Dinosaurs, samples, and photographs connect the survival game’s scientific assignment to its personal mystery.
The assignment in Wilderdark is to document an ecosystem. The organization sending the player to its island is pursuing immortality, while the researcher must gather samples and investigate earlier expeditions that vanished there. One of those expeditions was led by the protagonist’s parents. Team Junkfish’s game overview.
That gives the investigation two kinds of evidence to seek: information about the island’s organisms and traces of the people who arrived before. Team Junkfish’s premise places both inside an environment where a mysterious ectoparasitic organism has altered dinosaurs and plant life.
A crash landing limits the tools available at the start. Photography, environmental clues, and crafting form part of the exploration, while stealth allows the researcher to move around the island’s predators. The creatures being studied are also dangers that complicate the work.
The developer identifies Wilderdark as a single-player first-person survival horror game for Steam. Its expedition joins an employer’s biological objective with a family disappearance, leaving the player to investigate a place that has already defeated previous attempts to understand it. Team Junkfish’s game overview.