Green Hell (2019)

Green Hell has claimed a place not only among my favorite survival games but among the most memorable experiences I've had in gaming, full stop. There is nothing quite like it, no other title that scratches the particular itch this one does. After falling into its depths and pouring countless hours into its dual storylines, I wandered outward in search of others in the genre, curious to see what else might capture that same raw sensation of vulnerability and agency. It is a small and demanding genre, survival done without compromise, and so the offerings are rare and often modest in scope. I dipped into Raft and Subnautica, both celebrated in their own right, and though charming, they felt lighter, almost forgiving compared to the brutal calculus of Green Hell. Already, I knew: nothing would quite replicate this.

I approached the game with minimal expectations - just an awareness of its nutrient systems and reputation for severity. I had no inkling that beneath its harsh mechanics lay a narrative so arresting, so patient in the way it uncoils. The story emerges not as a separate track from the experience but braided into it, from the very first moments when the tutorial itself becomes a device of deception. Those early lessons, of how to inspect a wound, how to craft a blade, are not a break from the fiction but a deepening of it. That's the first of many small masterstrokes.

The interface deserves its own meditation: a tactile vocabulary of wheels and notebooks, limb inspections and backpacks. It's work - clicking, dragging, rotating - but in that work lies immersion. Many survival games bury crafting under abstract math or sterile grids. Green Hell makes you feel the improvisation of survival. Nothing snaps you out of the illusion; everything keeps you there, in the heat and humidity, shaping the world with your hands.

You inhabit Jake Higgins, an anthropologist who arrives in the Amazon rainforest with his partner, Mia, seeking contact with a native tribe. At first, the premise is simple, even familiar. Then the ground shifts. One day, Jake wakes alone, memory fractured, with only a few scattered shards of how he came to be stranded. His search for answers leads inward as much as outward, hallucinations fueled by ayahuasca blurring the line between the tangible and the imagined. What begins as a fight for survival becomes an autopsy of guilt.

The game's central twist—telegraphed yet effective—is that Mia, whose voice crackles through the walkie-talkie like a lifeline, is not in the jungle at all but in a hospital bed, dying of cancer. Those opening sequences that feel so recent actually happened years ago. Jake's present journey is the third in a chain of expeditions: the first to meet the Yabahuaca tribe, the second to smuggle back a rare mushroom that promised salvation and instead delivered catastrophe: a pandemic deadlier than COVID, a sin measured in magnitudes. Now, Jake returns in desperation, searching for a cure, staggering under the weight of his unintended genocide, his mind fracturing into conversations that never occur. It's a story not merely told but embedded - in notes, recordings, and artifacts scattered through the jungle like fragments of conscience. These breadcrumbs do what the best narrative design does: they reward not obedience to a marker but curiosity, the desire to know more than what survival requires. In this, Green Hell recalls the sense of wonder I last felt in the hostile wilds of Far Cry 2.

Mechanically, the game astonishes not by excess, but by care. Long after launch, I entered a world honed to near-perfection, free of the stumbles that so often betray ambition. Movement matters to me - weight, friction, the way the body belongs to the ground - and here it feels right. Many games, especially in this tier of budget, falter in that fundamental physicality. Green Hell does not. Every climb, every stumble through waist-high water, feels tethered to a reality both threatening and alive.

And there is so much to do! So much that feels earned rather than manufactured. Hunting, foraging, farming, crafting shelters, smelting metal, navigating caves, deciphering blueprints to coax utility from scarcity; every system interlocks in a lattice of survival logic. It gives you work, not busywork. It gives you meaning in motion. Even the defaults, often an overlooked detail, are tuned with rare precision.

The Spirits of Amazonia expansion is the one blemish, its objectives flirting too close with checklist tedium, its caves a disorienting sprawl that veers from mystery into frustration. But even there, I sensed ambition, a density that demanded persistence. The execution faltered, but the intent was bold.

Green Hell isn't perfect, but perfection isn't what survival asks of us. What it offers instead is presence. A sense of being truly somewhere, struggling against a world that doesn't give a shit if you endure. If you have even a passing hunger for that experience, you owe yourself this descent. It is, I think, a masterclass: harsh, beautiful, unrelenting, and impossible to forget.

I'm still working on the last one. The tricky part is... well, survive the ordeal.

One of the most punishing survival experiences I've ever played, Green Hell does the whole lost, naked and afraid trope extremely well considering you're not living out of a pretty house made of sticks and vines, but out of a mud hut somewhere where, to reach it, you had to get mauled by a jaguar, bitten by a rattlesnake and probably pissed off several locals.

Less scary than its similar cousin The Forest but definitely more in-depth in its survival elements, GH gives the true impression of surviving in a place where nothing wants you there.

I would recommend it for the challenge alone but the game also has a pretty interesting story that both has a conclusion and a prequel in its The Spirits of Amazzonia DLC (completely free!), extremely good and immersive graphics and, as of the latest update c.a. Jan 23rd, they added a horde mode you can opt in by building the Eternal Flame alongside a new sprawl of defenses and fortifications.

If you like a punishing survival experience that will reprimand you for drinking dirty water or sleeping in mud and don't mind graphic and 'natural' remedies to many of these maladies, Green Hell is the game for you.

Survival games are an obvious niche. But even considering that, I’m still slightly puzzled by the lack of detailed opinions I see around for this game. In the age of comprehensive game essays and hours-long video critiques, there’s nothing of the sort that I could find centred around it. In my opinion, it deserves a lot more discussion and leaning into than the occasional 5-minute reviews it seems to have gotten.

Because Green Hell is, simply put, the most impactful survival game I've played so far, in mechanical depth, content, and more surprisingly, narrative hook.

If you're anything like me though, it will leave you pulling your hair for the first few hours. The premiss is quite basic: you wake up in the middle of the Amazon tasked with a) surviving, and b) untangling the threads that explain your current predicament. However, on normal difficulty, the learning curve feels insane. The survival aspect of this game is painfully realistic, or at least as painfully realistic as a game can get, something that becomes even more brutal if you enable permadeath. Which alongside the relentless hand-holding refusal, means you’re in for quite a treat. You will die. You will often die in the most brutal of ways - mauled, infected, poisoned, lacerated, starved - and sometimes, not fully understand why. This is frustrating in the beginning, but the more you die, the more you start understanding the mechanics you're meant to engage with, so at the same time, a sense of learning begins to kick in.

This isn't to say you would do well to never seek external help - I initially had to use a guide just to understand some of Green Hell's basic elements. But by punishment, you do become better. And eventually, something in your experience changes, and the survival aspect of the experience clicks. You begin to understand what things do, how to craft and utilise tools, how to use different substances, where to find sustenance, the ways in which you can use the environment to your advantage, how to come back from a problematic physical and mental state. Your smartwatch, the ever-present companion that helps you understand what you need and when you need it, becomes your best friend in the most dire of straits. Your only friend. And incredibly, you begin to go through all of this even within the starting area, without having to venture into its vast open world. There is a lot to learn, some to master, and a few growing pains to be had. But even when it feels like it's trolling you, Green Hell never gives you more than you can chew. Not really.

At the time this all began to happen to me, I was already fully hooked, and even when I wasn't playing the game, I couldn't stop thinking about it. The sense of immersion you get while playing it, more than well executed, is visceral. Your smallest successes, when they eventually happen, are initially perceived as Mount Rushmore-level achievements. The feeling of having to effectively navigate using nothing but a vague map and compass is incredible, mainly because the entire game is set up around that premiss. This is a pet peeve of mine when it comes to the immersive feel in games, since more often than not, the ones that come with mini-maps or radars lack the environmental cues and landmarks you’d need to get by without them, so turning them off simply isn't a valid option. Even within the survival genre, navigation sometimes seems haphazardly implemented. But in Green Hell, for all intents and purposes, you are this guy stranded deep in the Amazon jungle, with all its remarkable beauty and danger that are out to amaze and kill you in equal measure. And even though it's initially difficult to get your bearings, you can navigate your way through all of it using the simplest of tools because that's a very intentional core part of the game's ethos.

This scale of immersion and survival depth would have already been enough to keep me engaged for hours, but Green Hell takes it much further than that. And one of the ways through which is does it is content. There is so much to do, so much to discover, so many different avenues to explore and modes to experiment with, and so much stuff that keeps getting added to this day, that I hardly think anyone would get bored even if they tried. I honestly feel they nailed the size of the world and how they scattered points of interest throughout. You can be as cosy or as uncomfortable as you want with how you choose to interact with the environment and the options you are given. I feel as though I haven't even scratched the surface of everything there is to see and do, and as deadly as it is, there is also a strangely alluring, almost comforting vibe to this world that kept pulling me back into it.

All this praise aside though, there is something else Green Hell does remarkably well that makes me think it could be a recommendation even for people who don’t like survival games. To me, the most surprisingly competent thing about this game is its story. I finished it a few days ago, yet I'm still thinking about it. The mysterious layer it uses to hook you and make you invested is so well sparsely fed to the player, that I can’t think of one single moment where I didn’t want to keep finding out what the hell was happening. Even when I was struggling to stay alive. Plus there’s this layer of intangible, almost supernatural elements to the narrative that not only keeps you on your toes, but also makes you wonder about exactly how straightforward your character’s own experience is. Without getting into spoiler territory, the journey makes very effective use of some millennia-old Amazonian practices in the form of eye-opening plant medicine (with the visual and audio spectacle that comes with it), and this serves as a very unusual driving force behind the narrative beats. So much so that I don’t remember any other game using something like this to this degree. Admittedly, everything about this game will hit closer to home if you have first-hand experience with either the substances or the setting it explores, but I feel even someone completely detached from it will appreciate its singular approach. Then there’s the ending, or rather the endings, which don’t disappoint in the slightest, even though one of them stands head and shoulders above the rest in terms of impact. Green Hell came out almost four years ago, yet ironically, the story it tells is likely more relevant today than it was on release.

There is a bunch of stuff Green Hell could've done, and since they keep updating the game, can still do better. I would strongly appreciate a considerably longer day/night cycle (similar to State of Decay 2's 90mins, basically double what GH currently has). I would also like to see more customisation options, such as predator and tribesman spawn rates. Console controls are far from intuitive, and it takes quite a while to get comfortable with them. Some of the physics can be a bit wonky, and pop-in can sometimes look atrocious. Finally, story-wise, the main character could certain be more charismatic. Not all of this could be fixed coming from the game's current state, but addressing the things that could would already make a significant difference towards enjoyment. The funny thing is though, while some of these issues are annoyingly in your face on a regular basis, they still aren’t enough for me to see this game as anything short of wonderful.

You know those moments when you think back to something you’ve experienced in your past and immediately get washed away by an emotion associated with that time, such as nostalgia, comfort or fond memories? This was me with Green Hell, mere days after I had stopped playing it. It made me feel a certain way, emotionally heavy, but a good heavy. The kind of heavy that sticks and makes you realise the game you’ve just played meant more to you than you could've possibly anticipated. It rarely happens, you don't quite know why it happens, but nevertheless, it's there. I wish more people would talk about this game. I wish more people would praise it. If you haven’t yet and feel like trying it out, don't get disheartened by its perceived initial difficulty. And even if you’re not into survival games I'd say put it on easy and give it a go, since there may likely be something in it for you, story-wise. For all its frustrations, there is a very impressive blueprint on display here in the way it blends gameplay, mechanical depth, environment, choice-consequence gravity, atmosphere and compelling narrative, that I’ve never seen executed in the survival genre in quite the same way. Which is all the more impressive for a dev’s first title. 9/10

The first immediate impression you'll have is how in depth this game can be from the get go with it's inventory system and basically a more complex version of how The Forest worked it's survival elements, however, you'll immediately know this is sorta of a double edged sword because the tutorials are kinda vague and every single thing in this game takes a thousand steps to perform, it's not quite like those realism games where you control each and every limb of your body to perform an action but... Here's an example of one of the first things you must do in the game and it is sorta vague and a lot of people had to look up a tutorial, you are stuck in the introduction of the game until you discover:

Get machete, start fire blueprint, chop small thin tree to get sticks, chop stick pieces into smaller pieces, individually put in order: long sticks, sticks and small sticks, get dry leaves, then in the crafting menu, unlike the blueprint, you gotta manually remember how to craft it from looking the recipe in the notes, combine sticks, make a firestarter, and here is a point that I got stuck in, there are little circles around certain stuff that you open the inventory menu to drag and drop things in these little circles slots, select the firestarter, and then drag and drop the dry leaves into the small circle below the firestarter, you'll create some firey ashes to then carry it to the firestarter. The UI isn't that intuitive at first but maybe you'll get used to it. Everything is a 10 step process, and there is no proper tutorial for it.

With that said, look at how many menus you have at your disposal! Leon from Resident Evil 4 with his suitcase would be jealous, and you get an amazing sci-fi watch that does all sorts of things. Every time a new mechanic was introduced immediately through the introduction I was stunned, this is insanely detailed, you can inspect individual parts of your body, not only are there a lot of dragging and dropping from several menus, but a lot of these survival elements are based on real life, yes, you can use tobbaco for snake bites (I did not know of that), Molineria is an actual Amazonian thin leaf plant (can't find any research of it being used as a bandage but). I'll keep it real with you, on the minimum expect to die 10 times in the beginner area...

A beginner area with a tiger that you cannot fight in any capacity, this game is not gonna hand hold you nor is it beginner friendly apparently, by the 10 times you die you'll discover that you need to sleep, that you can eat crabs and bananas, that there's a bush with some nice safe fruits and most importantly that you can crack open a coconut and put water in it to boil water. It is a LOT of trial and error. Oh and to keep you on your toes too, the items are NEVER in the same location, they are all randomized.

One of the few ways at first to escape the panther is to jump into a river. At first the fictional group of native hits a little too close to home to legitimate Brazilian ones but I guess the story handles it in such a way that the problematic depiction of THE SAVAGES isn't done as that badly because not all of them are bad and wanting to kill you! and yes, spoilers, of course most of the story is around the idea of tribes fighting each other and one of the bad ones GET YOUR WIFE! Comparisons have to be made, but I like to think this game as the child of Metal Gear Solid and The Forest for obvious reasons, whenever I remove leeches from my character it feels like I am playing a Nintendo DS game as I drag and drop them off like it's a Wario Ware Touched mini game.

I can't help but go this entire review without mentioning it but, yes, there is a chance this game would not exist had it not been for The Forest, who set a pretty good standard for these survival games, I can't say the same about Subnautica because Subnautica I think started around the same time and was in development hell, this game? I'm not sure, maybe it was in development hell but I wasn't there. All of these games seem to have a painstaking development history due to their ambition, anyways going to comparisons:

Unlike The Forest, it is more inspired by realism, which is saying a lot as The Forest whole thing was realism (although The Forest feels more gamey if there is a way to put it), there's many similar mechanics in fact the fact that you can boil water on a tortoise shell is literally a thing you can do on both games, but yes the added realism aspects is that food system is more complex, and so is everything including fevers, healing, disease etc, the sanity mechanic is also worked more into an aspect of this game. The Forest had a silent protagonist, this doesn't, so losing your Sanity makes you hear your own character (who kinda sounds like Sonic the Hedghehog and I swear it was his recent voice actor, the one from Dying Light, it is not, I never heard of the voice actor really) go insane and also spawn extra enemies that do you harm even if they're only figments of your imagination. The Forest sometimes is a bit easier as it just gives you so many chances to get things naturally or just never unbreakable items that make the game easy, Green Hell is not like that, there is no cool secret item that will last you forever or easy shots.

In a way this game has some pros and cons in it's differences to The Forest,in the end it becomes a lot more based on preference, for me, as much as I love the Forest and it became a classic in my heart, even if the The Forest has clearly more soul put into it as it is more a more confined indie-r game I feel, Green Hell feels like it is more ambitious and has a LOT more effort to it, which is pretty much the basis of why I'm giving it a higher score than The Forest, this is not to say that more complexity = better for everyone, because you really do feel sometimes this being a problem, making a hut shelter in The Forest takes just chopping 1 or 2 trees, there's means of chopping the trees easier, in Green Hell, it feels as if to make a simple shelter it just drags on.

Again this has pros and cons to it depending on how you see it, making building a base more of a heavy investment means you can't do it like The Forest where you become overpowered and just easily gain the system by making huge bases which fence around everything. In Green Hell you are always limited and never really overpowered even if you did manage at one point get lucky to make enough tortuise armor, in The Forest sooner or later you are gonna be like a dude who has conquered the entire Island, there are certain map designs in Green Hell designed to stop this because The Forest is a lot more open and Green Hell is confined to these closed areas most of the time.

There is also a different design approach to the two games, The Forest has more easier and faster base building because the enemies more often try to kill you and the game is centered around you essentially creating an outright war against the cannibals, enemies do spawn quite a lot in the Green Hell, but it isn't like a wave of zombies that come very often in The Forest, it's like one or two rarely. A lot of things in general in Green Hell seem to not spawn very often when you need them to spawn. The combat in The Forest compared to this one is also extremely fast-paced and wild, Green Hell is more strategic and methodic about it's combat whenever it happens, mostly because of the STAMINA SYSTEM, which is a lot more harder annd complicated in Green Hell.

Everything in The Forest is a simpler faster process, Green Hell prides itself on how realistic it is and how much of a pain in the ass it is to establish yourself in everything. So it is essentially a less casual experience, and although I do appreciate the effort they put into this game to make it not fun, some people just don't like that lack of fun. The game would have probably been easier with Co-op but the same could be said of The Forest. But in general, one of the aspects of why I find this game to be better is of course just generally the more amount of effort and polish.

However, that doesn't stop making Green Hell, a hell, it might bring some comfort to those who wish to stay in the Amazonian forests of fake Brazil, whenever it be out of a traumatic Stockholm syndrome experience towards it, the biggest complain of this game is how hard it is to navigate and get lost through it, one of the means to progress plot is to find native bases and start a little anuyussha sequence, while Subnautica is extremely open and has MARKERS, this game only has a compass and an extremely vague means.

If you are like me in which you will be absent from playing a game for a few months and come back to it, you might have forgotten the whole map you planned out when exploring this forest for the first time, the forest is dense and many locations look similar due to this, it is hard to exactly pinpoint where you are or if you passed one of the locations you've been at, even when following your compass and being like "I thought there was something directly south of this, what did i do wrong" apparently you were like 10 inches close to it but due to the flora you couldn't see it behind the bushes, and unlike the Forest, the locations aren't that distinct, one of the means to familirize yourself is to just... Build a base everywhere until the whole forest becomes a 1-man engineered city.

At least that way you won't feel in danger when will the next pitstop for food or a savepoint to savescum will be, if you happen to be poisoned or find a tiger. Half of the time in this game you are hugging the walls hoping you end up somewhere you visited once by pure chance. If the idea of building multiple bases around and making this forrest less of a hostile easy to get loss to mess isn't attractive to you, well that is one of this game's main features.

The goal is to literally conquer this forest, and it has to be with the little wave of addiction this game gives, because if you can't do it all in one take it is a bit hard to actually feel compelled to complete the game, sooner or later the feeling of wanting to be in this jungle will be gone so if you ever play this game play it one take because, such a feeling made that this game went from 5/5 to 4/5.