The Long Dark Early Access Preview

The last year has seen the swift rise of the survival game genre, with multiplayer games like Day Z, Rust, and 7 Days to Die leading the pack. These titles tend to play off the conflicts and relationships between each other as much as the challenges of survival, and have built their communities onplaying to the possibilities of putting multiple players in the same space with little in the way of resources to go around. Hinterland Studios, creators of upcoming Early Access title The Long Dark, however, had a different idea: a single-player, atmospheric title based on the loneliness and solitude of surviving on ones own in the wilds of northern Canada.

Taking place during a vaguely described “geomagnetic storm” that brings down the plane of the protagonist – a male or female chosen by the player who is currently just a silhouette -, The Long Dark tasks players with no goal other than surviving as long as possible. At least, that’s the case in the current sandbox mode. There’s a tantalizing-looking ‘story’ option greyed out in the menu that I’m eager to try, but unfortunately, there’s been no news on when it will be ready for Early Access players to test out. In any case, the sandbox mode dropped me right into the wilderness and let me loose.

Frozen lakes like this don’t pose any danger to the player yet, but the wolves that wander across them do.

After getting my bearings in the snowy forest I had spawned in – made visually striking by a painted art style that brings to mind children’s storybooks – I began to wander, and quickly realized that something was amiss. The Long Dark isn’t about making one’s way in a place devoid of civilization, it seems; within a few minutes, I stumbled across a crashed train, a handful of frozen corpses, and a trapper’s lodge, long abandoned. The message was clear: whatever happened here, whether it was a product of the storm or something else, I wasn’t the only victim. I suspect that once story mode is launched, the game will encourage us to dig deeper into this seeming mystery.

In the meantime, I had my work cut out for me just staying alive. Combating starvation, dehydration, and the presence of unusually aggressive wolves (which a tooltip before I started the game somewhat humorously referenced as being unrealistic behavior) is nothing that someone used to survival games hasn’t experienced before, but the bite of a northern Canadian winter added a bitter twist to the proceedings. As I wandered over frozen lakes searching through hunting cabins and ice fishing lodges for supplies, my character began to freeze; soon, thick coats and new socks became just as valuable a resource as food or water. Starting fires was an exercise in frustration, with failed attempts costing me wood and matches that I couldn’t afford to lose, but some of this frustration was welcome in a twisted kind of way. It provided a tension that I found compelling, a sense of danger distinct from the more typical threats. It was something new that I hadn’t felt from another survival game before, where a stash of food and water tends to solve all but the most immediate problems.

The game’s seemingly complex weather system went a long way towards strengthening its tone of tension and desperation, and convinced me that The Long Dark‘s atmosphere is – quite literally – second-to-none in the survival genre. Temperature varies based on the time of day, turning nightfall into a serious problem for an under-equipped player, and wind chill makes even an otherwise unassuming, sunny day dangerously frigid. On top of this, freak blizzards can come out of nowhere as they’re wont to do in northern Canada, decisively ending scavenging trips and sending the player hurrying back to shelter.

Even a simple shelter like this can be absolutely live-saving during a blizzard.

Unfortunately, I was constantly besieged by minor quibbles that seemed intent on disrupting the game’s sincere attempt at serious immersion. To put it delicately, the combat is abysmal; fending off wolves consists of a button-mashing mini-game that will drain a significant amount of health in the best of situations, and ends randomly with the beast temporarily fleeing or fighting the player until one party dies. I understand the need to make enemies seem dangerous, but ensuring that any melee confrontation ends with a definite loss of at least half one’s life is irritating and cheap. On top of this, the user interface is extremely opaque, favoring vague icons over clear descriptions. After my first battle against a wolf, I was left with my health ticking down and a ‘first aid’ sign just above it, implying that I needed some kind of healing. It wasn’t until I had wasted a bandage and a bottle of antibiotics that I finally figured out, through trial and error, that the icon stood for antiseptic. A bit later on, after wandering for a couple of hours, I inexplicably became encumbered, despite not having picked anything up. It turned out that exhaustion was bringing down my maximum carry weight, and the game apparently felt that weakening me without notice was a thorough enough explanation.

Of course it’s worth bearing in mind that the game’s in alpha, and hopefully, many of these issues will be solved with future updates; that said, it’s available to buy now, and I’m not terribly convinced that the game is ready to have money spent on it. In the absence of multiplayer, which tends to add replay value through emergent storytelling, The Long Dark has a lot riding on its ability to immerse the player in its world, and the game’s Sandbox Mode left me wanting after only a couple of hours of play. I have high hopes for the upcoming Story Mode, which will hopefully inject a narrative and greater sense of purpose into the game, but right now, the only thing to really do is try to one-up my previous record for how long I’ve stayed alive. For diehard fans of the genre, The Long Dark might scratch the endless itch of fending off nature’s worst for as long as possible, but personally, I’m going to wait until my survivor has a reason to live before diving back in.