Survival games are often about pressure. In The Forest, you need to build a weapon, prepare defenses, and generally get yourself together before night descends, or else you'll be eaten alive. With DayZ, there's the constant threat of zombies (and other players), while Rust simulates a brutal, Darwinian pre-history. The Long Dark is different. It's slower and more contemplative, but it still feels rich and full - the achievement of Hinterland's now eight-year-old opus is how it makes nothing feel like something, the broken tundra of its giant open world nevertheless brimming with character. For a short time, The Long Dark is cheaper than it's ever been. With episode five on the way, Hinterland say it's getting ready for the game's end.
survival game is 'Wintermute,' the episodic story that began all the way back in 2017. You're partially free to explore the landscape, but the plot of Wintermute leads you between different objectives, side missions, and set pieces. The latest episode, 'Fury, Then Silence,' was released back in October 2021. Developer Hinterland is now getting ready to release the concluding fifth episode, while also working on The Long Dark 2, also known as Blackfrost. The studio's founder and creative director Raphael van Lierop shares new details on Wintermute's final chapter.
"Episode five has between two to three times as much cinematic and story content as episode four," van Lierop says. "The game world you'll be playing in is about three to four times as big as episode four. I know you are all wanting more specific updates, but we're really trying to avoid spoilers so we won't be sharing much in detail about the episode until the first teaser. I will say that the episode is the most ambitious we've built so far, and it has quite a few systems we haven't used in other episodes, so it's proving to be quite challenging for the team.
"There are a lot of story threads to tie up across all the episodes, to wrap up the Wintermute storyline, but also to set the stage for the future of The Long Dark."
Regarding short-term plans for The Long Dark, van Lierop says that an array of visual enhancements for the game will be released before the end of May. Other quality-of-life upgrades will arrive after the launch of episode five, as well as mod , which he confirms is still in the works, but will also be released once episode five is out. As for The Long Dark's future, van Lierop says that, once Wintermute is finished, the game itself will have reached a natural conclusion.
"Shipping episode five will be a big inflection point for The Long Dark," he explains. "It's been years in the making, and in most ways, the completion of the Wintermute story mode represents 'the end' of The Long Dark. I'm writing 'the end' in quotes because we still intend to continue updating the game, but completing story mode has been a point of ability for Hinterland all these years. With the story mode finished, we are looking forward to having some breathing room to figure out next steps and continue to do our work without the weight of a big promise hanging over us.
"So, for a little while at least, we're going to think about shipping episode five and finishing Wintermute as the end. We'll have delivered on our promises, lived up to our obligations, and hopefully you'll be happy with the results and feel they were worth the wait."
Nevertheless, van Lierop says that Hinterland has "many ideas" with regards to continuing for The Long Dark and that the studio will consult fans and players about potential updates in the future. For now, the game is available at a 90% discount, making it cheaper than it's ever been. "This is an experiment we are trying with Steam, to test some theories around pricing elasticity," van Lierop states. "I doubt we'll have the game discounted to this degree again for a long time." You can get The Long Dark for $3.49 / £2.79 until Thursday May 1. Just go here.
Otherwise, try some of the best story games available on PC.
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