Green Hell

In story mode you are Dr Jake Higgins – again an apparent improvement on other survival games, as it means you start with some advantages and knowledge. You are looking to find your wife, Mia, who is bent on making friends with local tribespeople because she speaks their language – she is Jake’s interpreter, as well as his partner.

However, this rather blinds her to the dangers of those who do not wish her well, and Jake, whose only current contact with her is via a radio, must keep himself alive and track her down before it is too late. Jake’s progress is constrained by the need to learn on the go, making and then using tools that give him access to more of the jungle, each one hopefully taking him ever closer to Mia. There are multiple endings, so the game is worth replaying to see how the other endings play out.

Need to Know

Jake is armed with a useful satellite watch which doubles as your health monitor and a compass to keep you on track. Your inventory all fits into your backpack, so it is with you all the time, and you save by building a shelter, wherever you are. Remember to save before committing yourself to a tricky crossing or feat, and in a place where you are relatively safe – it’s mildly irritating to repeatedly die seconds into any save!

It’s not just basic food along with clean water and sleep that you need in this game, you need to get the right balance of fats, carbs and proteins which makes it a lot trickier to accomplish, despite the abundance of potential nourishment all around you. You can check your limbs, one at a time and in fair detail, so you can spot wounds, leeches, bugs, bites and rashes as soon as they start affecting your health status.

There is also a sanity bar which you should keep an eye on, especially when Jake is particularly stressed, ill or exhausted! If you start losing your mind, your grip on reality wanders and the music becomes poignant, and the colour drains from the world. The jungle will try and kill you even harder in this state, but you can recover by performing ‘normal’ actions, such as curing minor illnesses, drinking good water, eating well, and getting caught up on your sleep etc.

Ways to Play

The beginning of story mode – about ten minutes or so – is identical to the tutorial, and it cannot be skipped, so you could miss the tutorial and dive straight into story mode. If you survive first time out (highly unlikely!) you will be away, without needing to do it all again, for real this time.

You can play with a buddy in story mode, and have a friend along to keep an eye out for danger, slap a cure together and generally look out for each other.

Co-operative multi-play is also available in online survival mode where you and three others work to keep the team alive and on the move.

Whichever mode you play, it is possible to survive, but the game does not make it easy – you have to work at it and you may well finish the game exhausted and feeling as though the real Amazon wouldn’t be quite so determined to make you dead! In both modes there are plenty of missions and side quests to work through.

Crafting is – surprisingly – super simple. Just gather what you need – usually just one of each item – and then drag and drop them together and voila, the item is made. You must have a shelter to save the game, as mentioned above, so make the first one early and then save often as you progress!

Pro tip – coconuts are your friend! They are clean water, food and even bowls all in one. Gather as many as you can carry!

Exciting Ways to Die in the Jungle!

Jaguars will kill you with enthusiasm, enjoying you for dinner while you curse and respawn, trying to remember exactly where they were so as to avoid them this time round, but there are a great many ways to die in this appropriately named green hell – here are just some of them!

Arrows – not all the locals are happy to see you, and despite Mia’s insistences, some of them will happily try to kill you!

Falls – all that lush green growth can be deceptive, with lethal drops suddenly opening under your unwary feet

Venom – famously, venom is what snakes squirt into when they bite, poison is what kills you should you eat it. But you are not going to be bothered about using the right word when snakes are falling out of trees and biting you, creeping up behind you and biting you, or appearing apparently out of nowhere and – you guessed it – biting you!

Poison – watch what you eat, as some of the berries, animals and leaves will, if not outright kill you (although some do!), make you very ill, and open to dying from any number of other causes.

Dehydration – just as in real life, not drinking enough water is a major problem. And despite the fact that there is plenty of water, unlike in other survival games, you need to be careful about drinking it! Water must be clean and bug free if it isn’t going to make you sick. Oh, and check yourself, if you’ve been near water you almost certainly have a leech or twenty somewhere about your person! This will make Jake’s health bar start dropping, so be sure to sort it quickly!