Bendy: Lone Wolf is a survival action-adventure set in the sinister halls of Joey Drew Studios. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
Bendy: Lone Wolf Review Overview
What is Bendy: Lone Wolf?
Bendy: Lone Wolf is a survival action-adventure game featuring procedurally generated corridors and relentless enemy encounters. Players take on the role of Boris the Wolf, exploring the sprawling corridors in search of supplies, weapons, and hidden truths. Along the way, they must battle cartoonish yet menacing ink creatures, set traps to survive, and avoid the deadly Ink Demon in tense hide-and-seek sequences. The game blends combat, stealth, and exploration into a constantly shifting challenge.
Bendy: Lone Wolf features:
⚫︎ Stealth Focused Gameplay
⚫︎ Randomly Generated Maps
⚫︎ Collectibles and Hidden Lore
⚫︎ Traps and Environmental Hazards
⚫︎ Play As Boris the Wolf
| Digital Storefronts | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Steam |
 Switch |
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 PlayStation |
 Xbox |
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| Price | $19.99 | ||||
Bendy: Lone Wolf Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 New Lore Tense Stealth Maintains Eerie Aesthetic |
Doesn’t Innovate Origianl Gameplay Difficulty Runs Are Inconsistent Occasional Screen Glitch |
Bendy: Lone Wolf Overall Score - 70/100
Bendy: Lone Wolf doesn’t try to be bigger than it needs to be—it just leans into atmosphere, tension, and that signature inky style. The core gameplay loop remains largely unchanged, making it feel more like an expanded remaster than a new experience. While this will delight fans of Boris and the Dark Survival, it might not win over new players unfamiliar with the Bendy franchise. It’s a solid, enjoyable entry, just not a groundbreaking one.
Bendy: Lone Wolf Story - 6/10
The story remains an intriguing piece of the Bendy universe, with expanded lore through additional audio logs and environmental hints. However, it still relies heavily on players finding these collectibles, which means many will miss chunks of the narrative. There’s no direct exposition, which works for mystery but can leave casual players feeling disconnected. For dedicated fans, though, this scavenger-hunt storytelling style is part of the charm.
Bendy: Lone Wolf Gameplay - 7/10
The tense hide-and-seek gameplay still works, delivering moments of adrenaline when the Ink Demon closes in. New environments, weapons, and puzzles freshen things up slightly, but most changes are cosmetic or marginal in impact. The ink demons can feel predictable, and the balance between easy and punishing floors is inconsistent. Overall, it’s fun in short bursts but can become gruelling over longer sessions.
Bendy: Lone Wolf Visuals - 8/10
The remaster’s visuals are noticeably sharper, with improved lighting, textures, and a more detailed Ink Demon design. The rotating camera adds a welcome layer of perspective, and the environments remain wonderfully moody and immersive. But perfection is marred by the occasional technical hiccup where sometimes after dying, the screen stays black instead of returning you to the safe house, breaking immersion until you restart.
Bendy: Lone Wolf Audio - 7/10
The soundtrack keeps the same eerie tone that fans expect, with ambient noises heightening tension in stealth moments. While it complements the gameplay well, there aren’t many standout musical themes you’ll remember afterward. There’s no voice acting beyond audio logs, which works for the style but limits emotional delivery. The overall sound design is effective, just not groundbreaking.
Bendy: Lone Wolf Value for Money - 7/10
At $19.99 (or free for owners of the original) the game offers fair value for its replayable runs and added content. However, the experience still feels tailored for short, casual sessions rather than deep, all-day play. There’s no multiplayer or major new game modes to extend its lifespan. It’s a worthwhile purchase for fans, but newcomers might find it less compelling for the price.
Bendy: Lone Wolf Review: More of the Same Ink
You know, the Bendy franchise has always been… well, a bit of a strange beast. Not in a bad way, from its humble beginnings as a creepy, ink-soaked indie horror curiosity to its gradual expansion into full-blown cult series, Bendy has dabbled in all sorts of formats. Mainline story chapters? Check. Spin-offs? Of course. That one mobile tie-in that got discontinued years after release? Oddly specific, but yeah, that too.
Somewhere in that inky timeline, we got Boris and the Dark Survival—a smaller, more focused spin-off that leaned hard into the "hide and survive" loop. It was tense, bite-sized, and just engaging enough to keep you saying, "Okay, one more run," until it’s 3 AM and you’re still peeking around corners for ink demons. But as much as it had charm, it also felt like a side dish in a series that’s always dangling the main course just out of reach.
Fast forward to now, and Boris and the Dark Survival has returned, not just with a new coat of paint, but with a whole new name: Bendy: Lone Wolf. It’s not a sequel, not exactly a reboot, but more like that friend who went away for a summer and came back with a sharper wardrobe, a new haircut, and just enough confidence to make you double-take. Underneath the surface, it’s still the same person you knew before… but they’ve grown.
And honestly? That’s the most fitting way I can describe Lone Wolf. It hasn’t reinvented the wheel, in fact, it’s rolling on the same wheel as before, but it’s sanded down the edges, added some new spokes, and maybe swapped out the hubcap for something shinier. Whether that’s enough for you is going to depend on how much you loved (or missed) the original.
But hey, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s get into the review, because there’s plenty to talk about here—the good, the bad, and the ink-soaked.
Same Core Loop
Let’s just rip the bandage off, Bendy: Lone Wolf is basically Boris and the Dark Survival with a facelift and some new accessories. It’s like walking into your favorite coffee shop after a year, only to find they’ve remodeled: the menu’s got some new options, the tables are a bit shinier, and there’s a different playlist on the speakers… but the coffee still tastes exactly the same.
That’s not a bad thing. In fact, for the first hour or so, it felt oddly comforting to slip back into that familiar rhythm. You load in, you take the elevator down, and you know exactly what’s coming. You’ll wander dimly lit corridors, scavenge for a handful of items, and pray you don’t hear that low, ominous groan that means the Ink Demon is nearby. The formula’s simple—collect, run, hide, run again—but it works in the same way a jump scare works: it’s not subtle, but it’ll get you, especially if you’re not ready.
And Lone Wolf does nail that first-time tension. My first few runs had me tiptoeing around corners like a cat in enemy territory, heart thumping every time the screen started shaking. That moment when you hear the footsteps—you know, the heavy, sticky ones that sound like something big just pulled itself out of a puddle—yeah, it still gets you. The survival loop is quick, tense, and satisfying… at least for the first few runs.
Because once you’ve gotten over the initial adrenaline rush, you realize the loop hasn’t changed all that much. The Ink Demon still has a knack for showing up exactly where you need to go, and your options for dealing with them haven’t expanded much beyond finding a miracle station and waiting it out. Sure, there are traps scattered around, but in my experience, they feel more decorative than functional, like someone put them there just to make you feel like you have more agency.
Still, that early game anxiety does a lot of heavy lifting. The procedural layouts mean you never quite know where the items or exits will be, and that unpredictability keeps the short-term thrill alive. Even if the overall loop hasn’t evolved much, it’s polished enough here to feel like a smoother, more deliberate experience.
So… What’s New?
If you’ve played BATDS, you already know the real meat of its storytelling isn’t in cutscenes or in-your-face exposition. It’s in the scraps. Particularly, the audio logs that you can collect throughout different procedurally generated areas. This time around though, there are more audio logs to collect, meaning more little pieces to slot into that giant jigsaw puzzle of Bendy lore. But here’s the thing: you’re not getting an in-game narrator holding your hand and saying, "Alright, here’s what’s going on." You have to earn your understanding. You have to explore, pay attention, and connect the dots yourself.
That’s going to be either a huge plus or a frustrating minus depending on the kind of player you are. If you’re deep into the Bendy mythos, this is a treat, every new tape feels like an unearthed artifact, one step closer to uncovering what’s really going on in that twisted ink-soaked world. If you’re new? Well… it’s kind of like walking into season four of a TV show without seeing the first three. You can still enjoy the atmosphere, sure, but you might find yourself wondering why everyone’s so freaked out about things you don’t understand.
And that’s the magic and the curse of Bendy storytelling, it thrives on being deliberately incomplete. The more you play, the more you collect, the more it starts to make sense… but it never gives you all the answers. Lone Wolf continues that tradition without changing much. It’s still environmental storytelling first, exposition dead last.
Personally, I kind of like that. It makes each run feel like more than just a checklist. Every time I find an audio log, I get a little dopamine hit knowing I’ve added another piece to the larger puzzle. But if you came here hoping Lone Wolf would give the series’ overarching plot a big, clear push forward? Yeah… you might leave disappointed. This is more of a quiet expansion to the lore than a groundbreaking revelation.
Better But Not Different
While the story additions lean more toward "more of the same, but more," the gameplay has definitely spread its wings a bit, though not in a way that changes the core DNA. Bendy: Lone Wolf expands the world vertically and horizontally, giving you more environments and floors to explore. You still hop into that trusty elevator to go to each new area, but now there’s simply more of them and you’ll need to hunt down keys to unlock them all.
Each run remains procedurally generated, which means you’ll never walk the exact same path twice, even if the rooms themselves eventually start to feel familiar. Some floors are a tangle of looping hallways that practically lead you back to the elevator without breaking a sweat, while others… well, let’s just say they were designed by someone who hates you personally. Dead-end rooms, awkward bottlenecks, and far too few miracle stations to bail you out when the Ink Demon decides to get handsy. But I’ll save my rant about this for later.
There’s also a handful of new weapons in the mix, but honestly they're mostly just reskins. Sure, they look different, but in my experience, they didn’t really feel more powerful. Damage output seemed about the same across the board, which makes choosing between them more of an aesthetic decision than a tactical one.
The safehouse—your little slice of non-lethal comfort—has been given some love, too. It’s larger, more interactive, and comes with extra things to collect and unlock. It’s a small touch, but it makes the downtime between runs feel a bit less like just starting a new run again.
And then there are the puzzles. Yes, they’re still here, serving the same functional purpose they did before, a small break from the hide-and-seek tension, giving you something to do besides running for your life. But in Lone Wolf, they’ve had a makeover. The visuals are sharper, the interfaces feel smoother, and there’s just a little more polish to the way they’re presented. Don’t expect brain-benders here—these puzzles are more about pacing than complexity—but they slot into the gameplay loop nicely, especially when you’re trying to catch your breath.
It’s all incremental improvement. Nothing here screams revolutionary, but there’s enough variety added to make the familiar loop feel a touch fresher… at least for a while.
Turntables And Touch-Ups
Another thing that’s noticeably new is that the visuals are crisper, the lighting feels more deliberate, and the overall presentation has just a bit more bite to it. It’s like someone went back to the original Boris and the Dark Survival with a fine-toothed comb, smoothing over the rough edges and buffing up the shine until it gleamed.
One of the biggest functional changes is the addition of camera rotation. It’s a small feature, but a surprisingly impactful one. In the original, you were locked into a fixed perspective, which had its charm but could also be… well, annoying. Now, being able to swing the camera around gives you a better sense of your surroundings, which is great for spotting enemies early or just admiring how much more atmospheric the world feels now. It’s one of those changes you don’t realize you need until you have it, and then you wonder how you ever lived without it.
Performance-wise, Lone Wolf runs smoothly for the most part. The procedural generation loads in quickly, so the downtime between runs is short enough to keep you in the flow. There were a handful of times though that the screen bugged to black when I died, but nothing a return to the main menu couldn’t fix.
The technical polish here doesn’t just make the game prettier, it makes it feel more deliberate. And in a game where atmosphere is half the battle, that’s a big deal.
Routine’s A Killer
For all the polish and added features, the bones of Bendy: Lone Wolf are still the same as Boris and the Dark Survival. At its best, it’s still a pulse-quickening game of cat-and-mouse, where every corner might be the one where you lock eyes with the thing that’s been hunting you. At its worst, it can feel like busywork, especially once you start noticing patterns in how the AI behaves.
See, the Ink Demon’s supposed to react to your actions, which sounds like a terrifying prospect. But in practice? It often feels more like they’re running on a set patrol route, and unless you trigger them by getting too close or grabbing the last thing you need, they’re just going to keep pacing until you do. And once you hide in a miracle station, they reset, heading back to wherever they came from like nothing happened.
That predictability undercuts the fear a bit. Imagine if they actively searched for you after losing sight of you—going down the opposite path of where the chase happened, checking the spots where you could’ve fled to—instead of just shrugging it off. That would keep you second-guessing even after you think you’ve escaped. As it stands, once you understand the patterns, the tension eases up a lot.
Combat against the smaller Dark Puddles isn’t challenging at all. Depending on your difficulty setting, it’s one or two or three hits and they’re gone. There’s no real push to learn timing or strategy, you just swing until they stop moving. A parry or stun mechanic could’ve gone a long way here, giving you more to think about than just mashing attacks.
In short, Lone Wolf’s core hasn’t shifted. That’s great if you loved the original loop, but if you were hoping for deeper system, more strategic combat, or meaningful planning instead of just running around and hiding… you’ll probably be wishing they’d taken a few more risks.
From Safety To Splatter
That’s the thing about Bendy: Lone Wolf, sometimes it feels like the game is giving you a friendly pat on the back, and other times it feels like it’s pushing you down a flight of inky stairs. Some runs are a cakewalk—you can grab your objectives, dodge a few enemies, maybe hum a tune while you do it—and then the very next run will throw you into a gauntlet so punishing it feels almost personal.
Dead-end layouts are the worst offenders. There’s nothing quite like jogging confidently into a hallway, thinking you’ve found the way forward, only to realize it’s a dead end. Cue the sound of the Ink Demon’s footsteps growing louder behind you. And miracle stations? Sometimes they’re everywhere, other times it’s like they’ve gone on vacation without leaving a forwarding address. When you finally spot one, it’s often too late. Then there’s the times when the Ink Demon just so happens to come from the direction of the elevator the minute you’ve completed your objective.
So, it got me thinking… What if there were multiplayer? The thought of running these floors with a friend, splitting up to grab objectives, calling out demon locations, dragging each other into miracle stations, sounds like the kind of chaotic fun that could turn these frustration spikes into laugh-out-loud moments. As it stands, the difficulty swings can make Lone Wolf feel, well, lonelier than it needs to.
Is Bendy: Lone Wolf Worth It?
Sharper Fangs But Bites The Same
If I had to sum up this remake in one line, it would be this: better, not different. The improvements are tangible—visuals are sharper, movement feels smoother, and even the puzzles have a coat of polish—but the core experience remains exactly what it was before. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean your enjoyment will largely depend on how much you liked the original.
The game still works best in short bursts, the kind of thing you fire up for a few runs then put down before the repetition has time to settle in. Marathons are possible, but you might find your patience tested long before your skills are.
For $19.99, it’s fair value, doubly so if you’re getting it as a free upgrade from the original. But if you weren’t sold the first time around, this remake isn’t going to suddenly convert you. It’s a refinement for the faithful, not a revolution for the curious.
| Digital Storefronts | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steam |
Switch |
||||
| PlayStation |
Xbox |
||||
| Price | $19.99 | ||||
Bendy: Lone Wolf FAQ
What Is Bendy: Lone Wolf’s Minimum System Requirement?
| System | Minimum |
|---|---|
| OS | Windows 10 |
| Processor | i5 |
| Memory | 4 GB RAM |
| Graphics | GTX 770 |
| Storage | 2 GB |
Do You Need to Play the Entire Bendy Franchise to Play Bendy: Lone Wolf?
If you’re here just for the gameplay, no, Bendy: Lone Wolf stands on its own. But if you’re here for the story, playing the other Bendy games will give you a fuller picture of the world and its lore.
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Bendy: Lone Wolf Product Information
 |
|
| Title | BENDY: LONE WOLF |
|---|---|
| Release Date | August 15, 2025 |
| Developer | Joey Drew Studios |
| Publisher | Joey Drew Studios |
| Supported Platforms | PC (Steam), Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S |
| Genre | Roguelike, Action, Horror, Survival |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | T |
| Official Website | Bendy: Lone Wolf Website |
