On-screen, you have a meter and indicator on the number of cubs you have left (how morbid!), and this depletes the longer you take to forage for food. If you don’t sniff out food, which can be executed with the L button, your cubs and yourself will be at risk of starvation.

Hunting for food and feeding your cubs is vital to their survival. It’s made clear early on that you must return to your base before nightfall ends, as you and your cubs need both food and rest to continue to the next day. Endling portrays a truly sad existence, where everything seems to be out to get you. At times, other wild animals will target you and your cubs.

Throughout these sessions, you’ll encounter a variety of contraptions and traps, such as bear traps used to catch and hurt you.

The game plays out one night at a time, with you leaving your base to hunt, scavenge for food, and ultimately survive. None of what occurs or happens to the mother fox or the cubs feels forced into the game’s narrative, which only enhances the heartbreaking moments that do happen in real life. There is clear message espoused by Endling, highlighting how humanity is destroying and polluting natural environments, and the impacts that this has on wildlife and nature. On top of this, you have a skulk of foxes that rely on you to feed them, protect them, and raise them. You take on the role of a mother fox, who is the last of her kind, doing her best to survive in an environment that has been torn apart and destroyed by humans. From the start, the tone is set and that tone is truly emotional, and pretty difficult to experience at times, layered with a bunch of social commentary on real-world environmental issues.

It opens in the midst of a pretty serious situation: a forest fire. From the title alone, you can tell that you aren’t in for a happy-go-lucky, cheerful time with Endling - Extinction is Forever.

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