This review is for an early access game that is not out yet. This review is for V.0.2.0
Green Hell is another title in the long list of survival games that are coming out on Steam in early access. It attempts to break away from the rest of the pack by setting itself in a dense jungle/rain forest in an unnamed tropical country. All of the standard checkmarks are accounted for, including crafting, basic exploration, and an open world. But the real question that remains is that if there is any kind of experience that is in this game worth enjoying.
One of the first things that will probably be noticed by most people when they start up Green Hell is that it doesn’t run that well on higher settings, even on high end PCs. Some of these problems even continued when lowering the resolution, a great deal, and playing with lower settings, meaning that it is a persistent issue within the game’s code for some reason, or a conflict the game had with the hardware in my computer—of which there is nothing special.
The only real option when starting the game is to play the survival mode, which then places the player in the first section of the story mode. It claims this is for “tutorial reasons,” when it is attempted to be skipped, but after completing what is available of the tutorial nothing in the game really became that much clearer. All it really did was introduce some really basic crafting and wound treatment. Both of these things it did spectacularly poorly as well. It might have been the narrative of a voice telling the player how to do everything over a radio, and not showing how in anyway, but it felt more like the fault of the interface itself was to blame.
Speaking of interface, even when something is explained—or asked for the player to do—good luck doing it. At one point there is a request to put a bandage on the characters arm. The normal thing would be for the HUD to possibly show an image of the item on the impacted area when it was aligned correctly. In Green Hell a small green dot appears, and the player is supposed to guess that means that indicates the item can be used there. The same is true for the crafting. Most other games would produce a signal of some kind when two items can be combined into something else. In this game the craft button becomes slightly brighter. But only ever so slightly.
The review could go on for some time listing things that are wrong, and some people might find that interesting, but the truth is that the game isn’t ready for public consumption yet. There are a ton of things that need to be worked out and fixed before it should be allowed for someone to take money on this. The game isn’t broken in any one way, but that also doesn’t make it enjoyable in any other way either. The game just kind of sits there being something that should either be deleted or vastly improved on. Time will tell if, or when this game will go either way. Until then just avoid it.