THE LONG DARK
About 4 years ago I played the demo of The Long Dark. At the time it was a well done proof of concept and the playable "ad" for the kickstarter. I think I enjoyed it. I remember being attacked by a bear and he ate my shoes. Well the end of 2017 finally saw The Long Dark leave early access and become fully available so I figured why not check it out.
The Long Dark is a survival game. A little different than the open world ones that PC gaming has become littered with over the last few years though. This one entombs you in small hand crafted locations filled with snow and ice. Cut off from humanity in a never ending winter. More than any survival game I have ever played it asks "Yes, you can survive out here, but is it worth it?"
The survival mechanics balance around two things, food and heat. Everything you do takes time and calories. The longer you are outside the colder you get. The harder you work the faster you become hungry. Add a few sub-systems such as getting tired (which affects other things), carry limits and a host of injuries and maladies to suffer from you are always on edge. Weather changes can turn a sunny day into a blinding snow storm. Night comes and the cold really sets in. Will you find food? Firewood? Shelter? The world of The Long Dark pushes on you. Cold and oppressive. And then there are the wolves.
F**k wolves.
Ahem. As you attempt to overcome these obstacles via the games mechanics there a few hiccups. Nothing technical (that I found anyways) but a lot of the built in systems and numbers are rough and feel deliberately hard for no reason. Why does it take 10 minutes to collapse a cardboard box or 30 minutes to hack a chair into firewood? Why do I wake up starving and massively dehydrated after a single nights sleep? I realize the game is built to keep pushing you, to never let you rest or feel you have "beaten" it, but come on. I am not asking for total realism but I feel some of these numbers could be looked at.
There are two ways to suffer in The Long Dark's cold landscape, an open free roam survival game type that let you explore a small number of the zones (more to come) with the standard perma-death caveat. Stay alive as long as possible. With a huge number of setting and difficulties to pick from you can tailor it from Cub Scouts Winter Camp to Death by Wolves Every Frozen Minute. There is also a 3 act (again with more to come) single player game, Wintermute, that act as both narrative background to The Long Dark's setting and as a tutorial for the survival game.
The Long Dark does quite a few things well but really where is excels is atmosphere. The graphic art style fits the cold grey world very well with a painted sky that was glad to see every time a storm broke. The sound work is exceptional and the music, oh the music, so good. The Long Dark has a visual language that it communicates to the player very clearly. It's cold. It's harsh. And it is never going to end.
While to some it might seem a little pricey for an indie game, I think The Long Dark has a lot to offer and with more content is being added (a big winter patch with Moose was just released) you can spend some time deep in these cold woods. Just keep an eye out for wolves.
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