Endling: Extinction is Forever Preview

Nintendo showcased Endling: Extinction is Forever during last December’s Indie World Showcase, and its premise caught my attention straight away. It sets out to address deforestation and climate change in a mournful way.

Endling: Extinction is Forever and a world in decline

Endling opens with a frightening depiction of humanity’s destruction of the natural world. You play as one of Earth’s final foxes, fleeing a forest - seemingly your home - as it is consumed by fire. Soon after locating a fresh den, you discover that you have a litter of cubs to protect. You need to keep them fed and cared for as they mature, all while steering clear of the threats in a world that is no longer safe for your family.

Endling perfectly captures the feeling of barely surviving. In my better moments, I kept the cubs nourished and helped them develop skills that could keep them alive after I am gone. At my lowest point, one cub disappeared from the group, while the others were hurt by predators such as owls and by human hunters pursuing my fur. Even when everything was going well, it was distressing to know the world was on fire and that I represented the last of my species. Once events shifted from bad to worse, the experience became devastating. Anyone with a weakness for cute young animals, as I have, will probably find Endling deeply moving.

Its striking visual presentation certainly helps. With broad swathes of colour and a minimalist aesthetic, the game looks beautiful, particularly in the way it uses its foreground and background layers.

Survival and stealth gameplay

Although the premise is an undeniable triumph, the gameplay is less satisfying. Herobeat Studios calls Endling a 3D side-scrolling stealth game, which is accurate, yet it does not excel as either type of game.

There is simply very little to do from moment to moment. The fox can use its nose to follow scent trails, usually towards food for the cubs, and can leap on unaware prey after creeping up on animals such as rats and rabbits, but that is essentially the extent of it - or, at least, all I encountered in this preview session. New cub abilities, including jumping, climbing and slipping through narrow spaces, do alter the experience, but they ultimately just provide access to additional food.

Some sections place a greater emphasis on stealth, including an encounter with the trapper who has cub-napped one of your young. However, these sequences largely involve waiting for them to point their torch elsewhere, then continuing onwards. Once I found the trapper, they stayed in precisely the same location for days. Consequently, every night I left to hunt, I had to repeat the same stealth sequence, which unfolded identically each time. It soon lost its appeal, although completing it was required to carry on exploring the area.

Exploring the fox’s shrinking world

Even so, I suspect my issues with Endling’s gameplay stem from only being able to play its opening hours. My cubs acquired fresh abilities during that early period, and I hope the skills I had not yet unlocked make the game more varied than “here’s a new way to find food.” Despite its gameplay weaknesses, Endling’s exploration has me interested. Each night allowed me to venture further into the world, prompted by what I had discovered previously. In turn, I found new items to smell, which offered clues about where my missing cub might be. Those discoveries also unlocked routes that had previously been inaccessible.

Endling is not quite a Metroid-like game, nor does it appear to be trying to become one. Nevertheless, I liked that every night of exploration gave me a clearer sense of my surroundings while exposing more of the map. I do hope the complete game contains more places to visit, however, as I was ready for a change after two hours. Thankfully, the wait will not be long: Endling: Extinction is Forever launches for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch and PC on 19 July.