The Long Dark is a game produced by the Hinterland Studio and partially funded by players. The title belongs to survival games genre and the game gives you almost unlimited ability to interact with the fictional world. The player’s task is to survive in Canada attacked by the harsh winter – you must collect food, necessary materials and find shelter. The Long Dark is considered by many to be the most difficult game of its kind on the market. The title was available as early access for many months. The premiere of the game took place on August 1, 2017.
How to Download The Long Dark
The Long Dark can be downloaded from Steam. The game is also available on the GOG.com platform. To start the download, click on the button at the end of the review.
The Story
The story of the game is revealed from the perspective of one of the two people: the pilot William MacKenzie or the doctor Astrid Greenwood, who survived this natural catastrophe. This event has lead to cutting off electricity all over the world. The setting of the game is cold Canada, and the player must face extremely low temperatures, hunger, and animals that hunt for people.
The Long Dark allows you to play in two modes: sandbox, in which you must survive as long as possible in a hostile world and in a story mode, a five-part game for one person. You are told the story of William and Astrid, whose plane crashed somewhere on Great Bear Island. The player’s task, in addition to survival, is to help the characters to find their way. The story mode differs from the sandbox. Here you need to interact with the characters you meet, complete quests for them or … to make decisions that are sometimes inconsistent with your own morality.
During the game, you also have to take into account a number of factors. These are the atmospheric conditions, hero’s level of fatigue, and even … the state of his clothes! If any of these factors are at a very low level, the hero’s health will start to decrease. The lower the level of health, the worse the mood of the character – she or he begins to have trouble walking, and his vision becomes impaired. Sometimes making a decision about a further march may mean freezing before reaching another safe haven. Thus it is worth considering whether to stay in an abandoned house or cave, repair clothing, and regenerate or whether to persevere. At the same time, you must take into account that when you spend too much time in one place, you can lure in the hungry, wild animals!
The Difficulty Levels in The Long Dark
There is only one map available the game, but at the stage of character selection, you can choose one of two spots where you will start the game: Coastal Highway or Mystery Lake. You can also choose a random starting location. There are four levels of difficulty to choose from:
- Pilgrim – the easiest mode for the players who prefer exploration rather than survival,
- Voyager – a balanced mode, for the players who like reasonable, not too demanding challenges,
- Stalker – the second most difficult mode, for the players who like challenges,
- Interloper – the most difficult mode in which the longer you survive, the more hostile the world around you will become, for the experts who crave the greatest survival challenges.
The game offers only a single player mode. The graphics are a bit on the cartoonish side, but still, they seem realistic.
