Green Hell

After using this game as the reference point to which I compare all realistic survival games for the past ten or so years, I guess I really should write a review on it.
This is THE realistic wilderness survival game. If Primtive Technology had a game, it would be this. If Bear Grylls made a game, he would make this one. There are other games that perhaps more granular systems like Dwarf Fortress or Unreal World, but those games are both spreadsheet simulators and primitive people didn't have spreadsheets. All they had was their own willingness to get stuff done. If all of that resonates with you, this is the game for you. If you understand that there are sounds in the jungle that you MUST recognize, and they sound a lot like the other sounds, this is the game for you. If you understand that being bit by a snake while you're alone in the woods an hour's walk from camp means simply that you die, this is the game for you. Crank the diffulty up to King of the Jungle (Green Hell feels a bit like ball torture and is probably developer's very hard difficulty but cranked to a level they dont enjoy) and get ready to eat some spiders because cannibals chased you out of your shit shack and they came from the direction where you store your weapons. Watch, listen, learn, Crack your coconuts, collect your rainwater, observe how other humans survive the environment and copy it and barely survive another day. Dont leave the fire at night, don't wander too far from the known trail, and if you hear other humans in the trees, don't assume they're your friends.
I dont even have a good way to review this game because it's the basis of comparison to which I use to measure good survival games. This is it. All of the fat is removed, except the essential dietary ones from your brazil and pine nuts. I cant even think of things that would make it objectively better and my only suggestions would be things I would just like, such as a pet monkey. The person who made this game was passionate about both videogame development and amazon wilderness survival, and that is the only way this game could possibly exist.
I'm going to be honest in that I dont even really know or remember what the story is about. Some boring guy and his girlfriend gave everyone aids and now theyre about as sorry as Oppenheimer was or something. Your guy is a botanist but you have to rub every single plant you encounter directly in your eyeball to figure out what it does you cant just rub it on soft skin or take a little taste. Eat that fistful of berries. If anyone cares theyre a dork. Throw all that stuff in the trash and just go be alone in the jungle. There is something very unique about there being a near endless list of chores to be done with each one not really changing your life, but simply allowing you more time to think, that gets you down on the level of your ancestors and puts almost all of society into perspective. You can trace almost all things back down the line to that experience of being alone in the woods and fighting for every crumb you eat. The car exists because walking from where the bananas are to where the pigs are takes too much of your sitting down time and it's really that simple.

Start game. Play tutorial for 10 minutes.
Exited to play with my friend.
Start multiplayer lobby.
Wander around for five minutes looking for stuff.
Die.
Respawn.
Die.
Respawn.
Wander around for 30 minutes.
Find a mushroom.
Eat mushroom because of hunger.
Get poisoned.
Die.
Respawn.
Walk across the map once more.
Get chased by naked men.
Die.
9/10 reccomend this game

Convinced my friend to grab this game since it's on sale.
Now? He's out there making sure every hostile tribal/natives had a taste of his bow and arrow.
I've created a monster...

Edit on 10/9/25: Again... this is NOT a game for cryb4b13s. Be ready to survive hell, grind, do repetitive tasks, get punished for your mistakes, bleed, puke, die, die again, fight naked people with spears, giant spiders, jaguars, snakes, centipedes, alligators, etc etc etc and be a GLORIOUS SURVIVAL G0D(D3SS) (when you do it #feelsgoodbruh, really) or GTFO.
And I've just discovered it was made using Unity. Outstanding.
--
The reason why this game still doesn't have Overwhelming positive score:
- Casual player goes to discounted games
- Buys a game named Green *HELL* without reading the description
- Dies
- Dies again
- And again
- And again after failing miserably to think what's wrong
- After less than an hour leave a negative review saying its too hard, theres no tutorial, you get sick/hungry/thirsty too fast, almost die with a single jaguar tackle, complain that its too real and end the review saying that the devs that are giving the game free updates/patches/improvements since the release don't give a s*** to the game. AND its all the game's fault.
#b1tchplease

Make first shelter
Make campfire
go to small lake for hydration
see its getting dark
go back to camp
cant find camp
starts running around to find camp
steps on snake
DIES

10/10 game would recommend

I skipped the tutorial because im a "proffesional"
i died 4 times and when i finally got a weapon,small camp and medicine game sents a cougar *i think*
to brutally beat my ass to death

Green Hell is my favorite survival-focused game of all time. No other game in this genre that I've ever played matches its deep focus on survival mechanics. In a way, it has ruined other survival games for me in making them seem shallow in comparison.
PROS:
+ Every aspect of survival feels rewarding, even when you have mastered the rules of the game (big ups to the food system which requires you have a balanced diet consisting of different macronutrients)
+ The visuals and audio are pretty damn good at immersing you in a jungle environment
+ The game is still fun with no hostile human mobs, as the survival mechanics stand on their own (this is good for people like me who want to RP a Primitive Technology or Alone-type scenario)
+ The story mode is well made, and is a good complement to the freeplay mode
+ Building strikes a nice balance of being tedious (because at the end of the day, you're supposed to be just one person) but allowing you to get some cool structures made
NEUTRALS (i.e. pro or con depending on your preferences)
* Learning curve is steep at first, and can be annoying; maybe you won't be dying a lot, but you WILL starve, get sick, get injured, etc. as you learn the rules of the world
* I think there are no more updates; the game is "complete" at this point
* Only one map (plus an expansion area), and it's not super huge, but it is handcrafted
CONS:
- Eventually, you will understand most spawns of resources and enemies on the map, resulting in a post-scarcity level of mastery, which removes most sense of danger; at this point the game becomes a wilderness simulator where you just chill and do whatever you want