Project Winter: Gameplay Impressions

About six months ago, a colleague shared during a standup meeting that they were playing a game called Project Winter, introducing its genre and gameplay as something like an interactive Werewolf / social deduction game. Back then, I was immediately drawn to its low-poly art style and snowy mountain setting, but since I didn’t have a gaming PC at the time, it lingered on my wishlist. Recently, I finally got a gaming rig, so I picked up the game on Steam.

This post is a quick record of my impressions so far (granted, I’ve only been playing for three days XD, so I’ll probably have more to share down the line).

Game Overview

The game is set on a freezing snowy mountain where eight players must work together to gather resources, repair power facilities, call for a rescue helicopter, and escape. Along the way, players must survive harsh natural elements (wildlife, freezing temperatures, and hunger) while dealing with unexpected random events.

The game features social deduction elements reminiscent of Werewolf or Mafia, but unlike purely discussion-based social deduction games, it incorporates rich survival and action mechanics. Survivors must deduce who the traitors are and successfully escape to win, while traitors must use various means to disrupt the survivors’ escape or wipe them out entirely.

The game is mainly divided into two factions:

Survivors: The survivors’ goal is to stay alive on the snowy mountain, gather materials within the time limit (usually around 30 minutes) to repair the power facilities, and call for the rescue helicopter. Because the survival conditions are so punishing, the game demands strong cooperation among players. Wandering off on your own or failing to communicate throughout the match will almost certainly lead to defeat.

Traitors: Their objective is to thwart the survivors within the time limit through sabotage—such as quietly discarding crafting materials, breaking the power station, sowing discord, assassinating survivors, and more.

The game supports proximity voice chat, meaning you can only hear players who are physically nearby (unless you’re communicating over radios). This creates an incredible, immersive atmosphere. On top of that, the characters and environments feature my favorite low-poly aesthetic, and the scenery is gorgeous! I highly recommend giving it a try!

Reflections

My experience so far is that there are very few players from Taiwan; most people play in private groups with friends, or you mostly find Chinese servers. There are also quite a few Western servers, but I’ve ended up playing almost exclusively with Japanese players. Here are a few reflections from my time playing with them.

Japanese Players Are Incredibly Warm in Games!

In the game, Japanese players are almost always gentle, polite, and welcoming—quite different from real life! While my coworkers at the office are also very mild-mannered, at the end of the day they’re still colleagues; our conversations revolve mostly around work, and we rarely chat about personal topics outside of work. In this game, however, you get to hear Japanese players bantering and casually shooting the breeze.

You frequently hear wholesome comments like, “Are you doing okay with the cold?”, “I have some berries here,” or “There’s a pot pie in the crate.” It really warms your heart. While you occasionally run into players who aren’t particularly friendly toward foreigners, the vast majority are genuinely kind.

Practical Japanese Conversation: Super Advanced Level

Even though Japanese is the primary language at my workplace, my colleagues sometimes intentionally slow down their speech for my benefit. Furthermore, the workplace relies heavily on keigo (polite/honorific speech), which I still find quite tricky to navigate.

In the game, however, people don’t hold back at all—they just say whatever comes to mind. With speech at full native speed and zero keigo, it’s basically a live battlefield for practical, everyday Japanese. I’ve learned a ton of authentic Japanese phrasing and colloquialisms just from playing.

Japanese people in games feel so different from real life—to the point where I catch myself thinking, “If you’re this fun, why not show that side in real life too?” It’s been wonderful discovering this other side of Japanese people through the game.

Great Practice for Communication Skills

As mentioned earlier, communication and teamwork are indispensable to winning this game (whether you’re a survivor or a traitor). Going off on your own or refusing to interact with others is a surefire recipe for a loss.

What should we do next? What materials are we still missing? What items does everyone have on hand? Sharing information… If you don’t communicate these things, everyone might end up tackling the same task and gathering the exact same materials at the same time, completely destroying efficiency.

Come to think of it, the exact same principle applies in the workplace! If you stay silent and work on tasks entirely by yourself, even if the outcome is good, other team members might misunderstand or have no idea what you’re doing, ultimately leading to wasted effort and detours. For me as a foreigner, this has been fantastic practice.

Mechanical Skill Matters Too

Personally, I haven’t fully mastered the in-game mechanics yet—such as map familiarity, weapon handling, and melee combat tricks. Good communication alone won’t cut it. Mechanical skill and communication are two complementary abilities.

You can craft weapons, traps, landmines, poison, and more, offering a wide variety of playstyles. If your mechanics are sharp enough, you might even be able to master the game with minimal communication.

Reading Other Players’ Intentions

I’m personally someone who finds it hard to lie and isn’t great at reading what others are plotting. As I mentioned earlier, while the game has social deduction elements, that’s not the whole story—the survivors’ ultimate goal is to escape the mountain, not necessarily to root out the traitors.

Add in the fact that everything is conducted in Japanese, and it becomes even more challenging. For now, I mostly stick with the group and follow the general direction. Hopefully, I’ll pick up more tips and tricks as I continue playing.

I feel this applies to the workplace as well: everyone has different perceptions and expectations. It’s virtually impossible to completely understand someone else or satisfy all their expectations. Finding that sweet spot is practically an art form—or perhaps it doesn’t even exist.

Conclusion

It might seem a bit odd to pivot from a video game to workplace dynamics, but I really do recommend this game! You can play it purely for fun, use it to practice a foreign language, sharpen your communication skills, or simply enjoy human interaction (even if getting betrayed stings a little, sneaking around and sabotaging people is a blast too!). It’s genuinely an entertaining game.

Perhaps connecting with players from different countries and figuring out how to communicate with one another is another joy in its own right!