The Flame in the Flood Reviews
If you can handle the wild river - and the odd bug - there's plenty to love in this heartfelt survival game.
The Flame in the Flood is a beautiful procedurally generated survival sim that gains a welcome sense of momentum from the need to stay on the move. Its unwieldy menus and tendency to crash ruins some of the fun, unfortunately, but not enough to diminish the strength of the hopeful, riverbound journey at its core.
Lovely and challenging with enjoyable crafting and survival elements, but poor river controls make it harsher than it should be.
Not the deepest wilderness survival game around in terms of gameplay, but certainly one of the most atmospheric and thought-provoking.
This challenging voyage makes for one of the most memorable and satisfying survival games in the last few years
The Flame in the Flood is an harsh and absorbing survival game that never lets you rest on your laurels, with fantastic audiovisual design direction.
Beautiful but clumsy, with a very helpful wet dog.
Overall, the experience of playing The Flame in The Flood is more frustrating than nerve-wracking. I get that survival games won't be easy, but their systems should feel balanced, not bullshit. And the nodal method of traveling down river can feel futile in its own way. There's a big, bad wolf between me and any desire to play this further.
The post-societal visuals of crumbling buildings, broken-down cars drifting along the flooded river, and menacing wildlife lurking in the distance, paired with an excellent folk rock soundtrack featuring Chuck Ragan, creates a unique atmosphere of exploring a desolate frontier. It's easy to become absorbed in this world and end up spending much more time on this treacherous river than you initially intended. That is, until it swiftly kills you without remorse. It seems mother nature is a cruel mistress indeed.
The Flame In The Flood is a remarkably well crafted entry in the survival genre that sets itself apart with compelling gameplay, an intriguing setting, and a stellar soundtrack. Having released on computer and Xbox One last year, its arrival on PlayStation 4 with the Complete Edition will hopefully see it find a new audience to entice on a beautiful, and bleak, journey down the river.
A powerful, emotional survival adventure, The Flame in the Flood manages to stand out even in a swiftly-populating genre.
The Flame in the Flood has amazing moments that stick with you and far outweigh all the annoying bits. It is beautiful at times, but also melancholy and grim in other moments. If you are looking for a difficult survival game, you will certainly get that, unless you find great deal of supplies early on.
The Flame in the Flood is a quiet apocalypse in which it's Mother Nature you have to fight, not aliens or zombies. The goal is to drift down a river in a flooded world to reach salvation at the end. Surviving is no walk in the park, but with Chuck Ragan's brilliant soundtrack to soothe you, it's sure worth a try.
The Flame in the Flood is beautiful, desolate, and it will kill you again and again.
Where I'm at with the game now is that I do enjoy playing and it's because it offers a beautiful and non-overwhelming survival option. I also find that the repetition of crafting and of landscape and of encounters combined with changes in biome end up feeling like verses in a song – familiar but with some of the beats changed up. But I also find that I feel I'm spinning my wheels a lot, that the systems aren't creating interesting or varied stories.
The Flame in the Flood offers up a sometimes overly-difficult survival adventure, but the fantastic visuals and tense gameplay provide plenty of reasons to keep playing.
There are times that The Flame in the Flood feels like the world is against you. And it is. But that's the mechanic you are dealing with here. You will die, a lot. If that runs counter to what you find fun, this game might not be for you. But if you'd like to try something entirely unique, look no further.
The Flame in the Flood is a good game, and offers a bit of fun getting the hang of the crafting, the environment, and figuring out what really is important to keep and what else you'll need to consume or discard to make room for the former. It's not without it's bugs and frustrations, but in the thick of it, it really does drive you to push for one more camp, to explore one more section of river before putting it down. But once you've had your fill and finally do put it down, I'm not convinced you'll go running back to it. There is a bit too much repetition in the experience. It's a good game, but lacks staying power.
It's a game that challenges your way of thinking, forcing you to live by each moment and ditch that hoarding habit you've been harbouring. So grab your raft, enjoy the views and just try to survive. It's harder than you think.
While there are some technical difficulties that need to be worked out, The Flame in the Flood is still moderately enjoyable.