The Long Dark review: The survivalist game that let’s you lose yourself in the Canadian wilderness

THIS survivalist game really makes you feel like you’re lost in the Canadian wilderness, fighting for your life — while sitting in your loungeroom.

Want to fight for your survival in the Canadian wilderness from the comfort of your loungeroom?

THE Long Dark, developed by indie studio Hinterland Studios, pits you against the most ruthless, dangerous, deadly and unforgiving opponent possible: Canada.

Popular culture would have you believe Canada is a land of friendly, polite, maple syrup and ice-hockey loving people who are never more than a curling pitch away from a Tim Horton’s coffee or a generous serving of poutine.

The reality is Canada, like Australia, is a massive, empty country that contains many things that want to kill you. In Australia it’s the desert and pretty much all the wildlife. In Canada it’s the frozen countryside and just some of the wildlife.

The Long Dark is a survival game, published on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, which takes place on the fictional island of Great Bear, located somewhere in Canada’s Northwest Territories.

You play bush pilot Will Mackenzie, whose aeroplane has crashed in the wilderness during an electromagnetic storm and must survive the elements while (in story mode) searching for your missing passenger and attempting to unravel the mystery of what happened.

The game was in Early Access on Steam for several years, with survival sandbox the only playable mode. This involved several areas on the island and no objectives beyond seeing how long you could survive before freezing, starving or being eaten to death.

Recently however, the first two chapters of the long-awaited story mode were released, and frankly I thought they were a disappointment that drags down the rest of what was otherwise a stellar experience.

You really will feel like you’re lost in the Canadian wilderness while playing.

The graphics are stylised in a way that’s both stark and beautifully atmospheric at the same time, and the sound deserves a particular mention for being spectacularly effective as well.

The Long Dark is an extraordinarily atmospheric game. You really will feel like you’re lost in the Canadian wilderness in a -30C storm as the wind (and maybe a wolf) howls all around you. The sound of a fire crackling is stark contrast to the cold, and even the sound of water boiling on the fire conveys a realistic sense of place.

Survival mode is outstanding and well done for the most part — the world is a dangerous place and there’s a real sense of achievement when you discover a cache of food, stumble into a small cave to get protection from the wind, or manage to get a fire going with your last lot of tinder so you can cook something to eat.

The same cannot be said about Wintermute, the episodic story mode for the game, of which the first two episodes have been released at time of writing.

Your character has been asked by Dr Astrid Greenwood (apparently your ex-wife as well) to urgently take her to the middle of Wherethehekarwee, Canada in the middle of the worst polar storm anyone can recall, because of reasons.

The graphics are stylised in a way that’s both stark and beautifully atmospheric and the same time.

The survival mode has difficulty levels, essentially letting you explore the beautiful world the designers have created without worrying about being eaten by wildlife every few minutes.

Caught in an electromagnetic storm, the plane crashes and Astrid suddenly heads off, leaving your critically injured self alone at the crash site. A week later you finally recover on your own (essentially as part of the tutorial) then take off after her for some reason.

When you finally find a (mostly abandoned) town, the sole inhabitant wants you to engage in a series of unrewarding fetch quests (fuel, food, other things you might actually need for yourself) in exchange for information about what happened to Astrid — information that should be fairly obvious given there’s only one road out of town. Also, the world is full of wolves that attack you on sight, critically injuring you and often killing you.

The badly written story with characters I don’t care about might have been largely mitigated if it wasn’t for bugs and glitches — such as cut scenes not triggering, or accidentally throwing torches instead of lighting them — but a combination of the factors makes the story mode an exercise in frustration and simply not a particularly enjoyable experience at present.

The survival mode has difficulty levels, essentially letting you explore the beautiful world the designers have created without worrying about being eaten by wildlife every few minutes. The story mode has no such options, further adding to my disappointment with it. To Hinterland’s credit they’ve been doing a lot of patching and updating, and there are at least three more episodes promised for the single player mode, so some of these issues will hopefully be addressed soon.

Fortunately, the survival mode is still there and it’s still excellent — one of the best I’ve played in quite some time — so if you’re going to check out The Long Dark I’d suggest avoiding the story and going straight for that.

It’s worth emphasising what a stellar experience the survival mode is — it perfectly conveys the “man (or woman) versus wild” element, and the uncertainty, sense of discovery, and poetry of the environment are superbly handled. Critically and welcomingly, there are no zombies or hordes of crazed survivors to content with — it’s just you, the wildlife, the weather, and trying to find enough resources, food and drink to stay alive.

There are still a few flaws — for example, it’s entirely possible to starve to death while harvesting the meat from a hunted animal, or die of thirst while boiling water to make it drinkable — but for the most part they’re far less jarring and feel easier to work with. I also experienced fewer glitches and bugs than in the story mode.

If you like survival games, then The Long Dark is one of the best out there and you shouldn’t hesitate to don your polar exploration gear, break out the survival kit and fire up the camp stove to experience it. If you’re looking for a good story, however, then keep searching — this one appears to have gotten itself lost in a storm somewhere.

Originally published as The Long Dark review: The survivalist game that let’s you lose yourself in the Canadian wilderness