Crow Country

Crow Country
Developer(s)	SFB Games
Publisher(s)	SFB Games
Engine	Unity
Platform(s)	Nintendo Switch PlayStation 4 PlayStation 5 Windows Xbox Series X/S
Release	PS5, Windows, Xbox Series X/S 9 May 2024 PS4, Switch 16 October 2024
Genre(s)	Survival horror
Mode(s)	Single-player

Crow Country is a 2024 survival horror game developed and published by SFB Games for PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. The game features a visual style and design similar to early horror titles released for the PlayStation in the 1990s, including Resident Evil and Silent Hill. Set in 1990, the player controls Mara Forest, an investigator exploring an abandoned theme park looking for its owner while uncovering the dark secrets the park hides. Upon release, Crow Country received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise directed to the game's design, evocation of earlier horror games, writing, and narrative, but mixed opinions on the implementation of combat and puzzles.

Gameplay

Crow Country is a survival horror game inspired by early entries in the Resident Evil and Silent Hill series. Players control Mara Forest, who is tasked with exploring the abandoned Crow Country theme park to find objects, solve puzzles, and defeat monsters. Two gameplay modes are initially available: Survival, which features combat and enemies, and Exploration, which does not include enemies. The game also includes an unlockable Hard mode, in which enemies deal more damage, supplies are rarer, and the player cannot run if Mara's condition is "Wounded" or lower.

Combat requires the player to aim and shoot at monsters encountered throughout areas using various weapons, including a handgun, a shotgun, and flamethrower, some of which are unlocked by the completion of optional puzzles. Players can shoot while running or lock into position to focus their aim. Players have limited health represented by five states: Fine, Okay, Caution, Wounded and Critical. Mara's health is depleted by hits from enemies and environmental hazards such as bear and poison traps, and can be replenished using bandages, medkits and antidotes. Items and ammunition may be collected through interaction with vending machines and containers.

Players gradually expand their access to new areas by exploring the environment, locating keys, or solving puzzles which can involve combining items found in different locations. Some puzzles can offer secret items that reward the player with weapon and equipment upgrades. Players collect notes and diary entries scattered throughout the park, which provide hints for puzzles and reveal story details leading up to the events of the game. In safe rooms, players can view a notebook to see all the notes collected so far and save the game in a fireplace.

Plot

The year is 1990, and Mara Forest, a special agent, is investigating Crow Country, an abandoned rural amusement park near Atlanta, Georgia. Shut down two years prior, its founder, Edward Crow, mysteriously disappeared, and Mara is searching for him. Upon arriving at the park, she meets an injured Arthur Mole, a paranormal photographer who warns her of dangerous creatures. She helps him back to her car and continues her investigation, meeting Edward's daughter, Natalie Crow; his foreman, Tolman; a lawyer named Julie Baron; police detective Harrison James; and Edward's business partner Marvin Trumble, who are all there investigating as well.

While searching Crow Country, she discovers that it hides a dig site that manufactured pure gold seemingly "grown" from root-like structures, and that the park is overrun with zombie-like creatures referred to as "Guests". With pressure from the government questioning where the gold was coming from, Marvin and Crow bought a dried-up gold mine in Brazil to cover their tracks. However, after bad publicity when a 15-year-old girl, Elaine Marshall, was seriously injured in the park, it was forced to shut down. It is revealed that Elaine Marshall was in fact harmed by one of these Guests, which appear to be carrying some kind of infectious disease; and that the root-like structures are emerging from a pool deep below the park.

As Mara travels deeper into the park, Harrison is found shot dead by Marvin, who is then accidentally knocked off a catwalk to his death during a confrontation. Mara tells the remaining survivors to escape to her car, while she goes down to the core of the dig site, eventually meeting a now deformed and infected Edward Crow. He reveals several key pieces of information: any person who comes into contact with a Guest — i.e., all investigators — becomes infected. The dig site and its pool are, in reality, a gateway device, and the Guests have been emerging through this gateway. The first Guest was the only one capable of communicating, as the more the roots were harvested for gold, the more mutated the arriving Guests became: this is because the "roots" are, in fact, focusing antennae allowing the gateway to function correctly. During the conversation, it is revealed that Mara is not a special agent and forged her police documents which she had stolen from Harrison: she is Elaine, infected from contact with a captive Guest. She escaped from the hospital she has been staying at in search of Crow, but not for revenge as he had suspected: instead, to tell him she is dying and that the hospital staff has no cure.

Crow gives Mara a cure he developed by doing multiple tests on the creatures, but he only has five vials. He tells Mara to use them to save herself and the others, as he plans to jump into the pool to see the other side. He also gives her a note transcribed from the first Guest's words, which reveals that the Guests were originally humans from a 22nd-century Earth, attempting to travel back in time because the planet had become completely uninhabitable. Crow then jumps into the pool, returning as a grotesque, insane monster, forcing Mara to kill him. Mara escapes with the remaining survivors in her car. Four miles from Crow Country, they relax by a fire and take the cure. Mara monologues about her hope for the future, but also her fears of the unknown.

Reception

Reception

Aggregate scores

Aggregator	Score
Metacritic	(NS) 81/100 (PC) 84/100 (PS5) 82/100 (XSXS) 80/100
OpenCritic	91%

Review scores

Publication	Score
Destructoid	9/10
Eurogamer	4/5
Game Informer	8/10
GameSpot	8/10
GamesRadar+	4/5
Hardcore Gamer	4/5
Nintendo Life	8/10
Nintendo World Report	8.5/10
PC Gamer (US)	77/100
Push Square	8/10
The Guardian	5/5

Crow Country received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator website Metacritic. Reviewers generally praised the game's visual presentation and design as evocative of PS1 horror games. Zoey Handley of Destructoid commended the "detailed" pre-rendered environments and "clever lighting" to replicate the "awkward 3D of the era". However, Leon Hurley of GamesRadar critiqued the player character's "blocky toy shape" and "cartoonish" enemies. Alice Bell of Rock Paper Shotgun highlighted the game's "fantastic" and "sinister" setting. Wes Fenlon of PC Gamer highlighted the game's effective jump scares and variety of "demented monster designs".

Critics praised the game's narrative and writing. Sarah Maria Griffin of The Guardian described the game's narrative as complete and richer than anticipated, highlighting the "levity and playfulness" of the game's tone and "bold" ending. Similarly, Wes Fenlon of PC Gamer praised the "wry" writing for its "cheeky nods to game and horror tropes". Leon Hurley of GamesRadar noted the "rewarding" and "refreshingly unfamiliar" story and commended its "feeling of surprise and uncertainty". Zoey Handley of Destructoid praised the game's narrative twists and satisfying conclusion, although finding it lacked more distinctive psychological themes.

Reviewers expressed mixed views on the implementation of puzzles and gameplay mechanics. Leon Hurley of GamesRadar considered the game's puzzles to be effective as they were self-contained and balanced in difficulty, although found themselves stuck with some puzzles. Alice Bell of Rock Paper Shotgun praised the design of the puzzles in relying on player observation and intuition, but expressed that the game's combat and survival horror aspects lacked a sense of threat and were easy to manage. Describing the game as "too easy", Wes Fenlon of PC Gamer felt the game's combat was simple and did not view the puzzles as memorable. Willa Rowe of Kotaku considered that the enemies, resource management combat felt "lackluster" and "unimportant", and critiqued the "inconsistent" design of simple and in-depth puzzles.

Sales

Crow Country has surpassed 100,000 copies sold in October, 2024, with the majority of sales on Steam and additional purchases on PS5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, and PS4. The recent release on Nintendo Switch significantly contributed to reaching this milestone. SFB Games has indicated that there are no current plans for additional content or further platform expansions, as the studio is likely shifting focus toward future projects.

Awards

Year	Ceremony	Category	Result	Ref.
2024	Golden Joystick Awards	Best Indie Game - Self-Published	Nominated
2025	Independent Games Festival	Excellence in Visual Arts	Honorable mention

External links

• Official website