The Long Dark - Survival, no Zombies! Out of Early Access!

[jztemple2]

I did a search and was surprised not to find a thread for this. Maybe I just missed it? Anyway, consider this the 1.0 released version thread for The Long Dark, which came out of EA today. I got a Steam key today through Amazon which was a lot cheaper.

A long time ago I got 7 Days To Die in Early Access and that kind of turned me off of survival games, but this one has so many positive reviews I decided to give it a try.

Having never played the game I decided to not start with the survival sandbox mode and instead went with the story mode. The first chapter, Wintermute, appears also to be a tutorial on how things work. I did have an issue which was just to not understanding the menus, but the devs replied on the Steam discussion board to my query and I'm back up and running now.

Graphics are fairly basic but that fits into the feel of the game, which is primitive survival. As is common for so many games today, there is no manual, but I'm figuring things out as I go along. I'll post some impressions and pics later on and try to avoid spoilers.

[Carpet_pissr]

This has been on ye olde wishliste for a while. Curious to hear your impressions.

[Smoove_B]

It's been in development forever - I picked it up years ago in EA during a summer or winter sale. Just saw it was released today - and I'm pretty sure we did have a thread about it, but it was probably lost during the OOutage a few years back.

[Freyland]

It's been in development forever - I picked it up years ago in EA during a summer or winter sale. Just saw it was released today - and I'm pretty sure we did have a thread about it, but it was probably lost during the OOutage a few years back.

Coincidentally also known as The Long Dark.

[Sepiche]

I played quite a bit of this while it was in early access, and it's an excellent and atmospheric survival game.

Lots of settings to vary the challenge, realistic and well thought out survival mechanics, multiple scenarios of varying difficulty, and as I mentioned, it's so atmospheric you'll start feeling a chill as the wind whips up and a blizzard rolls in while you're trying to make it the last few hundred meters to the next shelter.

The only thing I can say against it is that the maps are all pre-made as opposed to procedurally generated, which does cut into the replayability a bit once you get to know the maps, but the area you can play in is much larger than it seems at first, and even knowing the map, the randomness of scavenging still helps make things feel fresh.

[jztemple2]

I'm playing the first story episode, "Wintermute". I've never played the survival sandbox so I can't compare it, but some folks on the Steam forum think story mode is much harder. On the other hand some folks think it's too easy. But apparently it is different. I've played it for five hours. The first hour was very introductory... this is how you get food, this is how you get water, this is how you make fire, that kind of thing. The next couple of hours was involved with trying to track down a missing companion, but mostly it was about starving, freezing and being killed by wolves. In Story Mode there is no permadeath, you just go back to the last save or last checkpoint, as you prefer. The final two hours were spent back on the story. I can't really mention much about it because of spoilers, but while survival gets a bit easier, you start getting some mission objectives which gives some meaning to what you are doing.

Since I have no knowledge of what Survival Mode looks like, I am just evaluating Story Mode on its own. It can be very tough at times as you enter a downward spiral of conflicting needs. You are freezing so you want to stay near a fire, but you are starving so you need to look for food. Melting snow takes firewood and then boiling it to make it potable uses even more wood. And soon you are out of stuff to burn, it's dark and you can't wait till daylight because you'll be dead by then. A couple of times I was absolutely sure I wasn't going to survive and I'd have to load a save, but I managed to keep going long enough to just squeak by. That does make it rewarding, but damn it is frustrating at times.

This is definitely a *survival* game however, even in Story Mode. You have needs for rest, food, water and warmth and you cannot ever forget about that. There is no casually wandering around just looking at the scenery, you need to keep trying to stay alive and healthy. So it is a challenging game.

[Sepiche]

This is definitely a *survival* game however, even in Story Mode. You have needs for rest, food, water and warmth and you cannot ever forget about that. There is no casually wandering around just looking at the scenery, you need to keep trying to stay alive and healthy. So it is a challenging game.

I think that's one of the things about Long Dark that appeals to me... anytime you are outside of a shelter you are at risk, and even something as simple as entering a new zone and setting up a new shelter can be life threatening if you aren't prepared. And the satisfaction of getting caught in a blizzard and still managing to get pointed in the right direction and making it to safety before freezing to death is immense.

[Carpet_pissr]

It's been in development forever - I picked it up years ago in EA during a summer or winter sale. Just saw it was released today - and I'm pretty sure we did have a thread about it, but it was probably lost during the OOutage a few years back.

Coincidentally also known as The Long Dark.

[jztemple2]

I'm up to seven hours in the game, all in Story Mode. This first episode, Wintermute, I mentioned above. Since I last reported, I've been working around in a village and doing quests of a sort. Again, survival is utmost on my mind. Do I have enough hours of daylight left to go to an objective, or do I putter around, sleep for twelve hours and try the next morning? And what about the freaking wolves? And where are my pants?

[Unagi]

I played this for a month or so in EA. Sand-box mode. I had a good deal of fun with it, but it wore me down after a while.
There were no 'people' in the sand-box mode, just you walking around... so just even seeing that image of you with clothes on (or pants off) seems really strange to me. I should go back and check the game out now. Easy mode.

[jztemple2]

I'm up to eleven hours now, still in Story Mode, Wintermute. I've entered the second episode. I know that because at a certain point about a couple of hours ago, I went through a tunnel and suddenly there was a cutscene and credits started rolling. After the credits I saw that I could still Resume the Wintermute main menu item and when I did, a new set of credits starting rolling with cutscenes behind the credits. Very cool stuff by the way. And then I've been playing a couple of hours in a new area, but I carried over the stuff I had from the first episode and so it feels like I'm continuing the story, which I am of course.

I have more gear and am more woods-smart, and so this episode has been more about exploring and working on the story objectives. It is still a pretty enjoyable experience and I can recommend it to folks who want more than just a sandbox survival experience.

[MonkeyFinger]

I Kickstarted this but have been waiting until it was "done" to install it, something I just did. All I did so far was crank it up and was amused by the dire disclaimer you have to specifically click past.

[Sepiche]

Managed to play the main story for a bit the other night. Seems like a well told story so far with some fun plot points that encourage you to keep progressing. I managed to make it to the road before I got attacked by a wolf and froze to death in the night before I could get farther.

Last time I played they also hadn't added the bunny execution animation yet. I got to the point where I had some bunnies I could try to stun with rocks, but once you stun them and grab them, you pick them up, look into their innocent little bunny eyes, and have to click one more time to break their necks.

I did it once before I was forced by my wife to move on and not kill any more bunnies. Apparently if I play this in front of her bunnies are not an allowed food source for me (at least until I get a slightly more humane snare).

[jztemple2]

I'm at 13.5 hours now, all in Story Mode, and it's starting to wear a bit thin. A couple of things... it is important to save periodically because the game only saves when you reach an objective and you don't really know when that is going to occur. You can either sleep, which is preferable but requires that you have a place that you can lay out your bedroll, or you can pass time. The minimum time is an hour, and if you are in very cold temps without the proper clothes you can die. Not to mention the wolves . You do want to save through, because you do NOT want to redo a lot of the gameplay which often is just trudging from A to B, or doing a lot of good exploring and gathering of resources. A lot of folks won't mind this, but I tend to get bored with games if I'm not getting challenged and feel like I'm doing busy work.

The other reason I'm not as thrilled as I was early on is that a lot of the objectives are go and fetch missions or go explore and area and boom, something happens. I've reached the point where I have good winter clothes and a decent amount of supplies, so it's just a matter of walking across the maps. Again, for some folks that's fine, but for me, it's not as much fun as it was early on.

Also, I'm having one other concern about the game. I did try Survival Mode, just to see what it was like, and I find that when you select the mode, you are given a choice of maps to start on, or you can go on a random map. The problem is that I've already seen and walked through several of these maps in Story Mode. So that means Survival Mode won't be as challenging as it might have been. As soon as I figured out if I am on a map I've already visited, I know where to walk to find shelter and supplies. Unless of course that is changed from Story Mode. I'll have to give it a look.

[JC Anejo]

My wife who hadn't played a PC game since she went the iPhone/ipad route now has over 300 hrs into the sandbox mode all on one map. She did try the story mode when it came out but found it fairly boring compared to just trying to survive as long as you can. When you play the sandbox mode supplies/weapons and tools are not in the same place on each restart. And at least on the map she is playing on, some of the locations are not always present. It is has been a blast listening to all the ways she has died and the joy she finds in getting enough wolf or deer hides to make the good cloths.