Spending valuable resources to weld the wrong door, using a health kit to heal stress that I should have saved, positioning my squad in the wrong place, not deploying all of my sentry turrets. I attempted it twice, but was beaten both times by choices I’d made earlier. I never managed to survive long enough to get that door open. When you manage a fight perfectly, Dark Descent feels incredible, and when I messed up, I always knew why. Even killing an alien can be dangerous if their blood sprays onto one of your marines. Battles are tense, hectic affairs even with the ability to slow down time, thinking on your feet is crucial. Every fight has stakes you can pick up and carry any marine who’s been knocked out, but anyone who dies is gone for good. I enjoyed Dark Descent most when it was hurling xenomorphs at me and I had to manage everything at once: my squad’s position, my marines’ health and stress, what abilities I used, turrets I’d placed, and spots of fire on the ground, while challenging me to prioritize targets and manage close-range encounters. Every trip into new areas was a slow, cautious affair, with my eyes alternating between my motion tracker and my squad’s status. Delving deeper into the facility meant spending resources, gaining stress, risking my squad, and making the hive more aware of my presence, but it could also get me resources that might help me out later. My time with Dark Descent was filled with fraught choices. Welding a door shut would cut down the ways the xenomorphs could approach, but it meant that I’d have to break the weld if I had to retreat through that area. Managing your resources is key, and the choices you make at one point in a level can help or hinder you later. Soon, your marines’ stress will start to rise again. Welding doors costs tools you might need to fix something spending a health kit to reduce stress means you can’t use it later to heal and a reprimand is a Band-Aid, a quick fix. You can use health kits to bring it down, reprimand your squad to temporarily stop it from rising, or, if you have enough tools, weld the doors of certain rooms shut to create a sanctuary so your squad can rest. You can handle stress in a variety of ways.
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