable horror, you'll have to make that gut decision whether to run or stand your ground. I recommend running. Like with all survivor horrors, you are at a notable disadvantage. You'll also be able to set up hasty barricades... rocking back and forth as claws scratch and jaws click outside, tearing your defenses down piece by piece. There are a lot of cool things happening with this game. Your vision is funneled, forcing the aforementioned wild scanning. You can see the world generally in your “peripheral vision,” but you have to be looking relatively dead-on to see any actual threats. They'll be effectively invisible otherwise. You'll inject yourself with concoctions extracted from fauna and flora that provide mutations. They will grant a boost in one way and a hindrance in another. There's a crafting aspect that's pretty basic right now but feels natural... rough and raw. Besides health you have a stamina meter, one you'll have to keep an eye on when deciding whether to fight or fly. Graphically speaking, “Darkwood” isn't exactly next gen, but it is highly stylized and creepy. It's a beautiful, dark, Gothic painting – like the ones where the eyes follow you wherever you go and it talks smack about your mother. And the music will chill you to the bone. If the environment and enemies start to give you a little break, don't worry. The music will swell and put you right back on edge, or the heavy creaks and sudden cracks of the sound design. Like any good horror this is a challenging game. I do recommend playing with permadeath on. Adds to the spook factor! Anticipate shedding lots of your own pixelated blood. My biggest gripes? It's hard to determine sometimes (between how dark the game is and how... generally dark the colors are) what I can search and interact with and what's just a creepy thingy. The controls also take some getting used to, but that seems appropriate considering the genre. Now seeing that this is an Early Access title my recommendation is tentative and subject to change. But at the moment there is nothing out on Steam quite like this. Every day you hear people bemoan the death of “true survival horror,” myself being one of them. Well folks, it wasn't dead. Just waiting for the right moment to sing its siren song... and draw us in at least once more, into those dark and dreary woods where light dares not penetrate and your screams can't quite escape.Show moreShow less
7.1 hours at review944 people found this helpful
Written during Early Access
Not recommendedSteam player
Darkwood has a superb prologue. It sets the tone, it introduces the basic controls and mechanics, and it establishes just enough information about the setting to get you hooked. I can't overstate how masterful that introduction is, the mystery of the woods that it set up had me so keen to get into the rest of the game. Then I started playing the rest of the game. From Darkwood, I expected a "Survival Horror Game". Old school Resident Evil kind of stuff: somewhat open but directed progression through an evocative, tightly-constructed setting, a focus on puzzles, item drops meticulously paced so you never quite feel like you have enough. What I got was more of a "Survival, Horror Game". You're in a randomly generated (sort of; from what I gather the general geography is the same between playthroughs, but the location of places of interest are random), open location. You have to craft stuff. You have to barricade a hideout. You have to craft stuff. You have to gather a bunch of junk. You have to craft stuff. There's a day/night cycle, and at night you have to hide in your house from monsters. You have to craft stuff. I spent most of my time with the game wandering aimlessly (and so very slowly) around the meadow that made up the first area of the game. I picked up a bunch of items. I gathered that lockpicks and gasoline were important, but other than that I didn't really know the value of any of the things I found, so I just grabbed everything. My inventory filled up. I took everything back (so, so very slowly) to the hideout and dumped it in a wardrobe. I didn't really feel like I'd accomplished much. I went back out into the meadow (so, so, so very slowly) to look around some more. Most of the space that makes up the meadow is empty green space with the occasional tree. Empty green space isn't atmospheric or interesting. I didn't have a weapon yet so I avoided any areas with enemies. I didn't sprint in case I needed my stamina to run away. I found more junk. This is busywork. Busywork isn't tense, or thrilling, or gripping. I don't like busywork in games at the best of times, but it especially has no place in horror. It started to get dark, so I went back to the hideout (so, so, so, so very slowly). Night time is weird. I used my meagre resources to barricade up a window, and shoved a wardrobe up against a hole in the wall, then I sat in a corner. Going outside didn't seem like a good idea. The atmosphere here is genuinely outstanding. The sound design is impeccable, and you have to sit there and listen to footsteps, scratching and rustling, snorting and growling, all the time wondering if whatever's making the noise is going to break in or move on and leave you alone. I have Throbbing Gristle albums though, and when I want to spend my time sitting back listening to masterfully crafted frightening soundscapes, I'll just put those on. I sat there for a few minutes before I started scrolling through Twitter on my phone. A dog shoved my wardrobe barricade out of the way and started attacking me. Still no weapon, so I ran into a different room. The dog didn't follow; back to Twitter. Day finally arrives. An NPC appears in my house; he's creepy but seems friendly enough, and he has items to trade. I still don't really know which of my items I should trade or keep, let alone what I should trade for, so I leave him be for now. Most of the useful crafting recipes (like a weapon) seem to need wooden boards - I've not found any, so I go out again hoping to get some. No such luck. A guide on the internet informs me I can turn logs into boards with my table saw, and there should be a location near my house with an abundance of logs. Can't find that either. More aimless wandering. At this point it's starting to feel like the developers' proud boast upon opening the game that Darkwood "will not hold your hand" is an excuse to have a horror experience with no pacing whatsoever. It starts to get dark, and I close the game. I'm not doing that again. Look, Darkwood has a lot of positive reviews, so it clearly offers a lot to certain people. As I said, the atmosphere is terrific, and it's a great example of "less is more" when it comes to horror. The developers have achieved a lot here with lo-fi, 2D graphics. I'm not happy to be leaving a negative review (in fact, if the whole game managed to match the quality of that prologue, I'm sure it would be positive), but the gameplay just completely failed to grab me. It's too slow, too directionless, too much faffing about managing items across a tiny inventory and even tinier storage locations. Looking at Steam achievement stats, over 70% of players have finished the Prologue, while a meagre 8.5% have made it to the second chapter, so I'm clearly not alone. Maybe it's worth picking up on sale to see if you're one of the 8.5%, but unless you're a junkie for both horror and crafting, I don't think I recommend Darkwood.Show moreShow less
1.4 hours at review228 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
This review is not really a review, but you guys just have to read it. OK, here's what happened: I bumped into this game as a suggestion by Steam, read the reviews, and was interested. The price was around $14, so that seemed kind of too much for me, I mean for a game that was not in my radar. So, confessedly, I went to a well-known pirate site to torrent the game, in order to see whether I liked it and would consider getting it on a sale. That's when I was amazed: The top torrent was one BY THE DEVELOPERS, who had uploaded the game DRM-free with the following request: "…if you like Darkwood and want us to continue making games, consider buying it in the future, maybe on a sale, through Steam, GOG or Humble Store. But please, please, don't buy it through any key reselling site. By doing that, you're just feeding the cancer that is leeching off this industry." Frankly, my jaw dropped to the floor. I went through the motions of getting the torrent started, but I did not have it in my heart anymore. I came back here, and purposely did NOT wait for a sale: I bought the game at full price, and I am having the Steam client install it as I write these lines; as an added benefit, the latest update on Steam appears to be more recent than the torrent I almost downloaded. What a gutsy, innovative, game-changing move by the developers! I don't care if the game is good, I just want these particular developers to continue making games, so I put my money where my mouth (or more accurately, my heart) is. PLEASE BUY THIS GAME.Show moreShow less
2.4 hours at review903 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
After playing for a few days I have to sadly give this one the thumbs down. The game is clearly unpolished after spending years in early access/development hell. The concept is great, but the game is failed by horrible quality of life issues, clunky controls and bad mechanics which all contribute to artificial difficulty. For instance the only way to dodge is backwards while most enemies have a charge attack which will just continue to slam into you. Sidestepping would have been a better dodge. Combat often involves madly running around in circles trying to avoid attacks while your enemies are unseen due to being outside of your cone of vision. Other problems include: -Mushrooms spawning directly under your feet even while you are in combat in your own hideout's kitchen. -Tech restrictions being clunky, nonsensical and a burden. You can build a pistol before you can build an axe, despite having an axe-head and wooden shaft from early in the game. -Barricading being poorly explained and implemented. Dogs can chew their way through a barricaded door and two wardrobes while you can do nothing to repair and/or reinforce them. If you go all out with barricading (which seems to be the only sane thing to do) you will also miss out on special events at night which can lead to items. -Monsters making a beeline towards you inside your hideout despite you not making any movement, them not having line of sight and sometimes you being in complete darkness. Why have atmospheric line of sight and stealth mechanics like being quiet and hiding to avoid attention if monsters just ignore these mechanics. -Monsters spawning DIRECTLY ON YOU while you are outside in the day time. I'm not talking a screen away, I'm talking you turn around and turn back and a huge dog is bearing down on you. -Many minor annoyances which all add to player frustration. For instance you have to relight ovens when returning to old hideouts, something you are only warned about immediately before monsters start spawning due to nightfall. RIP if like me you'd already barricaded yourself inside your generator room. I get that this is the developers first real game, but I don't think this is worth US$15. My advice is to get this for half price on a sale and blast through the main story on normal mode to minimise frustration, and only that if top down atmospheric horror games are your cup of tea.Show moreShow less
30.4 hours at review202 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
In the woods, there is a house. And in that house, is a man. Watch the man board up his doors and windows as the sun sets. Look at him sweat and panic as the night comes. The woods are dangerous during the day, and leathal during the night. He is hunted, so he cowers near an old lamp for protection. At night they come for him. At night he prepares to protect himself. By day, he hunts. He gathers the most precious things in the world: Wood and iron. Nails and planks to keep the darkness out. It is a losing battle. The darkness gets stronger each night. The monsters know where he tries to sleep. Some of those monsters bring gifts. Most of them bring death. He will die in that forest. It is inevitable as long as he stays. Look at that man, in the house, near the lamp, with the pistol quivering in his fingers. By day he looks for a way out. By night he seals himself in.Show moreShow less
10.5 hours at review605 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
Great game, very scary at first. Then it turns into a simulator of endless running around the map and looking for story items and loot. At some point, you realize that the enemies no longer scare you, but annoy you. Especially when they spawn at the most inconvenient moment. Too much time is spent to run around the map and fighting enemies. And too little time to plot disclosure. Great art, great atmosphere, fascinating story, but the gameplay gets too boring at some point. :(Show moreShow less
39.1 hours at review179 people found this helpful
Source: original Steam user reviews. Helpful votes are an archived snapshot, not live data. Last collected: 08/15/2026.