Darkwood

Darkwood is set somewhere in the Polish People's Republic or according to the developers, somewhere else in the Soviet Bloc[3] in the late 1980s where a mysterious forest has engulfed a large amount of land and is continuing to expand. Many people have been left trapped by the forest and a strange plague is ravaging the survivors, killing and causing victims to transform into monsters and abominations. A group named "The Outsiders" consisting mostly of government officials and soldiers were sent to investigate the woods, setting up hideouts and a tunnel system to get in and out of the forest. By the time the game takes place most of the Outsiders are dead or evacuated from the zone.

In the prologue, the player takes control of an apparent doctor as he searches for supplies. The Doctor seems to be disillusioned with his job of helping locals and is hellbent on escaping the forest. After the prologue, the player takes control of "The Stranger", a man who is searching for the stolen key that will lead him through an underground passageway out of the forest. Other characters include a trader who helps the protagonist in the prologue, a half-man half-wolf hybrid known only as "The Wolfman", a cyclist drunk known as the "Bike Man" and Piotrek, who is mesmerised by space travel and Yuri Gagarin, and wishes to build a rocket.

The game begins with The Doctor rambling about the forest and how it has consumed all exits and trapped its inhabitants, his inability to treat the plague and his devotion to escaping the woods before he perishes. While scavenging for gasoline, The Doctor comes across the Stranger, injured and unconscious after an unknown accident. After looting a large key from his body, the Doctor theorizes that the Stranger possesses knowledge on how to escape the forest. The Stranger is then captured, sedated and eventually beaten as the Doctor interrogates him regarding an escape route. The story focus and controls switch to the Stranger as he engineers an escape from the Doctor's house. After some exploration, the cottage is broken into by several monsters and the Stranger blacks out.

It is implied in a cutscene that the Trader stumbled across the Doctor's cottage and rescued the Stranger, bringing him back to a hideout in the Dry Meadow. The Stranger first explores the underground entrance to make sure the Doctor has not gone through with the key, but finds that the door has not been opened in a while. The player may then side with the Wolfman or the Musician in order to find the Doctor, or accomplish this by his own devices.

Once finding the Doctor in the train wreck (either by exploring his house from the prologue, or getting an appointment from the Musician), he will attempt to resist the Stranger. Several outcomes are available, including killing the Doctor for his key or allowing him to accompany the player through the underground passage. One way or another, progressing through the armoured door leads to the end of Chapter 1.

As the Stranger leaves the tunnel he finds that it no longer leads out of the forest and instead leads to a swamp. The Stranger will also find the beheaded corpse of the Trader, and will instead be visited by three masked figures in the mornings. Chapter 2 is where many choices in Chapter 1 affect the outcomes of certain characters, for example, if players did not aid the Wolfman then he will steal items from the player and lure them into a trap, and if players followed the Wolfman's path, the Musician will appear in the Stranger's hideout.

The Stranger finds a large talking tree blocking the exit of the forest in a flooded village, which indirectly asks the Stranger to explore a radio tower. A cripple residing in this village requests that the Stranger burns this tree. Both pathways offer ways of leaving the forest and of reaching the Epilogue.

The Stranger pushes through the forest until reaching a town and their old apartment, where he settles in for a long sleep. However, careful exploration reveals this ending to be an illusion which the player can uncover, if they spot the odd things in the apartment block. The Stranger eventually finds roots growing under the floorboards and a hole under his bed. Crawling through will have the Stranger wake up naked, with his clothes discarded nearby, in a passage overgrown with roots.

The "Road Home" did not lead home, as the player awakens in a chamber filled with thousands of people curled up around a strange being, dead or sleeping and muttering in bliss. If the Stranger aided Doctor, he will find him resting next to the being. The being attempts to entice the Stranger by making him feel warm and tired, if the player does not resist then they will fall unconscious and be back in the apartment with only one course of action available: bliss and ignorance. If the Player resists, then the Stranger will find a flamethrower among the sleepers and burn the being and all those around it to death. The fire spreads so rapidly that the Stranger is unable to escape; and the flames quickly consume most of the forest and its inhabitants. The death of the strange being and the Stranger's sacrifice allow the military to deploy to the forest safely to save the remaining inhabitants and restore order. In both endings, text blocks detailing each character's fate appear, which can be influenced by the player's actions during the game.