The Quiet Apocalypse
• 7-10 hour story. Unlimited opportunity for exploration when the story is finished.
• Explore over 400km² of stylised wilderness during this hardcore walking challenge.
• Use your compass and map to navigate towards your objectives in 60 handcrafted story missions.
• Find secrets and solve puzzles, as you discover the backstories and histories of 45 of the most unique residents of the Fairborne Mountains.
• Delve into 45,000 words of original narrative, contained within 150 diaries, books, letters and journals. Piece the story together, to unravel a mystery that has lain dormant for fifteen years.
• Trek through rolling hills and moorland, dense temperate forest, towering canyons, arid deserts, and long dormant volcanic mountains, all of which are beautifully lit by a dynamic day/night cycle.
It’s fifteen long years since the last child was born in the mountains. One morning, a carrier pigeon arrives at Doc Hendersen’s farm with a message. The message comes from Communion Creek, an isolated settlement in the far north of the Fairborne Mountains. The news is amazing, a woman in Communion Creek is pregnant, and due to give birth. In order for the baby to have any chance of survival, Doc knows he has to inoculate the child as soon as it is born. Doc immediately sets out on the arduous trek, fully aware of the immeasurable value of the child. But rumours are hard to suppress in the mountains, and dark forces begin to close in…. Join your father in an adventure-based walking simulator set in a near future period, as humanity is experiencing the final stages of its pre-extinction decline. You’ll be navigating and traversing punishing terrain, often in difficult weather, with only a compass and your wits to guide you, but all the struggles will be worth it, when you see what’s over the next hill.
‘The Quiet Apocalypse’ uses landscape streaming to present over 400km² of stylised wilderness at solid framerates, and without the use of loading screens. Landscape streaming can cause occasional brief jitters in frame rates as data is loaded and unloaded. This is highly dependent on individual hardware configurations, so please bear this in mind if you feel that occasional interruptions to steady frame rate may hamper your enjoyment of the title. We always recommend that ‘The Quiet Apocalypse’ is run from SSD storage.
Game Discussion
Steam User 22
The Quiet Apocalypse is more than a walking simulator... it is 'find your way across the wilderness with a compass' simulator and it does a good job of capturing a sense of orienteering. Your direction may be SE, but if there is a mountain or cliff in the way, you have to choose a safe path around and then readjust your bearings once you've cleared the obstacle. Climbing to a hill top and scanning for landmarks (such as radio towers) is also helpful. On steep slopes, moving diagonally is much safer than facing downhill at a run. So, there is a sense of planning your route which I enjoyed.
You begin your journey with a note from your father that has instructions on how to follow him. You move from one way-point to the next, finding notes from your father along the way. You also build a story of what happened to the people and the world through other notes that are lying about. At first, the level of instructions for each quest seemed excessive. But, this is to get you into the swing of the game. With such a vast geography, specific travel instructions became beneficial because it kept me on track without getting lost.
The game has a map which shows points of interest and your current position/direction which is essential to efficient travel. All notes you find are stored in your inventory which is also handy for reviewing the clues and instructions they provide.
Several areas have mini-quests to find keys and unlock doors. There were 3 puzzle areas that were a nice break from travel. You find batteries for your flashlight and syringes/vials for healing as you proceed. I had very little use for either (it stayed daylight most of the time and my injuries from falling were never severe).
The landscape is varied and detailed and the sound track consists of environmental noises and music in some areas. You are on a solitary journey and the absence of characters and conversation lends to your feeling of being alone in a big world.
The game auto-saves at way-points and then saves as you exit structures. You always have two save files to choose from. These may be 45 minutes apart, or 3 minutes apart, depending on your current position and actions. One caveat is that there is no save when you are in the wilderness. Since it may take 30 - 45 minutes to move between way-points, I had to plan on finishing each run between points in one sitting rather than stopping mid-way (and thus losing progress).
For completionists, all but 1 achievement are hard to miss if you can follow instructions, use a compass, and navigate in a general direction.
I enjoyed this game, despite the very long periods of running through the wilderness. You cover a lot of ground and my time spent in this game reflects the distances I traveled. A 4-wheeler would have been nice but I'm not complaining! It should be noted that the ability to run was added after the initial release. This improved travel times and I'm not sure I would have enjoyed the game had I been limited to walking.
I recommend this to those who enjoy an unhurried scenic journey with an interesting story (albeit one that ends rather abruptly and without further explanation).
Steam User 14
Alright. The Quiet Apocalypse is done and dusted. I really enjoyed this game. It is the epitome of a walking simulator, which I generally enjoy, and it's the type of game that really has you thinking about it after you wrap it up.
This is a game that's all about the story and the journey to uncover the various pieces that make the whole picture clear. I will say that this is also obviously a product of living through COVID, even if it possibly didn't begin development that way. Not really sure how far back this was being written, but yeah. The story is multi-faceted, where there are a few distinct storylines that all come together to provide a very nuanced tale of impending manmade or human influenced doom being preempted by a naturally occurring extinction event. Which was really, really cool. I found myself easily picturing and hearing the people being described in or actually writing the notes that convey the story throughout. In fact, it was easy to forget that this game has no voice acting, so evocative was the writing and so detailed were the notes you find on your journey. It's rare that the writing in games is this focused and high quality. I saw people had trouble finding certain locations, but for me, following the instructions in the notes was adequate to find all but one location, and I didn't really put any effort into finding that location since I had chosen a different path to the main objective at that point in the game.
The gameplay itself is 100% walking simulator. There are a couple lite puzzles and one reasonably involved one, and a fair amount of locations, with a lot of walking from place to place. One negative is there is no toggle for fast walking. You have to hold down the shift button. And given how vast this game is and just how much walking you actually do in between objectives, that was a fairly serious oversight that I'd guess is a leading cause for people not finishing this game. Holding down the shift button for ten-ish hours isn't ideal. That aside, the locations are pretty cool and the world, while clearly pushing the limits of the landscape streaming, still looks really nice. It is repetitive, but effective nonetheless.
The game does stutter and freeze periodically as implied in the product description. However, that aside, it ran perfectly on my PC with k/m. The same can't be said for the Steam Deck or a gamepad however. It was virtually unplayable on the Steam Deck, where the stuttering and framerate drops were significant; and gamepad requires remapping, after which it still feels kind of off.
I would also note that the quest objective for getting to the White Desert is wrong at first. When it tells you to go to the NE corner of the area, don't do that initially. Go North instead. It's only after completing two objectives to the North that it triggers the true time in which you would actually go to the NE corner.
I mentioned it previously, but the story kind of blew my mind in a way. The way it continued to evolve throughout the game was very impressive and I'll be thinking about this one for some time to come. I saw the developer had mentioned making a side story game with some survival horror mechanics. I think that would suit this world well and hopefully he's still working on that idea. Additionally, there is a clear opportunity for a true sequel as well, which I'd be interested in. All in all, I would highly recommend this game to anyone who has the patience to walk vast stretches of in game maps and loves a great story.
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Steam User 9
This is a really interesting game and I am definitely enjoying exploring the world!
I had no issues with the game speed. Please relax and enjoy.
I had a small issue with my save file, and dev sorted it out for me almost immediately.
Weather system is particularly nice, with realistic clouds and gaps in clouds seeing through to stars etc.
Steam User 31
You know, I didn't know what to expect, but this is a very nice little game! It is basically a walking simulator with no fighting, but it has an interesting and mysterious story about a worldwide catastrophe.
PROS.
The story pulled me in, always wanting to know more. Little by little, the story is revealed in letters found in abandoned buildings. The graphics are great -- not over-the-top, but very realistic with lots of fine detail and interesting clutter in the buildings. One of the most unusual things is the size of the world -- 154 sq miles! That's huge -- larger than Ghost Recon (105 sq mi), Witcher 3 (84 sq mi), WoW (80 sq mi), GTA V (49 sq mi), Red Dead 2 (29 sq mi), and far larger than Skyrim (15 sq mi).
CONS.
There's only one: the settings say there is a keybind for Run, but it doesn't work -- you can only walk. Dev, please fix this! Even though it takes a bit too much time getting from one objective to another, I can still live with it. After all, it is a walking simulator, and the scenery is varied and interesting.
SUMMARY. If you want a relaxing game that has an interesting, mysterious story, this is it. A real diamond in the rough, and obviously, a labor of love. Nicely done, Dev.
Steam User 5
I love the visuals of this game. It is nice to look at and the story is interesting and disturbing enough to the point I have played. I realize they added a run feature, but it is not very fast; more like a fast walk. The destinations, in my opinion, are spaced too far apart. It took me 20 minutes to reach the desert from the forest with absolutely nothing interesting going on in that time. That is honestly the only complaint I have. It really is unappealing to fall and die or crash and be set back 20 minutes of walking to get back to where you were.
Steam User 5
I like walking sims. But there has to be balance, and this one tips the scales between walking and doing heavily in the "walking" part. would be fun if either there was stuff to do along the way, faster walking, or less distance. Just sayin" Still giving it a thumbs up. I want the devs to keep after it.
EDIT:
Now that I've played a bit more, I like it more, unfortunately, I hit the wrong item on the menu, and erased all of my progress. Starting over.
BOTTOM LINE:
I've logged about 12 hours and love the game...with caveats. I just slipped down the side of a hill and died about 30 minutes into my trip to the gunsmith's house to pick up a gun left there for me, and the game restarts me back at the checkpoint. I feel very safe in restating my first objection, TOO MUCH WALKING.
This game has all the makings of a great walking adventure. Please don't make the mistake the Drizzlepaath games do and waste so much time in travel. You could literally fill this map with easily 10 times the activities, or shrink it, or even supply a motorcycle.
I think you have a winner on your hands, just less walking between adventures.
Steam User 1
This game is THE VERY DEFINITION of a walking simulator! lol!
Yes, there are vast walking distances between destinations, but I found this to be very relaxing and meditative! I loved how you would hear nature waking up with every sunrise, and the weather system was cool! The thunderstorms were a little frightening, and I was a little apprehensive about getting struck by lightening while on the open plains!
The story was very well written! It is told through letters left by your father, as well as letters and diary pages left by residents, scientists, cult leaders, and people from all walks of life, all found in completely abandoned places! There are plot twists and stories overlapping other stories!
If you enjoy a good narrative, nature, and walking, I highly recommend this game!