01 Aug 2017 19:01:51
Has anyone on here played the Long Dark? If so is it as good as the reviews on Steam suggest?

1.) 04 Aug 2017
04 Aug 2017 16:02:05
The Long Dark is a great game, they just came out of early access and it's now got a fully voiced story mode, whereas before it just had a kind of endless survival mode.

I'm currently playing the story mode now, only just started today, but I've had the game for months when it was just survival.

The survival aspect of the game is really fun if that's the sort of thing you're in to.

For example, you'll find clothes along the way, maybe in a box, maybe in a car, maybe on a dead body.
The clothes have a condition and you can repair them with certain materials.

Better quality gear protects you more from the cold, however, where you found it affects its 'status' clothes can be found frozen on dead bodies so need to be defrosted and dried before they're safe to wear otherwise you risk hypothermia.

You need to constantly have a supply of wood to build a fire as this will keep you warm, allow you to melt snow for emergency drinking water (which'll need boiling/purifying to avoid risk of sickness) and a place to cook any raw food you have like fish or meat.

The injury system in the game is harsh too, whereas if you play games like CoD or Battlefield, you may be used to a 30ft drop just hurting a bit, a sharp drop of like 5-10ft on TLD can lead to a sprained ankle or broken foot, which in turn will slow you down and stop you sprinting till you heal it, that may not sound like much, but speed can be the difference between finding a warm/covered place to rest and freezing to death.
Smaller wounds like a sprain or a twist can usually be slept off, but larger ones will need to be bandaged or treated, any bites or scratches from animals need to be treated with antiseptic and a bandage and so forth.

Most encounters with dangerous wildlife need you to either leg it or sneak round, in the old survival mode, you could find a rifle, but you'd be lucky to find 3 or 4 bullets for it.
Plus aiming is tricky in the game, and when you're looking at 2-3 shots to down a wolf, it's not worth your time fighting when you can save the ammo to bag yourself a deer and get some food/leather/etc

The main 'enemy' in the game is nature itself and that's what makes it so challenging, you can't predict if the winds going to pick up or if a snow storm is coming, the trip from one area to another make take 3-4 in game hours and if you're not prepared, that's enough time to freeze or starve or dehydrate and that's without the weather giving you a kicking!

The game is really fun and honestly you're going to die a lot before you get the hang of it in survival mode.
The story (thus far) gives you a fair few tips and you can re-read these any time you'd like.

Overall it's a very challenging game at times, as you can find it hard to acquire certain items that make life easier, but you feel a real sense of accomplishment when you start making milestones like 5 or 10 days alive as you know you've earnt it.

Hope that gives you some food for thought on the matter ed!