Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter

2 March, 2025 - 9:16 pm by Rob Prescott
About 9 mins to read
Reviewed on: PC

2021’s Tails of Iron was my favourite game of that year. It was a deeply charming title, with souls-lite combat, exploration of a beautifully realised and reactive world, and a simple, yet well told, story, all narrated by the wonderfully gravelly tones of Geralt of Rivia himself. I’d happily compare it favourably to genre-titan Hollow Knight; though the pace of combat is certainly slower, there is much of the same combination of charm and challenge. Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter then, asks the all-important question: What if we did that again, but more?

I’ve been recently wary of sequels, noting a trend to tighten up and expand on mechanics while losing something of the charm or narrative focus of their predecessor. Horizon: Forbidden West and Fallen Order: The Other One both fell into this trap for me, with the moment-to-moment gameplay feeling tweaked, streamlined and improved, but the narrative and character work that drew me into their forerunners sadly lacking. Whiskers of Winter, in its opening, had me very fearful, though fortunately this trepidation did not last.

The game opens with a cinematic, as is the tradition, establishing our new protagonist, Arlo, as the probably-brother of the first game’s Reggie, a bastard son of the old king raised in the very Winterfell castle of Winter’s Edge. The Game of Thrones influence, already quite strong in the first game, is certainly dialed up here, though by and large I think this works. Narratively what follows is a near carbon copy, beat for beat, of the opening of Tails of Iron. You do a little training. You have some cool, high level gear. Then, the Big Bad shows up and wrecks the place, killing your father/father figure, leaving you with broken gear and a quest for revenge. Having recently replayed some of Tails of Iron in preparation for this review, the deja vu was striking.

At a Glance

Positives	Negatives
+ Beautiful world design + Geralt of Rivia’s narration + Tiny cute animals stabbing each other with swords	– Awkward inventory UI – Elemental damages muddies combat – Weak opening, for returning players
Available on:	PC (Steam) PC (Epic) PlayStation Xbox Nintendo Switch
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Fortunately, then, when the game gets going it does find its feet. Arlo’s quest is more wide ranging than Reggie’s was, taking in far broader views of its quasi-medieval woodland critter world. Tails of Iron was, for most of its run, quite focused in its story of rats versus frogs, only really branching out into weirder territory with the Metro 2033-styled moles towards the end. Whiskers of Winter is, from the get go, much more willing to break out of that, sending you quickly to explore a forest full of owls, badgers, snakes and scorpions in one direction, fish-people and even friendly(ish) frogs in the other. The Owls were particularly charming, governed by a parliament (of course) and reminiscent of the board game Root as much as the original games Redwall by way of George R R Martin.

The supporting cast are, much like in the first game, lightly sketched but well drawn, with recurring allies popping up and quickly recognisable. The art style is very much the same as the first game, side by side the two appear largely identical, but with a game of this type that’s no bad thing. Character design, world design and artistic vision are the focus here, rather than fancy effects. This is slightly let down in some of the battles against larger creatures, where the lack of a turning-around frame in the animation is a little more noticeable (looking at you, giant snake-thing).

Gameplay is where I think the tendrils of sequel-itis are most strongly felt. The combat and exploration in Tails of Iron was relatively simple – you had your normal attack, your strong attack, block, parry, dodge and a bow. Enemies telegraphed attacks well enough, and there was a nice weightiness to the combat that I enjoyed a great deal. There were some niggles, certainly. It wasn’t always clear when a hit had been landed on you, with no real stagger mechanic, meaning you couldn’t always tell when you’d taken a hit if it wasn’t one that knocked you across the screen. Some telegraphed attacks also seemed very difficult to counter.

The second point has been nicely addressed, with the big red-circle ‘dodge-me’ attacks now showing a clear marker of where, exactly, you need to dodge. I’ve found this greatly eased the readability of some of the more frenetic fights, or those against big monsters. This is especially noticeable when playing on a smaller screen, which I appreciated as I have mostly been playing this on my SteamDeck, on which it both runs and looks delightful. The first point, though, remains an issue, with the occasional fight being cut short by Arlo dying, despite me not really noticing that I was taking any damage.

Slightly compounding this is the sequels biggest, and perhaps most controversial, change. Oddbug have leaned very heavily into elemental damages. Everything in the game is now dealing not only normal damage, but also a special extra damage – fire, electric, poison, ice, etc., and all your armours have extra resistances, or weaknesses, against these. All enemies both deal and resist different elements too. It’s a big jump from the very basic enemy-type based resistances of Tails of Iron, and one that I think adds a lot more complexity without necessarily adding depth.

As such, you will find certain areas significantly harder if you don’t equip yourself correctly. Equipment changes can now be done on the fly rather than at certain locations, which was a change I disliked initially, as it removed an element of planning and commitment that I liked about the first game, but which is absolutely necessary now – running through a centipede nest with a poison spear was a grueling experience, as the enemies largely ignored most of the damage I was inflicting on them.

I felt this change lost a bit of the grounded world of the first game, elevating it to something far more high-fantasy than the gritty world that had been created, with every weapon in the game being, essentially, a magic weapon. There is also a LOT of equipment. I’m always a big fan of breaking up the armour set into lots of pieces, so was happy to see separate pauldrons making an appearance, but the amount of weapons, two-handed weapons, bows, crossbows, shields, hats, armours and pauldrons to sort through is quickly ARPG-style overwhelming. The UI here is also not great at quickly identifying what is good against what is bad. The inventory UI in Tails of Iron was certainly nothing to write home about either, but it was simple and you weren’t dealing with an overwhelming volume of choices. You’d also pick a loadout and run with it, rarely changing during the mission unless you found something particularly good. Here, inventory management is very much ‘A Thing’, and unfortunately the tools you have to carry it out are lacking.

Overall, despite my misgivings about the additions made to the basic formula, I’ve still got a lot of affection for Whiskers of Winter. I’m a sucker for this art style and world design; woodland critters cosplaying Game of Thrones will never not be a superb aesthetic, a perfect mixture of grimdark and adorable. Expanding it beyond the rats was a great choice, and I love the places that decision takes us. The basics of the gameplay and the combat are still really solid, and while I think the extra complexity of the elemental damage system muddies that somewhat and weakens the world-building, if you’re a mechanics-and-systems kind of player, you’ll likely enjoy it far more than I did.