Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Gaia
Doggy Style

Givin' the Dog a Bone

Thanks to White Wolf's epic back story, and DreamForge's own gifted storytelling skills, Werewolf is going to be much, much more than just a horror-based shooter. It's as deep and plot-driven as an adventure game, with numerous cutscenes between (and sometimes in the middle of) each level.

White Wolf's universe is so prohibitively huge and complex that one computer game couldn't possibly reference it all, but DreamForge is taking pains to cover most of the major bases and include references to touchstone events and characters to please the hard-core fans of the pen-and-paper RPG.

Members of some of the 13 Garou tribes play crucial roles, including the ferocious Red Talons; the dark, warrior-like Shadow Lords; and the noble Wendigo. Though it won't mean much to the uninitiated, at first, longtime Werewolf fans will be thrilled to learn that Ryan is the last living carrier of the gene of the legendary lost tribe of the White Howlers, crucial figures in one of the RPG's milestone events.

In brief, White Howlers were a group of noble werewolves who, in ages past, descended into a Wyrm pit for battle and lost big-time, emerging transformed into the Black Spiral Dancers, mutated servants of the Wyrm and now the Garou's most dangerous enemies. As the game climaxes, Ryan will eventually find himself in the Black Spiral Labyrinth itself, the place of initiation for Black Spiral Dancers, where, Star Wars-style, Ryan is tempted to join the dark side and must grapple with the evil within.

Evil Walks

DreamForge is infusing the game with the kind of mature, emotional resonance that made Sanitarium so memorable and that also powers White Wolf's RPGs. The script excerpts that I read revealed a story filled with family tragedy and psychological terror, as your progression through the game leads you to an ever-more terrifying vision of your past, your future, and your role in stopping the Apocalypse. As in Sanitarium, DreamForge is pulling no punches here. Werewolf is going to be a very scary adult game.

Which is why I was happy to escape DreamForge's frozen confines relatively unscathed and head back to the sunny, relatively sane Ziff-Davis offices. Like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, something terrifying is being whipped up in the snowbound brains at DreamForge. Let's just be glad it's only a computer game.