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Winter Ember

What works about Winter Ember is almost entirely overshadowed by the frustrating moment-to-moment experience that never settles into a true, precise stealth game.
Winter Ember Game Cover
66%Game Brain Score
story, gameplay
music, stability
70% User Score Based on 44 reviews
Critic Score 67%Based on 9 reviews

Platforms

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Winter Ember Game Cover

About

Winter Ember is a single player tactical role playing game with a fantasy theme. It was developed by Sky Machine Studios and was released on April 18, 2022. It received mostly positive reviews from both critics and players.

In "Winter Ember", play as Arthur Artorias, seeking vengeance for your family's massacre 8 years ago. This stealth-based game features a militant religion in control, while you infiltrate homes, explore hidden passages, and craft arrows for your bow in a dark, character-driven world. Choose your playstyle carefully, avoiding detection and eliminating enemies silently while dealing with the consequences of your actions.

Genres & Tags
Play Modes
Winter Ember screenshot
Winter Ember screenshot
Winter Ember screenshot
Winter Ember screenshot
Winter Ember screenshot
Winter Ember screenshot
Winter Ember screenshot
Winter Ember screenshot
Winter Ember screenshot
Winter Ember screenshot
Winter Ember screenshot
+9
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70%
Audience ScoreBased on 44 reviews
story18 positive mentions
music3 negative mentions
  • The game features a well-crafted atmosphere and engaging visuals, enhancing the overall experience.
  • Stealth mechanics are rewarding and allow for multiple approaches to gameplay, making it enjoyable for fans of the genre.
  • The story is intriguing with interesting side quests and a variety of arrow crafting options that add depth to gameplay.
  • The combat system is poorly executed, feeling repetitive and lacking depth, which detracts from the overall experience.
  • The game suffers from numerous bugs and technical issues, including clunky controls and frustrating save mechanics.
  • Voice acting and writing are inconsistent, often detracting from the immersion and quality of the narrative.
  • story
    43 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's story is a mixed bag, featuring a straightforward revenge plot that some players found engaging, while others criticized it for being poorly told and lacking depth. Despite its flaws, the narrative is complemented by well-executed cutscenes and a rich atmosphere, with numerous side quests that extend gameplay and provide additional context. Overall, while the main storyline may not be groundbreaking, it offers enough intrigue and charm to keep players entertained.

    • “The story is intriguing and grounded; I got the 'bad' ending but liked it and was more than satisfied.”
    • “Even with how messy the final product is, there's too much love and passion you can see all over it, from the generic but lovingly edgy charm of the story that was clearly written by people who adore these kinds of characters and tales, to the beautifully gloomy atmosphere, lighting, and creepy vibe of the greater heaven cultists.”
    • “Winter Ember presents players with an engaging story and plenty of interesting levels to explore.”
    • “The game, at least so far, doesn't offer the strongest story and characters.”
    • “The story is a somewhat straightforward revenge plot, and not very well told.”
    • “Despite a decent story and atmosphere, Winter Ember is a flawed experience that suffers from poor combat and even poorer voice acting and writing.”
  • gameplay
    33 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The gameplay of the game is a mixed bag, featuring a blend of enjoyable stealth mechanics and immersive exploration, but marred by unpolished mechanics and bugs that can lead to frustration. While the arrow crafting system and large maps offer depth, the combat can feel repetitive and lacks precision, particularly in stealth scenarios where cover mechanics are clunky. Overall, the game has potential but suffers from design flaws that detract from the overall experience.

    • “It offers quite a chunky amount of gameplay, many interesting side quests, and huge maps.”
    • “It is very immersive with good combat and stealth mechanics.”
    • “Stealth gameplay is really enjoyable and rewarding; puzzles are incredibly fun and equally satisfying to complete, and exploration mechanics made the slow moments very entertaining.”
    • “One of the most boring games I've ever played in my life with horrible mechanics. 4.79 seems too much for this trash.”
    • “The mechanics aren't well polished (rolling in mid-air, weird lag in striking with your sword, get good at parrying and the game is a joke from then on out barring severely being outnumbered).”
    • “Game opens up with a pair of tutorial missions that, at least for me, contained some unfortunate bugs where I ended up being stuck inside the geometry and in the process lost 10-15 minutes of gameplay each time, as the game does not have quick save or manual save outside of shrines that act as save points (and autosave that occurs only at checkpoints) - which needless to say didn't create exactly a positive first impression.”
  • graphics
    8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The graphics of the game are widely praised for their fantastic visuals, lovely artwork, and atmospheric design. Reviewers highlight the cool art style and well-crafted world, noting that the graphics enhance the overall experience with beautiful cutscenes and engaging locations.

    • “The artwork is lovely, the game is beautiful and atmospheric.”
    • “The overall controls feel solid, the graphics and style are nice to look at.”
    • “[Dramatic story with great cutscenes, beautiful graphics and interesting locations, engaging exploration mechanics and arrow crafting system].”
  • atmosphere
    7 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The atmosphere of the game is widely praised for its beautiful craftsmanship, engaging environments, and a captivating, gloomy vibe that enhances the overall experience. Reviewers highlight the strong artistic elements and the immersive Victorian setting, despite noting some flaws in gameplay mechanics and voice acting. Overall, the atmosphere stands out as a significant strength, contributing to the game's charm and appeal.

    • “The world itself is beautifully crafted; the ambience and atmosphere are top-notch.”
    • “The atmosphere is incredible, and it was consistently the best part of the game.”
    • “Even with how messy the final product is, there's too much love and passion you can see all over it, from the generic but lovingly edgy charm of the story that was clearly written by people who adore these kinds of characters and tales, to the beautifully gloomy atmosphere, lighting, and creepy vibe of the greater heaven cultists.”
    • “Despite a decent story and atmosphere, Winter Ember is a flawed experience that suffers from poor combat and even poorer voice acting and writing.”
    • “The Victorian setting and atmosphere are done well, and the story is fairly interesting; when focusing on stealth, it can be engaging.”
  • music
    4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The music in the game has received mixed reviews; some players appreciate its similarity to the soundtrack of "Dishonored," finding it excellent and unobtrusive, while others criticize it as basic and repetitive, suggesting it detracts from the overall experience.

    • “The soundtrack after 6 hours of play is excellent; it doesn't distract and keeps you focused.”
    • “The music throughout the game is engaging and enhances the overall experience.”
    • “The soundtrack overheard in all areas of the game is equally as basic.”
    • “The soundtrack is boring and takes away some of the charm from this game.”
    • “The music is very similar to Dishonored's, which is a big plus in my book.”
  • stability
    3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's stability is notably poor, characterized by constant camera sway, frequent enemy respawns, and a buggy crafting system. Players report frustrating input delays in the lockpicking minigame and overall jankiness that can detract from the experience, especially on higher difficulty settings. While it has potential, the lack of polish makes it a challenging play for those sensitive to bugs and glitches.

    • “Constant camera sway, enemies constantly respawning, a crappy crafting system, a lockpicking minigame that requires you to release before you need to due to input delay, and finally, it's buggy.”
    • “If you like this kind of game, and you know it's going to be a janky/buggy experience, you shouldn't play on anything higher than normal for your first playthrough if you don't want to go insane from moments that weren't even your fault. I think you should buy it just because indie stealth games with this much potential aren't really a thing these days, aside from Wildfire, Intravenous, and Mark of the Ninja (all of which are better than this, but mostly due to their polish and nothing fundamental).”
    • “Combat can be a little bit annoying and buggy.”
  • humor
    3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Players appreciate the humor in the game, particularly noting that the side quests are not only engaging but also contain amusing elements that enhance the overall experience.

    • “The side quests are really interesting, and some of them are hilarious!”
    • “The humor in the game is spot-on, making even the most mundane tasks entertaining.”
    • “I love how the dialogue is filled with witty jokes that keep me laughing throughout the game.”
  • optimization
    2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's optimization has been criticized for performance issues, particularly on high settings, where users report excessive GPU usage and stuttering during takedown animations, leading to disconnections in gameplay.

    • “Often, takedown animations disconnect or 'break', leaving Arthur standing still after 'stuttering' toward the guard for a brief moment.”
    • “The performance is not great on the highest settings; I was running at a GPU capacity of well over 80-90%.”
  • emotional
    1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The emotional aspect of the game is impacted by the mechanics of the "jump/climb" action, which can lead to frustration as players must be precisely positioned to register these movements, potentially detracting from the overall immersive experience.

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67%Critics’ scoreBased on 9 critic reviews
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1h Median play time
1h Average play time
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Frequently Asked Questions

Winter Ember is a tactical role playing game with fantasy theme.

Winter Ember is available on Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, PC, PlayStation 5 and others.

On average players spend around 1 hours playing Winter Ember.

Winter Ember was released on April 18, 2022.

Winter Ember was developed by Sky Machine Studios.

Winter Ember has received mostly positive reviews from both players and critics. Most players liked this game for its story but disliked it for its music.

Winter Ember is a single player game.

Similar games include Thief, Sands of Aura, Bleak Faith: Forsaken, Achilles: Legends Untold, Partisans 1941 and others.