head to head
vs
DarkwoodvsThe Thing
Darkwood leans Variance (Systems & Chaos); The Thing leans Variance (Twitch Chaos).
DarkwoodThe Thing
Axis by axis
Execution4 vs 5
The Thing leans harder on execution: Third-person shooting and flamethrower work need real aim
Reads0 vs 0
Even - both lean on reads about the same.
Variance6 vs 6
Even - both lean on variance about the same.
Optimization6 vs 5
Darkwood leans harder on optimization: barricade economy and routing are learnable
Two games can score the same on an axis and still test it in very different ways - read each rationale, not just the number.