Werewolves: Haven Rising
By Jeffrey Dean
☆☆☆ (7/10)
Werewolves: Haven Rising is a solid, straightforward read. You play as one of fifteen young werewolves born in Haven, a government-run internment camp designed to control and monitor werewolves. The story follows your struggle to survive, navigate the social dynamics of the camp, and confront the moral and ethical dilemmas of being hunted simply for who you are. While it doesn’t break new ground, the narrative is surprisingly fresh with a good plot twist at the end. Your choices and stats matter quite a bit, as well. However (and this is purely a me issue), I did not vibe with the author’s prose at all. It’s technically solid and descriptive, with clear attention to character, but I struggled to feel invested in the cast. The vibes comes off as somewhat YA, and the characters lean heavily on archetypes—Hakem is the brute, Bly the hothead, Jolon the lone wolf, and Dena the sweet one. Still, I might check out the sequel if it goes on sale.
Pros:
Strong plot. Werewolves: Haven Rising isn’t your typical urban fantasy. You’re not a cool, free-roaming apex predator—you’re a kid growing up in what is essentially a steel cage. The internment camp setting adds a constant layer of tension, and the story does a good job exploring control, fear, and systemic oppression without feeling cartoonish. The story touches on colonialism too, as well as independence and democracy. I went in half-expecting a Twilight-style werewolf love triangle. That expectation was very quickly—and very pleasantly—destroyed. There’s also a surprising plot twist at the end of the game! I found it was foreshadowed well and very relevant to the game going forward. Honestly, the writing is quite solid.
Choices that matter. The beginning of the story starts off pretty normally regarding stats. You can choose a different build ranging from a pacifist, intelligent werewolf to a feral, bold killing machine. The options were clear and well-developed, so all right, let’s see how this goes. But then I started encounting more choices, choices that had clear consequences for the rest of the game. For example, I chose to study with the elder instead of training with Bly or Jolon. As a result, I developed a strong bond with him and ended up even becoming head of the pack! There’s a lot of branching, as well—who do you want to spend time with? Which path should you take? There’s also three major different endings with different motivations for going down different paths. I always felt that my choices were respected, and I never felt like I couldn’t make a choice that was not given to me.
Cons:
Writing wasn’t for me. On a technical level, the prose is clean, readable, and descriptive, and the story clearly wants you to think about moral gray areas, systemic violence, and resistance. But … “baby, we should break up. It’s not you, it’s me” basically. I can see that the author wanted to—and did!—focus on quite a bit of the cast. But to me, the characters fell flat. They felt more like stereotypes or mouth pieces for their side of the conflict (e.g. pro-violence or anti-violence). The overall tone also leaned more YA than I personally prefer, which isn’t a flaw so much as a stylistic mismatch. Emotional beats are often very direct and clearly signposted, and the characters’ personalities tend to stay within familiar archetypes rather than evolving. Characters frequently explain how they feel, why they feel that way, and what they believe is right, rather than letting those ideas emerge naturally through action or subtext. None of this makes the writing bad, either! It’s clear, earnest, and purposeful. It just didn’t fully pull me in on an emotional level, and I found myself more interested in the setting and central conflict than in the people experiencing it.