Welcome! This column is part of a series in which members of the Tom's Guide staff share what they're playing and enjoying right now, with the goal of helping you find great games that you might want to play next. Be sure to check out our last entry, where we talked about Alone in the Dark and how this survival horror is more confusing than scary.
I have a problem. I tend to get hyper fixated and I’ll let a piece of media consume me to the point that it’s all I think about. It’s been a great couple of years for video games, with the likes of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, Alan Wake 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3 having taken up all of my spare time. I’ve sunk 250 hours into Baldur's Gate 3 and I want more, but I thought it was time for a break before giving honor mode a shot, so I turned to a game that broke my heart once already: Endling. I first bought it for my PS4 back in 2022 and loved it, so I wanted to see how it would perform on the PS5.
You’ve probably heard of Stray, where you play as, well, a stray cat in a dystopian world. Endling is a bit like that. Its tagline is “Extinction is Forever” so in hindsight, that should have prepared me for what was to come, but I was swayed by the cute foxes on the cover. Yes, I judged a book by its cover. I was not prepared for the existential dread this game would instill in me. Endling is Spanish studio Herobeat’s only offering as of now, and I believe it’ll be hard to top.
The plot is straightforward: you play as the last mother fox trying to protect and feed her cubs in a dystopian future ravaged by mankind. The game opens on the mother fox running through the woods as wildfire breaks out around her, and shortly after she reaches her den, she gives birth. Early in the game, one of the cubs is kidnapped and you’re tasked with finding the cub while continuing to scavenge for your remaining cubs. It’s a 2.5D side-scroller which operates on a day-night system. You need to get back home before sunrise otherwise poachers will hunt you down. I can’t count how many times I’ve panicked trying to find escape routes as poachers converge from both directions.
Let them eat…whatever’s available
There’s a lot of emphasis on finding food for your cubs. It’s simple: if they don’t eat, they’ll die. And extinction really is forever because their bodies will not decay, so if you revisit their place of death, be prepared for the most guilt you’ve ever felt in a video game. But it’s slim pickings in this world — or our world in 100 years or so, which is what Herobeat wanted to portray. At the beginning, you can find berries, eggs and hunt mice and fish, but it gets worse as the game progresses and humans continue to chop down trees and pollute the rivers.
Trashbags replace where bushes were, and there are instances where, if you try to open a paper bag for food, the bag will start suffocating the mother fox. You also have to venture further and further from your den in search of food, increasing the risk of being ambushed by poachers or not finding any food before sunrise. Yeah, it’s stressful.
There is no spoken dialogue
When I think of video games that made me cry, two always come to mind. The ending of Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core had me reaching for the tissues back in 2007, and I was a mess when that thing happened in Red Dead Redemption 2. Both games are dialogue heavy, so I didn’t think Endling would wreck me too, all without saying a single word.
Having just played Baldur’s Gate 3 where there is such huge emphasis on dialogue, jumping back into Endling was quite a shock. It’s a quiet world, where the occasional bird call or humans drilling are all that break the silence. But that’s where Endling’s prowess lies. It’s all about the environment, and the way you see the environment deteriorate over the course of 5-6 hours of gameplay. It’s a short but impactful game which doesn’t need any spoken dialogue to convey the severity of human destruction.
And it's not all black and white
Not all humans in Endling suck though. Sure, the majority of human characters you encounter in the game are out to skin the mother fox and her cubs; they’ll chase you with machetes and even try to snipe you from a distance. But you also encounter humans that will sing to you, give you food, and even pet you (which also unlocks an achievement). Some of them will completely ignore you as well, happy to coexist with you.
While we’re on the subject, not all animals in the game are kind to you either. You’ll encounter an owl who will try to snatch your cubs. At the same time, if you play your cards right, you could meet a badger and her cub who will assist you and even join your den at night. When you first come across the badger, she’s stand-offish, because she’s trying to survive too. And that’s where empathy for every character in Endling comes into play.
Without spoiling too much (because you need to play this game, like, yesterday), remember I said your cub gets kidnapped? Turns out there’s a very good explanation behind why the poacher kidnapped the cub. And the furrier that’s out for your blood? I hate him as much as the next person, but I can’t fault him for trying to survive, and that’s the message Herobeat’s trying to get across: humans and animals alike will go to any length possible when their survival is at stake. Endling forces you to empathize with every creature you encounter. It forces you to ask yourself, “What would I do if I was one of the last few surviving humans?” Cue the existential dread.
A well-rounded, beautiful experience
Endling is one of the most beautiful games I’ve played. It already looked great on the PS4 but looks even better on the PS5, and it runs very smoothly. It also utilizes the PS5’s adaptive triggers which make your fight for survival more immersive (and intense). Also, the DualSense haptic feedback works really well when you’re petting your cubs. Cub-cuddles just got better.
I’m currently planning on getting the platinum trophy but I don’t know how many more times I can play Endling before it completely breaks me. There’s also a set of achievements that rickrolls you, so seeing them pop up made me chuckle — a brief respite from the soul-crushing feeling.
There are no happy endings in Endling. You don’t just stumble upon a hidden patch of lush grass and thick woodland as you approach the end. The final sequence sees you and your cubs swimming through a flood and running through a barren landscape as you see humans in the distance probably traveling to their next destination in search of food and shelter. I will not ruin the ending for you, but I will advise you to keep tissues at the ready. It’s a tale of survival that will surely pull at your heartstrings and make you look at the world from a different perspective.
Endling: Extinction is Forever is available on PC, Nintendo Switch, PS5, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, iOS and Android.
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