35mm Review: A Journey To Nowhere

Originally released in 2016 for PC and developed by Sergey Noskov, 35mm is a survival adventure game that has compelling ideas at its core that could make for a very somber and personal story. However, painfully clunky mechanics, less than entertaining moment-to-moment gameplay, and a lack of characterization in its two leads creates an experience more challenging to see through than a trek across a post-apocalyptic countryside.

Post Pandemic

35mm opens up mid-journey for Petrovich, the protagonist venturing across Russia with a friend after the world has been destabilized by an incredibly deadly virus. With what seems like most of the world dead or forgotten, society has crumbled and life is spent scavenging and hunting. Raiders with weapons and ill intent are ever present as well, threatening the small pockets of communities that have sprung up in the wake of the virus. The story leads the player through varied locations across the Russian countryside, such as forests, villages, cities, luxury hotels turned shelter hospitals, and even sprawling underground metro tunnels. While these locations were cool to see, intrigue is quickly lost thanks to a lack of variety failing to differentiate one from another. The similarities quickly make the process of exploring new locations rote, though more on that later. 

With the exception of a few narrative tidbits about Petrovich’s character, virtually nothing is offered to the player in terms of who he or his travel companion are, nor their motivations or goals behind taking this journey across the country. Having a narrative shrouded in mystery and potentially waiting to be uncovered may work for some games. In fact, I've enjoyed this style of narrative delivery in other titles. However, in this instance, 35mm missed the mark. Despite a few memorable moments near the end of the story, I found the lack of detail regarding Petrovich and his investment in the trek to be something that kept me from fully connecting the story in any meaningful way.

So Much Film, So Little To Capture

If you’ve ever played a survival game before, you’ll find some familiar, albeit somewhat sluggish mechanics at play within the handful of hours it will take to complete Petrovich's journey. 35mm markets itself as a survival game, but it feels more akin to a stripped back, linear experience. While it has survival elements, they never stretch further than eating food to regain health after a certain period or making sure you have a healthy stock of batteries for your flashlight. Other more survival-like elements such as boiling water to make it drinkable make an appearance in game as well, but come into play as plot devices to give Petrovich an objective as opposed to being regularly occurring mechanics. What is regularly occurring, however, are moments of insight you’ll have as you discover the handful of notable locations throughout the game. Uncovering inklings of information about the locations you’re in, what exactly destabilized the world, and the echoes of the people who might’ve sheltered there prior to you feels intimate and chilling given the loneliness and general state of the 35mm’s world. Unfortunately, the sobering experience of learning about said world is met by mechanics that could have convinced me I was anything but sober. 

While most of the game can feel sluggish, it’s not necessarily bad to the point of being unbearable. However, the consistent feeling of fighting against the controls increasingly sucked the fun out of exploring the different areas offered; the most notable offender being combat. While scarce, what combat there is in 35mm is incredibly unintuitive and clunky. It’s not that I feel that combat doesn’t have a place here; in fact, the story and setting lends itself to it quite well. But throughout all aspects of the game, combat fell the shortest. Both gunplay and melee suffer from the same feeling of fumbling around weapons as opposed to utilizing them efficiently. On paper, this could work for a story like 35mm’s if implemented in a way to convey the feeling of Petrovich’s inexperience with these weapons. Unfortunately, even if that was the intent, the mechanics were not executed without sacrificing intuitive, smooth gameplay for the player.

The most interesting, yet puzzling, mechanic available is undoubtedly the camera. Along the entirety of the journey across Russia, the player carries a 35mm camera. The concept of this duo on this lonely, unpredictable journey cataloging photos of their journey seemed pretty interesting. Even more so when considering how this camera could have been used to further flesh out the character of Petrovich, who claims in the game’s opening minutes that photography is a “hobby.” The issue though is that 35mm never elaborates further as to why or when this hobby was picked up. Given the game is named specifically after this camera, one would assume that it’s integral to the story or is a core mechanic to the game. But in what seems like an incredibly strange decision, it isn’t. The camera simply acts as a way to activate 35mm’s photo mode and nothing more. There’s no elaboration as to why the camera is important, nor why it’s such an intense hobby for Petrovich. This decision raises questions as to why the mechanic was even implemented to begin with, and why the game’s title is that of the camera’s. Sure, the atmosphere of the settings is steeped in a dreary grayscale tinge. But with little diversity in color palettes that go beyond varying shades of gray and the continuous aesthetic of broken down buildings, I never found myself wowed by my surroundings. In turn, I forgot about the camera relatively early on.

If Looks Could Kill

35mm isn’t a particularly pretty game. However, it does do a good enough job conveying the sense of isolation, danger, and dreariness that would be abundant in a world like the one it presents. Though, despite the settings feeling natural and grounded, I don’t feel that the atmosphere it provides outweighs how uninteresting its environments can be. While eerie at times, the surrounding environments are never fully alluring nor immersive. In fact, thanks to the aforementioned clunkiness of its controls, I often found myself becoming blasé throughout; a one-two punch of feeling both gameplay and presentation falling short simultaneously. While some set pieces can appear promising at first, they often open up to be fairly similar to settings or environments displayed prior. The slight exception here is the last city to wander about. The same busted up buildings seen in the beginning of the game appeared through to the end. Again - it works for the world of 35mm, but not so much as a game highlighting the cracks within the frame. 35mm is best described as a carousel-like experience; seeing the same things pass by over and over with the same shades of gray and muted colors. Ultimately, this dampens the experience despite the diversity of where Petrovich found himself level to level.

Breakdown

Game: 35mm

Developer: Sergey Noskov

Availability: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC

Reviewed on PS4

Pros: 

+ Interesting concepts and world to piece together

Cons:

- Clunky controls

- Lack of characterization for characters

- Bland, repetitive feeling environments 

Final Thoughts

35mm misses the mark when it comes to its survival adventure experience. The grayscale Russian countryside conveys the lonely brutality that comes with the game’s particular brand of post-apocalypse quite well. However, due to sluggish mechanics and all-too-similar repeated environments, the intrigue of exploration runs its course quickly. All of these things considered, I 35mm is challenging to recommend to any player that’s not seeking a niche type of “survival” game. Even then, there are much better experiences within the genre to be found.

Reviewed by Justin Hyde