User Review : The Long Dark

Death is Cold...

It feels like it's been a long time since I wrote a review/blog at N4G and hopefully that changes. This is an exciting month for sure with games like MGSV and Mad Max in stores so I wanted to review The Long Dark before I get immersed into those two beauties. Offcourse things in the review might not be final because the game is still in Alpha but it has a potential to be one of the best 2015 games I have played so let's get started…

Story:

Since this is an Alpha, the story mode was not available. All you know about your character is that he was flying over Northern Canada and then the plane crashed. That is what is known for now, the story mode will be finished this year and will feature a male protagonist. There was no talk about being able to choose a female protagonist in story mode. Right now, Sandbox mode is the only one available with three difficulties and you can choose between male and female.

Environment and Graphics:

It's cold, harsh and brutal. You are in a twenty square kilometers where death is in every corner. It's really beautiful and detailed, there is a good variety in the environment and the locations you explore. There is a huge frozen lake, cold mountains, cabins, bunkers, huts and more. You must scavenge for resources in the environment in order to survive while trying to avoid death. The game has also an incredible art style that is similar to The Walking Dead or Life Strange and it sure looks beautiful and atmospheric. Although it feels like it can be improved but what is available is very good. I was playing on the PC version and the game worked like a charm on the highest setting with a smooth framerate and I haven’t noticed any lags or fps falls.

Gameplay:

It has a similar concept to many games that I have played before like Don’t Starve or The Forest and other survival games. You scavenge items while trying to escape your death by either freezing to death ,starving, getting eaten by a wolf, accidentally setting yourself on fire while starting a fire and many more ways. Yeah, you will die a lot the first few times until you get a grasp on the situation. You will gather better gear to fight off the cold and you will find a hunting rifle to take out those pesky wolves while also looting them. Since the Sandbox mode is all that is available, all you can do in it is simply explore until you die which is a shame that it could have been more fleshed out or had an end to it. It's not bad but unfortunately the more days you survive, the more the game becomes repetitive and you will mostly worry about food and drink later on which will piss you off since your character consumes food and water literally like there is no tomorrow. It's annoying since a normal human being can survive without food or water for a few days but here it only takes a few hours and that will irritate you especially when the game has permadeath and only one way to save the game is by enter in an indoor area or sleeping. You will find yourself dying many times because of that and I thought it was a bit cheap.

Sound:

Now I have to admit, I was impressed because the game sounds exactly like real life as if you are really there. The wind blowing, the wolf's howling, the footsteps you take etc . It just sounds really good. Going down a silent dark basement with nothing but you trusty lantern and then hearing wolf howling and running at me scared me more than 90% of today's horror games. Yeah, it's that good. Also the Ost, while comes in a few and rare occasions, it's so good and relaxing. The voice acting is good too, although I wish in the future, the character can talk more and make more remarks about the surrounding environment. Because, usually that is what people do when they are all alone for a few days, cheering themselves up by talking to themselves and whatnot.

Length:

There is a great amount of content here and it changes every time you start a new game. And the three difficulties will surely keep you occupied and having played all three difficulties, I can say that the only difference I noticed on the highest difficulty was the amount of resources available and the amount of wolves. It felt like every damn corner had a wolf in it on hard mode. Offcourse you will get bored after a while because unfortunately you will feel it's an unfinished product that needs to improve on certain aspects on the game.

How can the game improve over the alpha:

More weapons would be good, a bow or a spear that can be crafter is a good idea.

Less food and drink consumed by the character is a must because It felt cheap the way I died because of those two aspects.

More chitchat from the character, let him/her talk more. Have a bit of humor, and let him/her become a little crazy if he spent more than a month or two alone. That would certainly be something to see.

Improve the visuals a bit more and add more animal variety to the game and a backstory to the corpses who died in the game in messages/notes lying in their backpack where they died. That would really add great depth to the game and let the protagonist mourn or be a bit sympathetic when looting them to make us feel as if we were the ones in that situation rather than just looting them like anything else.

Either remove Permadeath or add Quicksave because its irritating that when someone survive for over a hundred days and accidentally die just to start all over again.

Add a map to the game and maybe fast travel because walking everywhere gets repetitive later on.

Conclusion:

Overall this is good game that has a potential to be a great one when more content and the story mode is added to the game. Can I recommend that you get it now? No, I would rather you wait until the full game is released because there is nothing here but surviving until you eventually die and that unfortunately becomes boring fast.

Special thanks to my fellow N4G member Valenka for making me notice the game by writing the review for it.