When you think about what separates a game from other forms of media, what comes to mind? Well... There's a very good chance that everything you just imagined is lacking from Draugen, which to be clear, doesn't need to be a bad thing. Unfortunately however, the game constantly attempts to fake these missing aspects in ways that actively harm the experience. For example, there are points where you are able to ask questions or choose responses in conversations but these make little to no difference as all options are either required or are simply not important. You spend most of the game walking from place to place in order to progress the story but this often requires a lot of backtracking. I have nothing against so called "Walking Simulators", if anything I would say that I normally enjoy them. Draugen on the other hand just fails to keep the pacing required to hold my interest. What's worse is the fact that the story is highly predictable! Within half an hour of booting the game I'd already figured out what was going on and I'm confident that most other players would do the same. On a technical level the game runs terribly! Sub 60fps at 1080p on a 1080ti in sections. The game's options are also lacking as barring the volumetric lighting there was very little performance to claw back by dropping the settings. This would not be such an issue if it was not for the fact that the game really does not look all that good visually. There seems to be issues with the lighting where some objects don't cast shadows and the character models have this really dated look about them. Voice acting is OK but can be a little harsh on the ears from time to time with talks often sounding more like narration than a conversation. Overall this is not a very good game and I would serious look to avoid it if you have a very low tolerance to video game jank.
