THE LONG DARK GAME HOW TO

Even building a fire can take several tries, which adds to the realism but isn’t entertaining. Lighting resources are scarce, and fuel for lanterns or flare shells for a flare gun are even scarcer.

Time management is key as you try to feed and take care of yourself in the daytime hours, whereas nighttime becomes incredibly dangerous. Failing to boil water before drinking it can poison you, and a wolf attack can kill you if you don’t tend to your wounds quickly enough. How easily you can fall ill or get injured makes for a realistically tense experience. The wilderness itself is beautiful, with sunsets glowing a deep orange and a dizzying view of stars in the night. I enjoyed making my way through these areas, and reading notes from people that used to live there. The locales you explore are detailed and the abandoned homes you ransack feel like they were once lived in, with empty soda cans scrunched on a table or beds half-made. I found the challenge mode the most engaging, where you’re tasked with specific goals, such as trying to reach different locations before dying, or going face-to-face in a fight with a grizzly bear. The survival mode is most fun on higher difficulties where you face not just the treacherous cold but also wild beasts. Other times, I found myself learning things better through trial-and-error rather than through a quest, such as finding natural plant remedies on my own. It was a long, laborious, and frustrating quest as I attempted to find enough food for the both of us. For example, when helping an old lady stock up food for the winter, I had to starve myself in the process. But even as tutorials, these are integrated poorly.

THE LONG DARK GAME HOW TO

The NPCs you meet during story mode don’t feel like fleshed out characters, but instead act as guides for tutorials to teach you how to survive. However, since story mode is told in an episodic format with two episodes currently released and three more on the way, there's a chance for the tale to improve. Your wife never gets enough screen time before she disappears in order for you to form a connection, and this didn’t give me much motivation to continue. Having quest objectives gives the experience a focus, but the story isn’t engaging. In the aftermath, you must search for your estranged wife and learn how to survive the cold.

You play as a pilot whose plane crashed due to a mysterious storm. Story mode, known as Wintermute, is a good point of entry for new players since it teaches you how to survive along the way, but it comes with a host of problems. Story mode tells a unique narrative that also acts as a tutorial, survival mode is an open-ended sandbox where you try to stay alive as long as possible, and challenge gives you specific quests to complete. With its three modes (story, survival, and challenge), The Long Dark offers several ways to approach the wilderness. Your overall goal depends on which mode you’re playing, but you’re primarily trying to stay alive with whatever resources you can find by searching, crafting, and hunting. You micromanage every detail, which is overwhelming when learning the ropes, but enjoyable in the long run once you establish a rhythm. Whenever one of these drops too low, you become at risk for hypothermia, illness, and even death. To survive, you need to keep a keen eye on your body temperature, hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. Every action has consequences – even sleeping. The Long Dark is about managing your time and resources, which makes for a tense trek across a beautiful, snow-blanketed wilderness known as the Great Bear. With its hyper-realistic mechanics, this difficult-but-satisfying survival game plunges you into the depths of a harsh Canadian winter. Danger lurks around every corner, and you can succumb to death in even the calmest moments. If The Long Dark teaches you one thing, it’s that the wilderness is terrifying but beautiful.

The long dark game