I have a problem. I tend to get very obsessed and let a medium consume me to the point that it’s all I think about. It’s been a fantastic couple of years for video games, with people like Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Freedom, Alan Wake 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3 having taken up all my free time. I’ve put 250 hours into Baldur’s Gate 3 and I want more, but I thought it was time to take a break before giving Honor Mode a chance, so I turned to a game that already broke my heart once: Endling. I first bought it for my PS4 in 2022 and loved it, so I wanted to see how it would work on the PS5.
You’ve probably heard of Lost, where you play as a stray cat in a dystopian world. Endling is a bit like that. His tagline is “Extinction is forever,” so in retrospect that should have prepared me for what was to come, but I got carried away by the cute foxes on the cover. Yes, I judged a book by its cover. I wasn’t prepared for the existential dread this game would instill in me. Endling is the only offering from Spanish studio Herobeat for now, and I think it will be difficult to beat.
The plot is simple: you play as the last mother fox trying to protect and feed her cubs in a dystopian future devastated by humanity. The game begins with the mother fox running through the forest as a forest fire breaks out around her and, shortly after arriving at her lair, she gives birth. At the beginning of the game, one of the puppies is kidnapped and you are tasked with finding him while continuing to search for the remaining puppies. It is a 2.5D side-scroller that works on a day-night system. You must return home before dawn, otherwise the poachers will chase you. I can’t count how many times I’ve panicked trying to find escape routes as poachers converge in both directions.
Let them eat…whatever is available.
A lot of emphasis is placed on finding food for your puppies. It’s simple: if they don’t eat, they will die. And extinction really is forever because their bodies won’t decompose, so if you revisit their place of death, prepare for the most guilt you’ve ever felt in a video game. But there are few gains in this world, or in our world in 100 years or so, which is what Herobeat wanted to portray. At first you can find berries, eggs and hunt mice and fish, but things get worse as the game progresses and humans continue cutting down trees and polluting rivers.
Garbage bags replace where the bushes were, and there are cases where if you try to open a paper bag to eat, the bag will begin to suffocate the mother fox. You will also have to venture further and further from your lair in search of food, increasing the risk of being ambushed by poachers or not finding food before dawn. Yes, it’s stressful.
There is no spoken dialogue.
When I think about video games that made me cry, two always come to mind. The end of Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core He made me reach for the tissues in 2007, and I was a mess when that thing happened in Red Dead Redemption 2. Both games have a lot of dialogue, so I didn’t think Endling would destroy me too, all without saying a single word.
Having played Baldur’s Gate 3, where there is so much emphasis on dialogue, returning to Endling was quite a shock. It’s a quiet world, where the occasional birdsong or humans drilling are all that breaks the silence. But that’s where Endling’s skill lies. It’s about the environment and the way you see the environment deteriorate over the course of 5-6 hours of gameplay. It’s a short but impactful game that doesn’t need any spoken dialogue to convey the severity of human destruction.
And not everything is black and white
However, not all humans in Endling suck. Sure, most of the human characters you’ll encounter in the game want to skin the mother fox and her cubs; They will chase you with machetes and even try to shoot you from a distance. But you’ll also find humans who will sing to you, give you food, and even pet you (which also unlocks an achievement). Some of them will also ignore you completely, happy to coexist with you.
While we’re on the topic, not all animals in the game are nice to you either. You will encounter an owl that will try to kidnap your cubs. At the same time, if you play your cards right, you might come across a badger and his cub who will help you and even join your den for the night. When you first meet the badger, he is distant, because he too is trying to survive. And that’s where empathy for each Endling character comes into play.
Without spoiling too much (because you need to play this game yesterday), remember how I said your puppy gets kidnapped? It turns out that there is a very good explanation behind why the poacher kidnapped the puppy. And the furrier who seeks your blood? I hate him as much as the next person, but I can’t blame him for trying to survive, and that’s the message Herobeat tries to convey: both humans and animals will do whatever they can when their survival is at stake. Endling forces you to empathize with every creature you encounter. He forces you to ask yourself, “What would he do if he were one of the last surviving human beings?” He indicates existential fear.
A beautiful and complete experience.
Endling is one of the most beautiful games I have ever played. It already looked great on the PS4, but it looks even better on the PS5 and works great. It also uses the PS5’s adaptive triggers that make your fight for survival more immersive (and intense). Plus, the DualSense’s haptic feedback works great when petting your pups. Puppy hugs are better now.
I’m currently planning on getting the platinum trophy, but I don’t know how many more times I can play Endling before I completely break down. There are also a number of achievements that drive you crazy, so seeing them appear made me laugh, a brief respite from the gut-wrenching feeling.
There are no happy endings in Endling. You don’t just stumble upon a hidden patch of lush grass and thick forest as you approach the end. In the final sequence, you and your pups swim through a flood and run across a barren landscape while seeing humans in the distance likely traveling to their next destination in search of food and shelter. I won’t spoil the ending for you, but I will advise you to have tissues handy. It’s a survival story that will surely strike a chord with you and make you look at the world from a different perspective.
Endling: Extinction Is Forever is available for PC, nintendo switch, PS5, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, iOS and Android.
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