The Long Dark
Survival gets serious in Hinterland’s stylish wilderness sim.
The Long Dark is a game where you play bush pilot Will Mackenzie, whose plane crashes in a remote wilderness after a mysterious ‘geomagnetic disaster’. The alpha build I’m playing is dedicated entirely to what Hinterland call the survival sandbox. Here the only goal is to stay alive for as long as possible—easier said than done in this harsh frozen landscape. I think it might be the closest anyone’s ever come to making my dream survival game.
Starting a new game I find myself gazing across a sea of treetops. I’m immediately struck by the art style, which is like concept art come to life. Snow swirls in the wind as I make my way down a hill into a forest. It’s a stark, barren landscape, and I feel like I’m being swallowed by it.
I notice words appearing at the bottomright of the screen: freezing, starving, dehydrated. I haven’t found anything useful yet; just a few skittish deer that I have no hope of hunting. Night is falling and I’m about to give in and start a new game, but then I see something in the distance: a wisp of smoke. I trudge through the snow towards it, and find a cabin. Relief washes over me as I open the door. Supplies are scattered around: a lamp, bandages, matches, canned food. I light the wood burner, which raises my temperature. Against all odds, I’ve survived the night.
I think it might be the closest anyone’s ever come to making my dream survival game
Or so I think. I didn’t pay attention to my status and go to bed on an empty stomach, dying of starvation in my sleep. Game over. Even for a survival game, The Long Dark is merciless. You’ll have to keep a close eye on your temperature, hunger, thirst and fatigue meters to manage them effectively. I love how a lot of the tiresome chores that usually define survival games, like endlessly hitting trees to collect wood, can be automated. I can instruct Mackenzie to spend a set amount of hours foraging for wood, and the game will tell me beforehand how many calories this will burn. If I have an axe I’ll have a better chance of finding something; without it, chances are slim.
Let’s talk about atmosphere, which is something The Long Dark absolutely nails. In my second attempt I find myself crouching by a fire I’ve built in the broken shell of an old cabin. It’s warm enough, even though it’s full of holes, and I’m well fed, but a blizzard has rolled in, trapping me inside. As the fire crackles I hear the wind roar. Nearby is the frozen corpse of some unfortunate soul. Occasionally I hear the howl of a wolf, too close for comfort. The light from the fire dances around the shelter—the dynamic lighting effects are really impressive—and an impenetrable wall of snow surrounds me on all sides.
It’s a perfect, and totally unscripted, moment. An evocative marriage of circumstance, image and sound that immediately sells the game to me. This is what survival should feel like.