My review for this game is long overdue, and the fact it inexplicably is only 51% positive at the time of writing this is more than enough reason for me to write down my thoughts.
There has never been a game like Darkwind. There may never be another game that fully captures it again. It is far from a perfect game, but it's the game we got. The last thing I want to see is people who would fall in love with the Mad Max/Carmageddon/Car Wars style combat, and the true stakes of everything being persistent, all because they see "Mixed" and pass.
The main hurdle for this game is it's half in browser, half 3D with full physics in client. You manage your people, resources and vehicles in browser (using an outdated interface, but one that is at least pretty clearly laid out). You actually play through events in game. If you can live with that however, it's the worst the game gets. The actual controls in game are surprisingly simple. Mouse and keyboard, typical controls layout, and most things can be done in context menus by right clicking on what you want to interact with. The UI is outdated but is thankfully subtle, out of the way, and conveys everything you need. The worst thing an outdated UI can be is intrusive, and this one isn't. It's utilitarian above all else.
But what actually IS Darkwind? What do you get if you get past the hurdle?
Well, it's a turn based car combat MMO. You set up your throttle inputs, weapon aiming and steering during a command phase, then hit space bar to lock in, and when every player has locked in everything is played out for just a couple seconds of real time. But a few seconds make all the difference. You will be shocked how many limbs can be shot off in a 2 second span. Everything is simulated. Weight, tire wear and grip, suspension, recoil, impact force, injuries- the list goes on. You don't need to play against other players, almost every event has AI participants, and the community is tight knit; I've never seen any veteran player who wants to drive away someone new by ramming them too hard or blowing their car up. The AI makes stupid mistakes, but so do players. And they do not cheat. Anything you can do, the AI can do, and vice versa. Moreover, every one of their drivers and gunners is simulated. They have their own stats, and they can die like anyone else.
What forms does the car combat come in? Well, until you get your footing with the game, join Race, Deathrace and Amateur Night Combat events that provide vehicles. All you need are people to crew the cars (in a race just a driver, in anything featuring combat you may have the option to add an additional gunner). They're mostly self explanatory, but beware! As any veteran Darkwind player will tell you: every race in Darkwind is a Deathrace. If you take a corner too fast, or go off a jump awkwardly, your driver can and will get injured or die. Impacts are simulated. Your characters are hardened wastelanders, but no one can survive an impact with a concrete wall going 200kph.
Beyond these events, everything is optional and done at your own pace. You can travel between several towns (more if you subscribe, though it should be noted that the "premium" towns are in extremely dangerous territory that is usually more trouble than it's worth unless you're quite experienced anyways) to trade goods and participate in events local to those towns. You can also "Scout", which pits you against AI wastelander gangs, whose vehicles and cargo you can steal, assuming you manage to kill the current occupants. These carry a very high risk though, so make sure you're experienced with the basics before you attempt it, and it's recommended you go with someone more experienced your first few times (luckily there are very experienced players who are active and would be more than happy to show you the ropes).
A lot of this game is difficult to do justice to with words, because it's really about the feeling it gives you. If nothing above is grabbing you, let me say this: There are games we play for a narrative, and there are sandboxes we play to explore and do our own thing. Darkwind doesn't have much of a story. It doesn't have a campaign. But the game is in and of itself a story. The narrative is provided by the sandbox. Your gang will go from a list of names in a spreadsheet on a website that looks like it's from the early 2000s (because it is), to characters who have gone through incredible feats, taken knocks, and gotten a bit slower as they age. The game is impossible to really get "softlocked" on. Even if every single gang member dies, you lose all your cars and resources, and you're completely out of money, you can grab someone from the tavern, enter an event, and work your way back (and that very much is a hypothetical, as you'd pretty much have to intentionally try in order for that to happen). People will die, cars will be reduced to burning rubble, but each time someone manages some monumental feat, hits that 1 in a million shot, or gets away with seconds to spare, it is meaningful. This is essentially the "Dwarf Fortress" of car games. On the surface it doesn't look like much, but it doesn't have to. It's a game that provides you with things to do, and has permanent stakes. That's all that's needed for incredible stories to be written. Entire novels worth of lore have been written by players for their characters, and the events that happened to them. Vehicles have reached legendary status with how many incredible things they've made it through. Characters can reach near demi-god levels of power with enough training and experience (though no matter how powerful they get, they will always be a meatbag in a world of metal, sand, and irradiated horrors).
There is a story waiting for you in this game. You will experience something unique to you. Because it won't be someone else's character dying. There won't be a respawn. If they die, they're just another part of the story you're experiencing for your gang. But every time they make it out, the stakes get higher for you the next time things get hairy.
If you take anything away from this, it's that this game actually isn't best described as the "turn based car combat MMO" I started with. It's a story generator. It's a game that gets your imagination running like DnD does on the tabletop. It gives you everything you need to experience crazy things, but without railroading you into someone else's story.
