The Long Dark (aka Gah...Wolves!)

Sold. Damn it @triggercut, great write-up. Love the sound of the wind dynamics and the challenges.

Had a hankering for more survival since The Flame in The Flood so this could be perfect.

Yeah, it’s important to realize that–as in a lot of survival games–you’re going to need to come up with a sustainable way of life in The Long Dark. The energy bars, cans of tomato soup, and similar items don’t respawn. Think of them as a hold over for yourself as you transition to a more sustainable way of getting food.

The easiest available to you in Mystery Lake is fishing. You should be able to find a hook and line in the Base Camp office, but they’re also sometimes found in the fishing huts themselves. You can craft a hook and line together to make fishing tackle, or just find whole fishing tackle. You’ll need a tool to break the ice, either a hatchet, prybar, knife or hammer.

There’s usually a rifle to be found somewhere in the Mystery Lake area. It can be spawned in a variety of areas, from the trapper’s homestead to just with random dead bodies.

Which brings up another point: you can scavenge the leavings of the wolves and birds. Look for circling crows–they signify a dead something or other. Sometimes it’s a dead human. Sometimes, though, it’s a deer carcass. If you have a hunting knife or an axe, you can strip meat and sometimes gut and a hide off it.

There are also bows and snares in the game to hunt and trap game with.

If you’re on Day Three and still haven’t started transitioning to sustainability, it may be too late. You definitely need to get out though, and explore and try to learn Mystery Lake as best you can for your next go round! The camp you did find–with the base camp office–is a great place to set up as your permanent base. But, as you’ve surmised, you have to explore and find more…and there’s lots more around Mystery Lake beyond what you’ve already found. Look for roads, streams, and clear-cut paths. They’ll take you to points of civilization, just like they would in a real life survival setting.

December update, their biggest of the year!

Highlights: total overhaul to the clothing system. More clothes of different types, clothes can be layered, and the elements interact with them differently. (Getting wet, or frozen–both new–are not good.)

Added frostbite as a condition, which carries with it permanent condition loss.

Added an entirely new area.

Video on the update, can’t wait to try this!

Also, they updated progress on story mode. Lots of blahblahblah, but it sounds as if March is the earliest we can hope for that. Which will be version 1.0

The update today contains (so they say) the last major systems update in the game prior to story mode launch…but when story mode goes live, they’ll add some more systems as well.

I hope we can eventually amputate our frostbitten limbs. :)

Hello everyone,

In collaboration with Valve, The Long Dark will be available for 50% off its current $19.99 Early Access price during this week’s Steam “Midweek Madness” sale, which starts tomorrow (April 25th).

This is to acknowledge all the community support you’ve given us over the years, and to offer one last chance to purchase the game at the Early Access price point.

Thanks for your support, and we can’t wait to share what’s coming next!

  • The Hinterland Team

I picked it up for £7.49 because I guess this will be leaving Early Access soon.

[quote]
…one last chance to purchase the game at the Early Access price point.[/quote]

Until the Christmas sale.

the front page for the game’s site has a counter up. Currently at 6 days, 20 hours, 33 minutes.

Oh, also: this is a tremendous game. Getting it for 10 bucks is a ridiculous amount of bang for your buck, even here in late early access.

I’ve not played every survival game out there, but I’ve played a number of them, and The Long Dark grabbed me and continues to hold me the way few games have.

Yep. And I bought it a couple years ago partly because of this thread. And I did fine for a couple of hours, and was enjoying myself. Until the wolf came. He chased me. I screamed and yelled, “Where is the god damn option to make friends with him?!?” They need to add that option. Because I had no other. I was dead the moment he spotted me.

Oh, and I giggled when I read your update earlier:[quote=“triggercut, post:56, topic:75578”]
Highlights: total overhaul to the clothing system. More clothes of different types, clothes can be layered, and the elements interact with them differently. (Getting wet, or frozen–both new–are not good.)

Added frostbite as a condition, which carries with it permanent condition loss.

Added an entirely new area.
[/quote]
I thought: Awesome! They’ve made it even harder!

The frostbite is all new, but a lot of the other stuff–like getting your clothes wet–I think used to kill you and drive down your condition. Now you just get better feedback on why that’s happening.

I have been meaning to give it another go.
It just bothers me that I never used to be afraid of wolves. And now I am.

WINTERMUTE is releasing August 1st, 2017. Here’s a super slick trailer showing off what the team’s been working on:

The first two episodes of WINTERMUTE are about bush pilot Will Mackenzie and Dr. Astrid Greenwood, and what happens when they get separated after a mysterious geomagnetic event causes them to crash deep in the Northern Canadian wilderness. In Episode One: “Do Not Go Gentle”, Mackenzie tries to survive the savage wilderness long enough to find shelter, hoping for the comforts civilization might bring. He quickly learns the world around him is not what he expected. In Episode Two: “Luminance Fugue”, Mackenzie begins to understand the true nature of the disaster he finds himself in, all the while searching for signs of Astrid. He also begins to learn the answer to the question, “how far will you go to survive?”, as he navigates relationships with the other survivors he meets along the way.

Total gameplay for the two episodes ranges due to the open-world nature of the game, but we’re finding 6-10 hours for the two episodes seems pretty consistent. Episodes Three to Five will be released over the remainder of 2017, and into 2018.

Yeah, my disappointment that this isn’t coming out of EA today as expected is a bit tempered by the announcement that we’re getting the first TWO episodes of story mode on August 1.

Plus we’re getting some nice overhauls and re-works of a few things in a final alpha build in the next month is sounds like.

For clarification, if you own The Long Dark that’s in EA now, do you eventually get all five story episodes? Or will this be one of those deals where the team releases the first couple of episodes, then decides the back half of the story has to be split off into a separate Long Dark?

Having to wait until August was a bit of an anti-climax after the countdown, but at least the trailer’s great.

From the KS update:

Most Early Access games don’t get to have a second launch, and we’re doing everything we can to overcome this. We hope we’ll have your support in this, as it’s critical to our ongoing success.

@Telefrog, it’s a free update for existing backers/owners..

“And keep in mind that you are getting all these new features and all this new content for the money you’ve already given us. When we launch Story Mode, you will get Episode One and Episode Two, as well as Sandbox, for the price of Early Access. And you will also get all the other episodes in Season One, when they launch. So we think that this is pretty great value, if things like play time and content scope matter to you.”

Nice! Thanks!

So the countdown was to an announcement? Sheesh. Even indies are doing it these days…

-Tom

So is the Sandbox mode at least at v1.0 now? Are they just working on Story mode from here on?

Because in November:

…and then one month later they totally overhaul the clothing system and add a new area! :P

:)

Hey, if they wanna keep putting in more QOL refinements and fixing some of the bothersome stuff in the interface, I’m all for it.

And it sounds like they’re getting rid of stuff that’s only sort of worked – like that weird flare “brandishing” thing.

Is that what was going on? That is rude. I too am very disappointed the game didn’t go 1.0.