I have a lot of memories associated with snow, especially at night. Walks through the frozen woods with my family, the thrilling and deadly experience of night-sledding in our horse pastures, and later plowing our driveway with my dad on our old Romanian tractor, taking a shift every half hour before returning to the safety of our house to watch
Terminator 2. These are fond, comfortable memories. Things I cherish and will try to hold with me forever.
The Long Dark takes the comforting imagery of winter landscapes and cozy fireside lethargy and distorts them, juxtaposing familiar sources of comfort with a bitter, hateful sense of coldness and isolation.
Initially released in 2014 as part of Steam's early access program, The Long Dark is, ostensibly, a fairly standard survival/crafting game, set on a small island off the coast of Canada after a meteorological event that renders all electronics and combustion engines nonfunctional. While this alone is a bit of a pickle, the region already being locked in the cold grasp of Winter does little to help the situation. The trappings of the genre are all present- there is only one save file per game, death is permanent, and resource management is crucial to survival.While it has an episodic story mode, I haven't really touched that as of writing, so I can't speak to what it adds to the experience. One could easily compare it to the other big names in the field- Rust, DayZ, Seven Days to Die, and the many others that seem to flood the Steam storefront at any given time.
However, this game in particular stands apart as its own unique experience, and while it is heavily influenced by other survival/crafting experiences, it delivers a uniquely atmospheric take on the genre. The Long Dark has become one of my favorite games, and is an experience like no other.
What really makes The Long Dark unique is its atmosphere, and the ability of nearly every aspect of the game to come together and create a consistent vibe throughout play. Moment-to-moment play is focused on keeping the player-character's meters- temperature, fatigue, thirst, hunger, and overall wellbeing- full, or as close to full as possible. Long-term, however, the game necessitates and emphasizes planning and tactical resource use. While going from house to house looting canned goods and other man-made supplies is initially effective, these will not last forever, and on higher difficulties the pickings are often scarce. The player character begins play with moderately warm clothing, but usually nothing fit for long-term exposure to the cold temperatures. This means that by the time one makes any meaningful progress in their attempts at self-preservation, the player character is usually already at risk of developing hypothermia, or at the very least soon to get there. The early hours are thus spent scrambling for anything to make life a little easier, and often the player is running around in a motley of sweatshirts, patched jeans, and running shoes until winter jackets, snow pants, and Mukluks make themselves apparent. While there's a bit of a laugh to be had at the onset, this does create a sense of desperation from the get-go, especially in some of the game's less forgiving environments, where human habitation (and thus opportunities for good loot) are few and far between. This is a cruel, hostile world you are entering.
The need to keep your meters fill often leads to compromise and sacrifice. You can keep on going for a while, even if you're freezing, starving, or dehydrated, and sometimes the need for one resource necessitates the waste of another. I've found myself venturing out from shelter and a warm fire to harvest cattails and scrap the last remaining meat from a frozen animal carcass more times than I can count. I once spent a week at the bottom of a ravine with a broken rib, living off meat from one moose carcass and spending my days gathering twigs so I could stave off the ice-cold winds that came through every night, presenting the looming threat of hypothermia, frostbite, and a slow, agonizing death. Every second you play, you cling bitterly to life, defying the world around you, and challenging it to come and take you.
Despite the looming terror associated with much of The Long Dark, there's a lot of beauty to be found in its world. There were a lot of little moments in that sat with me. The first time I stepped outside to look at the Aurora Borealis overhead struck me with awe. Walking around at night, with the crunch of snow underneath my feet and the snow shimmering with the light from above was a truly beautiful experience, and the sense of majesty never fails to return on repeat sightings. Notes found throughout the game tell short, one-page stories about the world you're occupying, from the point of view of other survivors who came before you. These can be as simple as a recipe for bread, instructions for properly sharpening knives using found objects, but can also be so much more. One note, found in a lonely lighthouse overlooking the ocean, brings me nearly to tears every time I read it.
The music that accompanies your travels does wonders to complement the experience of playing the game. The barren, minimalist soundtrack, loaded with heavy subsonics that bring to mind Ennio Morricone's score for The Thing, or Wolves in the Throne Room's more ambient work, creates a sense of dread and isolation, making the experience something more akin to survival horror than an open-world exploration game.
Survival mode carries on until your eventual demise, whether it's five minutes in or after two months of careful scavenging and crafting. No matter how long you survive, how many supplies you gather, and how much equipment you carry, every wolf attack, fall through thin ice, or tumble down a hundred-foot cliff can be your last, and no matter your fate, you are given the message "You have faded into the long dark." Like the other frozen corpses you find throughout your travels, no one will remember you. Your name and memories will be no more. There will be nothing left. Only the long dark.
