Whisper Mountain Outbreak was provided by Toge Productions for review. Thank you!
This is an early access title, so our final thoughts on Whisper Mountain Outbreak will most likely change as it develops. This review is based on our thoughts of the initial release of the game.
One of my favorite games I revisited in the past few months is the Resident Evil titles. It was so much fun to go back and play them again, watching my wife experience them for the first time. That's also why I was so attracted to Whisper Mountain Outbreak. Coming from one of my favorite developers, Toge Productions, it looked like a top-down co-op zombie shooter, and there seemed to be some inspiration from the Resident Evil games. And while it has a lot of great ideas and shows the fantastic gameplay loop, the lack of content makes it hard to keep coming back after playing a couple of times.
The best way to describe this game is if they took the classic Resident Evil mechanics and put them into a roguelike format, and it works significantly better than I expected. Each in-game run starts you off picking 1 out of three random classes, giving you certain perks like sprinting faster or crafting axes earlier. Then, you will go out on various missions, completing the objective while finding weapons, ammo, and crafting materials to take back to base. Once we get back, we will have skill points to use and give ourselves new skills like crafting weapon mods or giving us boosts to our melee power.
Currently, Whisper Mountain Outbreak is a bit limited in the content it offers, but it's enough to show how great of an idea this is and the possibility of it being an essential co-op title. The combination of combat, puzzles to open doors, and the UI design all work in tandem to create an exciting experience to enjoy with others.
In maps, you will walk around and solve puzzles, find loot, and complete different objectives before escaping to return to home base. Most of the puzzles are relatively simple, unlocking the doors needed to get to the objective or getting new guns, but they do require some thought, which made me feel smart when I figured them out. There's one puzzle that I would say is too difficult, though I ended up figuring it out, but it felt way too difficult compared to the others.
In between puzzles, there will be a lot of killing zombies. You can have one melee weapon and one gun equipped at a time, along with extra slots for healing items and throwables. The melee weapon is equipped by default, while you can always aim to bring out the gun. There's a balanced amount of ammo and new weapons to find, and I like that the melee weapon is always out by default. It's simple, but it makes killing zombies much easier. Combat in general feels great as well, with it being easy to charge up your melee to knock down zombies and quickly take out your gun to shoot them.
Switching out melee and ranged weapons isn't as quick and requires bringing up the inventory menu to do it. This is where I first started to notice the similarities to Resident Evil. It has the same feel as Resident Evil 2 and 3, with the ability to move around and combine items. The healing item is known as an herb here and can combine with other herbs, and even some of the puzzles, like choosing specific numbers to light up a circle in order to unlock lockers, feel like it came right from Resident Evil.
However, the roguelike mechanics make the game stand out to me. As you run through a mission, you will pick up guns, ammo, and crafting materials, and completing a mission gets you a skill point. Once back at base, you will choose your next mission and can go to the crafting bench to create equipment and upgrade your stats. There are ways to increase how much you can carry and how much health and stamina you have. Skill Points can be used to get new skills, unlocking the ability to craft weapon mods, craft new melee weapons and guns, and further strengthen your stats. There are three options for skill points, and after choosing, you will get to choose from 1 of 3 random options, similar to the class choices when the run begins.
Each of the eight missions are on different maps, which have their own sets of objectives and layouts. Some of the objectives are the same, like the first few missions revolving around getting a specific case, but it expands later on to more complex goals. The early access release only has three mission types, so it makes sense. The later mission maps are also quite a bit larger than the initial ones, which is a nice touch. The runs randomize which maps you will encounter at different points, so it was interesting seeing how some maps expanded for later missions and how they shrink for earlier ones.
It's imperative to save as many resources as you can and choose your skills/perks strategically, leading to the final mission, where you have to survive waves of enemies. So, utilizing your item box and crafting to make sure you have a good selection of weapons and ammo, as well as healing items, to survive as long as you can is going to be extremely important.
I love the game and the general gameplay, but its early access release is also what makes it difficult to recommend right now. It's great the first few times, but the lack of meta progression and variety makes this a tough experience to replay after getting further in or completing it. Toge Productions is very upfront about the content included in the early access launch, but it can quickly get boring seeing the same levels with the same mission types over and over without any meaningful reason to come back and play more, other than to just play with friends.
But there is one feature that will ultimately prompt me to recommend it right now: the Friend's Pass. This is essentially a free demo that allows friends to play the entire game with you. Basically, only one person has to purchase the game, and the other three friends can just download the free pass and join the game. With how much fun Whisper Mountain Outbreak is in co-op, and it's a ton of fun, this feature makes the entire package worthwhile.
The coordination that is necessary with friends to make sure you will be able to round out your team and be able to craft everything is quite enjoyable. There's enough randomization of the classes and skills you can get that keep it intriguing, though it can be a little frustrating to not get the skills you want. You are able to play alone, and it's still decently enjoyable, but the lack of meta-progression and unlockables makes it harder to recommend playing this way. It's a fantastic co-op game and definitely the best way to play.
Before I dove in, I thought that Whisper Mountain Outbreak would be decently playable on the Steam Deck. It does use a combination of pixel art and 3D models, but I didn't think it was a very intensive game. I was partially right. While it is decently playable, there are some issues that make it harder to enjoy on the Deck right now.
In maps, the framerate and frame timing can be sporadic, with the framerate ranging from 30 to 60 FPS, usually sticking around 40 to 45. It still feels okay for the most part, but the moments where it dips below 30 start to feel too stuttery and hard to enjoy. This doesn't happen as often, but in some crowded areas, it does. Changing the visual quality down to Low didn't change anything, nor did it seem to change the visual quality at all.
However, the framerate is manageable and the game is playable, but my biggest concern is controller support. The game does have decent controller support already, which is great, but there are a couple of elements that make using a controller feel uncomfortable. The one that gets me the most is running. You have to push down the left joystick to run, but it needs to stay pushed down. This is very uncomfortable, and I hated using it.
To fix this, we can either change the sprint mode in the settings to "Toggle" or use Steam Input to bind the same input to the back buttons, which is significantly easier than actually pushing down the left joystick. It solves the problem nicely, but trying to play without it is just uncomfortable. It's essential to run sometimes, so I highly recommend using Steam Input to change it. I actually preferred this over toggling to manage the stamina bar.
The game does have some options to reduce screen shake, skip intro dialogue, controls, or tutorial, change language, rebind controls, and change audio bindings.
The game does support 16:10 resolutions, cloud saves, and controllers. There are no HDR settings.
Whisper Mountain Outbreak has a ton of promise and showcases how great the game could be, but the lack of content makes it difficult to keep coming back. It's essentially a co-op Resident Evil roguelike, and it successfully balances combat and puzzles to keep things fun. The roguelike mechanics are fantastic, and the combination of randomized skills, classes, and crafting keeps it interesting. The lack of meta-progression and content hurts replayability, but this is an early access release, so I expect that to change as development continues.
The game is technically playable on the Steam Deck, but it has some framerate issues and needs some changes to the gamepad to keep it comfortable. But it's still playable, and if you really want to play on the go, just be prepared for compromises.
このレビューはPC版に基づいています。
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Whisper Mountain Outbreak shows a ton of promise with a fantastic roguelike gameplay loop, but the lack of content keeps it from greatness initially.
