The Long Dark Review

     Hello everyone and happy Wednesday, hope your all doing great.  Today I decided to grab a survival game off the self of Steam called the Long Dark by Hinterland Games.  Over the last two years the genre has seen increased popularity resulting in the making of many poorly made survival games, with only a few surviving on the live rafts floating above the muck.  I am happy to say The Long Dark is one of the best ones out there.  Though it is still early access and lacks a story mode, The Long Dark shows that it will improve greatly of its already an enjoyable immersive world. The Long Dark is set in the aftermath geometric global disaster, theres no zombies, no people, just all the threats Mother Nature can throw at you. You are an unnamed survivor whose plane went down in the Canadian Wilderness in the middle of winter, oops. Since theres no story mode currently, players are put in sandbox mode where the goal is to survive for as long as possible.  Also, just to clarify, geometric disaster means that the humanity's technology has been made useless, from flashlights to cars, anything with a electric base is garbage. At the beginning of each playthrough, players are put randomly on one of the two maps, Mystery Lake or Coastal Highway and which the player can travel between both.  Sometimes the game is merciful and spawns you during the daytime with clear weather (don't be mistaken, its always winter) or other times it laughs maniacally as your dropped in the middle of a blizzard at night when the temperature is twenty-eight below zero and then you trip off a cliff and die.  As I said the game is based around surviving long enough to scavenge for supplies, these supplies can be food, clothes, tools, medicine, and maybe, MAYBE, if your lucky you'll find the only damn gun the game that is crucial to your survival but you probably won't.  Your hunger and thirst each have their own meters, along with cold and fatigue. (see image) Food and drink is based around a calorie system that burns calories when you sleep or run or are out in cold weather for too long, also just being alive burns calories.

The player's overall condition, actions that can be preformed and the status of the weather  

If you get the gun, which is the best thing ever is you ammo for it, you can hunt for deer, rabbits, or wolves instead of searching abandoned trailers for food.  Once you kill something you can skin it and gut it, taking both the meat and hide which you can then cook to eat then make some clothing out of the hide if you have a sewing kit.  You can also melt and boil snow to make it potable so you don't get dysentery, not a fun way to die.  I know it can not be brought up enough (also obvious by the box art) but the cold is a constant danger, just walking around during the day can result in freezing to death.  To not freeze to death, you'll need to dress warm with clothes found around the world or making a coat out of wolves, which can prove difficult as you will need to kill the wolf, skin and let its hide cure indoors for 4 days all while staying alive in on the day to day basis.  Once you are freezing or just need to warm up, you can take shelter in buildings and make a fire to warm yourself in a fireplace, sleeping next to it is even better.  While I love this game and cannot help but love the beauty of the snowy landscape or the sunset from atop a high point, there is one thing that bugs me.  When launching the game theres a message saying that the unknown disaster has caused the wildlife to be "erratic", by this they mean armies of wolves ambushing you at any moment.  While they actually only travel solo thankfully, the unpredictability of when and how the wolves will appear is annoying.

The inside of a cabin, what secrets lie in wait

 Not to say I don't like the presence of the predators, its just I've been playing for eleven hours now and every time I died it was from wolves or being killed by a wolf after narrowly escaping a fight with a different wolf, I'd just like to die from something other than wolves. You can scare them away with flares or gun shots but sometimes the game just doesn't register what the A.I. is suppose to do and the wolf kills me.  There is a lower difficulty where nature doesn't attack you but it also ups the drop rate of gear and makes surviving way easier, I'd like a mix where nature is still mercilessly trying to kill you but cuts down on spawning so many wolves.  Other than that I love this game and it has good times ahead of it.  From the way it makes you truly feel alone to the somber soundtrack that makes you grasp the darkness that has fallen over humanity as you become attached to your character who is just as afraid of the end as you, but weathering every day gives a feeling of accomplishment that makes you feel like Jeremiah Johnson and then when it all ends and you fall dead of frostbite you feel...sad, like you lost a friend. The way The Long Dark pulls you in to feel this kind of emotion is what makes it beautiful and why I'm looking forward to its full release.  I hope you have all enjoyed and I will be back next week with more games.
This had been Jacob Arnold, signing off.

good trailer, really sets the mood