Project Winter Mobile review - "Putting Among Us on ice"

A genre of gaming that grew in popularity over the period of quarantine and the on-and-off periods that followed was the party game. One of the first to explode was Among Us, an online game where players run around a sci-fi setting trying to figure out the imposter(s) hiding in their ranks. The concept is nothing new but has continued to evolve to become more complex and engaging, which is what Boltrend Games is looking to do. The attempt comes through as Project Winter Mobile which is another mobile witch hunt with a lot more going on and a chilling backdrop to it all.

The Project Details

With party games, the story and narrative doesn't really come into play that much and that seems to be the case in Project Winter Mobile. The goal is simply to either be one of the survivors or to kill all of the survivors before you're found out. Based on the setup, the game could be taking a page out of the book The Thing. A research group in the frozen tundra finds themselves surrounded by a harsh icy environment and trapped with a murderous threat. The goal is to try to fix what needs fixing in order to safely escape and, hopefully, leave the traitors behind. No matter which side you're on, you'll need to do whatever you need to live and succeed.

A Chilling Scenario

When it comes to the wolf among us scenario, putting players on edge can make for a more memorable experience. That's what comes through when playing Project Winter Mobile. Not only do you have to worry about escaping traitors or hunting survivors, but you need to monitor your health constantly. The map can feel quite expansive with time and blizzards eating away at your warmth and hunger. There's also the wilderness to worry about, but you'll need to risk venturing out into it to complete your goals.

This makes for a very full gameplay experience that is tailor-made to be played with friends or even new acquaintances. No matter which team you're on, points of interest are few and far between so you'll really need to divide up work to efficiently solve problems as they pop up. If survivors try to solo everything, traitors will have a much easier time sabotaging them. Traitors also can't solo play otherwise they'll expose their intentions. The challenge comes with finding the right balance between teamwork and independence, which makes for an engaging game experience.

The aesthetics are solid and work well for the tone of the game. Colourful enough to have a party feel to them and solid enough to convey the gravity of the situation at hand. It all feeds into an effective survival scenario.

Harsh Winter

There's nothing wrong with realism or ambition, but when you try to do too much then the end product can come off as unreasonable or too demanding. Unfortunately, Project Winter Mobile has suffered a few of these pitfalls. The first is energy consumption. You'll need a fully charged recent model phone and highly stable internet connection to play this game with some smoothness. If you're not equipped to do this on the go, you may be better off playing it through a mobile emulator on your PC.

Then there's the slow pace of it all which sort of works against strategy. The map is huge so you'll want to split up to cover more ground. However, if you do this, you put yourself at risk of hunger, cold, and wild animals, unless you have a range of equipment. The problem with this is that your inventory is severely limited for the most part and you'll need as much space as you can to carry resources needed to complete objectives. It takes some getting used to and when time is a factor, you may need to wander through the cold aimlessly in hopes of finding something useful.

Project Winter Is Coming

Project Winter Mobile is an Among Us-style 3D survival game where survivors and traitors must compete to accomplish their goals in a frozen tundra. It's got quality visuals with a surprising amount of detail and layers to its gameplay. Unfortunately, this makes it demanding on whatever you're playing, which is a problem considering the amount of trial and error that goes with exploring and resource gathering. In the end, it's a game set in the cold that has the potential to get quite heated as the tension and excitement grows.