Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Heart of the Forest

Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest is a visual novel role-playing video game developed by Different Tales and published by Walkabout Games. It was originally released on October 13, 2020 for Linux, MacOS, Microsoft Windows. A Nintendo Switch version was released on January 7, 2021, and also released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on February 24, 2021. It is based on the tabletop role-playing game Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and is part of the larger World of Darkness series. The player takes the role of Maia Boroditch, an American woman of Polish descent, who has recurring nightmares about a forest and wolves, and travels to Białowieża in Poland to learn about her family history and the primeval Białowieża Forest. The gameplay is text-based, and consists of reading narration while making decisions that affect the story's direction and Maia's personality. Actions consume rage and willpower resources, and affect what actions can be performed in the future. The game is designed by Jacek Brzeziński and Artur Ganszyniec, and is themed around anger and activism in times of climate change and ecological disasters, portrayed through werewolf myths, and taking influence from Polish werewolf legends. The writing team, consisting of Ganszyniec, Marta Malinowska, and Joanna Wołyńska-Ganszyniec, began scriptwriting with creating Maia; they chose to create a female protagonist to go against what they saw as a trend of women in horror stories portrayed as helpless or femme fatales. The game saw positive reviews, citing its atmosphere and immersion, its art style, and the weight of player choices.