The future is bleak and what little hope you have left is fading with each passing day. No, this isn’t about the chaos that is the year 2020 and its monthly apocalyptic advent calendar. Instead, let’s travel back to 1917, pre-Bolshevik Imperial Russia, and rather than worrying about what the state the world is in because of a pandemic, focus on how you will survive through the harsh Siberian wilderness. Developed by Arclight Creations and published by Klabater, Help Will Come Tomorrow is a choose your own adventure, survival game that really emphasizes on how working together can mean the difference between dying or living.
As the game begins with your survivors just having escaped a train crash and murdering bandits, it is up to your choices and actions to get them to live another day. Like those group projects that you’ve probably experienced and dreaded in school, not all the characters will like one another. Be prepared to go through a beginner’s rough patch as resources are limited, and the group morale continually goes down as each day passes. Some may excel more than others at tasks, but all must still contribute if they want to live. Learn of their traits, strengths, and weaknesses as they must work together despite coming from different backgrounds.
There is no abundance of food, water, or medicine at hand, even at the easier difficulty setting, as you must search throughout the wilderness and build what you need. Chose carefully on each task or how you use supplies as it’s easy to accidentally kill one of your survivors by selecting a few wrong choices. Especially when limited to 3 action points a day, you must tactically divide and decide on what is most crucial to get done in one day. The game only begins to get easier the longer you play, and your characters have developed enough trust, skills, and tools to aid in their survival.
Help Will Come Tomorrow is not an action-filled game as it leans more towards strategy and planning. There is plenty of reading involved and seems more fitting for PC as the gameplay mechanics while playing on the PS4 feels oddly clunky. The instructions to construct items and structures is also a bit unclear and without a good understanding, this is detrimental to getting a good start on your character’s survival. It’s also unclear of how much of a difference morale makes in the storyline of the game. Despite knowing the characters through brief introductions, there really is not much emotional investment in your group. There is such a heavy emphasis on just surviving, that when someone dies, it’s more just frustrating than a sadness when they are gone.
This probably isn’t the best game to play during what our world is currently experiencing with the mad politics and the pandemic as the tone of the game is quite somber. However, if you can succeed and have your survivors thriving, then perhaps this is really the game for you. There is not much we can control in our own lives, but in Help Will Come Tomorrow, it is your decisions that can change theirs.
PROS: Interesting, can be played multiple times with different results.
CONS: Construction mechanics are unclear on PS4 and the story/gameplay is not as engaging as it could be.
Check Out the Help Will Come Tomorrow Video:
Help Will Come Tomorrow is available on PC via Steam, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.
Video games have always been a huge influence in my life and have definitely shaped me to who I am today . Some of my best memories growing up were the many adventures and stories I was able to experience and become immersed in. If my hands aren't either covered in clay, typing, editing, creating, or helping shoving food in my mouth, they would either be gripped to a controller, tapping away at the screen of my phone, or clicking away on my PC. I am always up for trying something new because why live just one life when you can live many.
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