Welcome to my review of Green Hell. This game is developed and published by Creepy Jar and was fully released on PC in 2019 after a stint in Steam early access. It came to consoles in June 2019. It’s a first-person survival adventure game that has some very in-depth and hardcore survival features.
This Hell is Green
For the purpose of this review, I was kindly given a key to the PlayStation 4 version of the game. It’s also available on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch. There’s even a VR version of the game that’s available to purchase on Steam and the Oculus store for Quest 2. Continue reading to find out more about the game.
It Begins
Green Hell starts off with what seems like a dream adventure for some. Jake and Mia Higgins are on an adventure to find out more about an indigenous tribe known only as the Yabahuaca. Naturally, this all goes wrong soon enough and Jake wakes on the edge of the Amazon River. Mia is missing as she has gone off on a solo trip to a tribal village that is nearby. Being a linguist, Mia wants to make first contact with the aforementioned Yabahuaca.
There is also another faction of the Yabahuaca tribe known as the Waraha. This faction consists of Yabahuaca tribe members who decided to resort to violence when it comes to outsiders such as Jake, Mia, and the researchers that came here before the protagonists.
However, this is only the beginning of Jake’s nightmare. With his wife missing, stranded in very unfamiliar territory, with deadly critters, predators, and more hiding to take their chance on Jake and make him their next meal. I’m not even joking, this jungle is severely deadly to the point that even popping Jake’s big toe in some “fresh” water results in a leech latching on to him. I’m yet to see another survival game that is as brutally hardcore as Green Hell.
Everything wants you dead.
See that cute little froggy over there, yeah don’t touch it. It’ll poison you, and if you’re not equipped with some form of medical item to assist, you’re dead. You can also check your arms and legs for things like leeches, rashes, cuts, and even parasites under your skin. Of course, each has different ways of dealing with them. Leeches you can simply pull off. Cuts need a medical bandage to help them heal without getting infected. Parasites require a fish bone so you can cut it out, and then a medical bandage for the wound.
As with most survival games, you can build a base to assist with surviving. In fact, you can play the game in kind of a “sandbox” mode without story elements so you can challenge yourself. You can even tailor the difficulty exactly how you like it with a custom difficulty, which allows you to change various settings such as no predators, no parasites, no dying, etc.
The base building mechanic is pretty awesome to be fair. I wouldn’t say it’s quite as in-depth as say The Forest just yet. But it is always improving, to the point, there was a recently released building update for the game. This is out now on PC, I am not 100% sure if this is live on consoles just yet.
Just keep building!
There are many ways of building in Green Hell. You can build a basic shelter for saving the game, or an enormous jungle estate if you find enough resources. There are also the usual items such as a furnace, a campfire, and beds. There are food items such as a grill rack, a smoker, and a dryer. You can also build some items to help with fluids. You can build a water catcher, mud filters, mud showers, and more. These prove to be very useful in your daily survival regime. There is also a selection of traps that help you catch various animals to assist with collecting various supplies such as meat, there are defense traps too.
Speaking of defense, you can build many different traps and weapons. You will also be able to find better weapons and tools whilst traveling around the jungle. So keep your wits about you and you may just survive.
Look & Sound
The graphics are incredible on the PC version which I’ve played a lot of. To be fair, the PlayStation 4 version also looks pretty damn good considering it’s a port of a PC game. It runs pretty well too, not once whilst playing did I get frustrated because of framerate issues or graphical glitches. From the running water to the god rays coming through the palm trees, the entire game is quite a sight to behold.
GFX IMAGE
The sound effects also suck you in. It’s very atmospheric to the point you literally feel like you’re in the Amazon Jungle. Well, I imagine that’s the case anyway as I’ve never been to a jungle. In fact, the closest I’ve gotten to that is a tropical zoo in Tenerife. The music in the game is mostly dramatic music which kicks in when shit is going down, such as a leopard tearing your arm off, or a Waraha tribe member treating you to a new drainage hole.
Length & Replayability
Naturally, with this being a survival game, it will last as long as you want it to last you. You’ll always find new ways of building a base or starting over on a new save. But, should you want to focus only on the story and be done, this will take you anything up to 20 hours to finish.
That’s just the main story though. Since its release, Creepy Jar has added a new prequel story to the game titled Spirits of the Amazonia. This story is free and is three parts long.
The game does have 41 trophies for you to unlock, should you wish to.
Conclusions
The game is still supported and receives fairly regular updates, for example, on the 23rd of January 2023, Creepy Jar released a new update for the PC version of the game which introduces even more ways of building structures. I imagine in a few months’ time this will also be ported across to the console versions. Should you wish to learn more about Green Hell you can watch the launch trailer below or visit the official site.
I score Green Hell console edition a mighty fine 8/10.
A code was kindly provided for us to review this.
