Project Winter is an interesting combination of survival and social deduction — think Among Us mixed with The Long Dark — that's brilliant in its best moments, but sadly kneecapped by the compromises you'll have to make to play it on Switch.
The pitch may sound familiar: a team of between five and eight people, a few of whom are "traitors", are tasked with either completing or sabotaging tasks. Traitors have extra crates to open and hatches to fast-travel across the map; survivors have to band together to stay alive, and figure out who to trust. Everything can kill you, traitors and survivors alike — roaming wolves, moose, bears, traps, hunger, the weather, and the biting cold are all your enemies; if you overcome all of that, you still might get hacked to death by another person.
Where Project Winter shines is its proximity chat. Much like being in a real snowy, blizzard-plagued landscape, sound is absorbed completely unless you're close to someone. That means you can overhear someone getting brutally murdered, or you can cry for help with no one around to save you. It's really immersive and fun, and... well, Switch and voice chat don't have a great history, do they? Sure, you can use headphones with an in-built microphone, but if you don't have the right headset, it's a lonely, quiet place, as you listen to the banter of the people around you, able only to type — and typing is slow, and will get you killed.
Add to that the other hurdles of the ludicrously tiny text, the overwhelmingly busy UI, the steep learning curve, and the fact that matchmaking is a little patchy at best and awful at worst, and it's pretty harder to recommend this game on Switch than elsewhere. Even when we did get into matches, we were often met with the kind of racist and sexist troll behaviour that should have been left behind in the 2000s, which is, admittedly, not Project Winter's fault, but it did colour our experience.
But those brilliant moments, like the one where we played three matches in a row with someone named Malo, who was kind enough to show us the ropes and protect us only to have us betray his trust and murder him at the end, were priceless.
Comments 13
I just don't get why Nintendo won't put more effort Into their online. It's been over four years and you can't even send someone a message; its basic stuff
I play this a load with family and friends on Steam, a great game. It really excels in a group format but definitely a learning curve associated with it.
Can definitely see that you'd want to rework the UI for a console somewhat, to remove some of the barriers you don't necessarily get with a PC and keyboard / mouse.
Still, good to see it on more consoles (and I think at some point crossplay is meant to be restored, if I remember rightly).
@Orangezap89 This isn't really related to Nintendo, it's more of a console issue.
PS/Xbox will have the same issue as Switch, where a headset is mandatory, and if you don't own one you're not going to be able to play a game like this.
Not saying the Switch doesn't have bad support for voice chat in general, but in this specific case, Switch has the same support as Xbox/PS.
I'm surprised Among Us works on Switch without voice chat, but Among Us does have the advantage that you can only talk when the game is "paused", Project Winter never pauses, so it relies on fast communication, like the review says, if you stop for 20-30 seconds to type out a message, you're dead.
I was intrigued by this before so had it on my wishlist. Shame it doesn't sound like it is for me. Thanks for the review.
Seems nice, been wanting to get it for a while now. Guess I'll just use PC instead.
I love project winter on xbox. Sucks this is a okay port. If you play this on pc or Xbox it is a joy to play and the community is amazing. Yeats prime is a pillar of the community. Love you yeats🤗
People have got to stop making tiny font UI/cluttered UI. As soon as I read the font was small I lost all interest in reading further or in this game.
@Xeno_Aura wouldn’t you still need a headset on PC? Plus vc is troublesome on switch unlike the other systems. Guess the only place you wouldn’t need a headset is phones.
@Williamfuchs420 I believe this uses their own voice chat system not Nintendo's. So I believe you can use a wired headset plugged into your Switch. You'd have to get confirmation from someone who has played though. But given how voice chat in this game works (private channels, as well as proximity chat) I don't believe Nintendo's system would work at all.
And yes you would on PC, although typing is naturally much faster on PC anyway. And I think PC users are more likely than anyone to have equipment with a microphone.
Dios bless this person "Malo"
It's a special thing about multiplayer experiences that almost barring any adverse circumstance, the profit of chancing upon that one encounter with a decent and courteous human can make one's digital day.
@Williamfuchs420 - It does use its own built in voice chat, so barring the headset it should be already setup to go. The voice chat works based on proximity, so the further away the quieter and more distored it becomes as well as sometimes having environment effects change it (like the blizzard sweeping in).
But yeah, a headset is really vital in this game from experience. Typing is fine but communication is key, especially if trying to exile a traitor from the camp.
@Ryu_Niiyama I can't stand small words on my screen, small everything is annoying.
@BoBFiSh nice you never know with switch Nintendo just refuses to get with the time
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