What the Fog

My first instinct when I loaded What the Fog was to compare it to Risk of Rain 2, and that comparison does land, at least structurally. You pick one of three Dead by Daylight survivors, each with distinct playstyles, and sprint through procedurally generated boards killing things until the generator count hits zero and an exit door opens. Dwight throws area-of-effect explosions and plays like a frontline bruiser. Claudette runs a crossbow with extra mobility tools, making her the more mechanical pick. Feng Min closes distance and heals, which in solo play feels almost essential. The loadout synergy between characters is genuinely interesting for about the first three runs, at which point the ceiling shows itself pretty clearly. The core loop is tight for what it is. Each run strings together nine dungeons and three bosses, clocking in around 30 minutes. Enemies spawn constantly and in volume, which keeps you moving rather than standing still to aim. The dodge and dash feel responsive enough that moment-to-moment play stays lively. Bosses are drawn from a small random pool, though they're essentially scaled-up versions of the same enemy archetypes you fight in the rooms leading up to them. There are only around seven enemy types with some basic variants, so pattern recognition sets in fast. On higher difficulty tiers, enemy aggression ramps and stronger variants unlock as you accumulate kills, which at least gives the difficulty curve some structure rather than just bumping numbers. Eight difficulty settings total means there's a reasonable range for solo players who want to push further, but the build variety never deepens enough to justify a true high-difficulty grind. Co-op is clearly where the game was designed to live. When your partner goes down, they shift to a bird's-eye view and can still throw abilities out to support you while you fight toward a revive point. It's a clean mechanic borrowed from Dead by Daylight's own hook-and-rescue loop, and it keeps both players engaged rather than one watching a death screen. The problem is the cap at two players. Several community voices flagged that expanding to four would have opened up meaningful coordination, and it's hard to disagree once you've spent a few runs on the existing format. Matchmaking has also drawn complaints for being rough around the edges, which matters in a game this reliant on having a second person. The honest read on What the Fog is that Behaviour Interactive built it as a fan gift tied to Dead by Daylight's eighth anniversary, not as a standalone product competing with the genre's best. The developers confirmed early on that no additional content is planned. That transparency is appreciated, but it also means what you see at launch is what you get, no future characters, no expanded map pool, no new mechanics. Steam user reception sits at roughly 73% positive, which tracks, the game is fun in short doses, the animation is smooth, and the cartoon aesthetic is well-executed. But the repetition hits hard after a couple of hours, and anyone coming in without DBD affinity is going to feel the content ceiling almost immediately. If your PC can push past the default 60fps cap (there's a workaround in the community guides), the movement at higher framerates feels noticeably better.

Fred · Scout Team

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