The Long Dark

Listen, Hinterland. I've been with you (this game) for ten years now. The YEAR OF OUR LORD, TWENTY FOURTEEN.
Before the player had hand models, I was there.
Before wolf stuggles had animations, I was there.
When I had a group of friends gathered around me with snacks, watching this Early Access Cold Canada Wolf Game, until the run ended to a failed rifle shot, well of course I was there lol.
When there was a surge of discovery to take off all your clothes before you jump in the ice water after goodies on the frozen shoreline, I was there.
You have, with every update, given me everything I've ever wanted in this type of survival game.
We may not always agree on some decisions made, and even when you added a story, the survival mode was treated with equal importance. I saw the changes happen to Mystery Lake, the subtle detail updates, suddenly areas had... MORE. I loved it all. The immersion I feel in this game world is second to none other as far as survival goes. I would like to personally shake the hand of the audio designers. Even back in 2014 early access, you guys had it NAILED.
I may never play Wintermute. It's not the type of game I want. But, unlike many, almost every, other game out there that creates two or more (or like nineteen, WARFRAME) modes, SURVIVAL just always felt fantastic. I even noticed when you would tweak snowfall along the roadsides so I didn't break my friggin' ankles as much when running for my life from wolves or through a blizzard.
So, here's how this is gonna work. I'm gonna buy this Tales from the Far Territory DLC. It's probably going to kill many of my characters. I'm going to keep enjoying this game, and you? You're going to take my money, a second time.
I would have considered this a complete experience when you gave us Desolation Point, and the ability to finally craft our own tools. Now, at the end of 2024, as an early Christmas present, I can PUT PAINTINGS ON THE WALLS.
We can watch, together, all of us, as the collective community begins to photograph bear attacks as close to the last possible moment, as possible, then fills a house with them. Or all the houses. You did this. You have given us the perfect experience. I wish I didn't have to sleep.
Post review (and post mild popularity) edit: A commentor asked me, (corrected for grammar) "Isn't the game just about exploration and hunting? How did you get to 1700 hours?"
My response, also in the comments:
"Because survival is paramount. The game does not have infinite resources. You are managing an ever-dwindling supply, and the only time you get more is by moving locations, which, depending on the difficulty, your knowledge of the world, and how the weather is behaving, can be a daunting task.
I tend to play with risk. My runs have never survived past 100 days. There's an achievement for 500 days, but my actual true goal in-game is to map everything, find everything, explore everything, craft everything, and attempt to make each safehouse a viable location.
I'm simply not done yet."
Also, I went and bought the soundtrack, too. Do me a favor and start making a Hinterland brand cast iron skillet for sale. I'll buy one of those too.
Post edit-edit:
Thank you all for the votes and posetivity. This game means a lot to me. My most recent, and current playthrough (as in, hasn't died as of the 6th of January, started near the end of november, picked up the DLC around the 1st or 2nd of december), has scoured and encamped most of Mystery Lake and Coastal Highway, found one DLC weapon (Vaughn's Rifle, very nice), only two wolf struggles, killed three bears, and is nearly at 80 days of survival, a personal landmark. The game is more fun and immersive than I've ever experienced before.
There is a lot still waiting for me. I have much work to do. I'm afraid of what happens when I finally run out of matches.

As a fellow game developer, this game gives me such conflicting emotions. I love it and hate it and wants more of it but also understands the current situation and the previous decisions.
The difficulty in the beginning feels unforgiving, but it's where I find myself liking the most. Shivering in a snow storm not knowing where to go. You can feel the chill and despair in your bones, but just when you thought you are dead for sure, you find a small cabin. You go in, start a fire, boil some water, and your mind finally relaxes. You thought to yourself, maybe I can just make it through another day. That's one of the best feeling I've felt in a video game.
But when you start to learn the map and mechanics, you find yourself acting purely with the goal of progression. Better gear, better clothes, the survival instinct is gone. Everything is predictable, you have the route and loot in mind, you go there, you get it, that's it. There is simply not enough variables or late game challenges that can put your knowledge to the test. Your hard earned lessons serve you only the dread of emptiness. You know not why to go on, where to go, everything just becomes a chore.
It's such a shame. This game builds such a beautiful world and atmosphere, but it lacks some actual characters, story, mechanics and challenges. The wintermute story mode has a lackluster story and doesn't involve enough survival mechanics or player immersion. Tales from far territory is promising but requires you to go through much of the early stages that by the time you reach the new content, you are too burnt out to care.
The slow pace of development and communication paints a picture of burnt out devs with low interest of improving this game. I'm a game dev myself and I totally get their frustration. This game had been through some rocky periods and significant goal shifts, probably due to financial and staff change problems. So I will not judge them too harshly, it's just unfortunate that it has come to this.
So here are my suggestions to the development team.
1. If you have abundant resources but got lost in the tunnel vision: Have a serious discussion about a total revamp of the current map, AI and loot system. Add more variables to the map to make shelters unpredictable, but utilize clues like roads and power lines to guide players to potential shelters. Add move-sets and behaviors to make the AI more unpredictable, maybe even give them the ability to break shelters so you can't just cabin cheese a bear with no risk or realism. Nerf the bottle necks like rifles and prolong each battle, make the hunts more difficult but rewarding. Decrease and vary the punishment for a failed hunt. Give players more tools to approach a hunt like traps or melee options, not just QTEs. Make the crafting system more accessible and in-depth to increase the incentive to craft rather than looting for the better alternatives. There are many more ways to make this game more fun, especially for the late game.
2. If you have few resources to continue development: Finish what you've started. It's too late to revamp the structure of the core mechanics. So at least just give the players what they've paid for, then move on to the next project with the knowledge and lessons you've learned from this game.
3. if you don't have the resources to continue development at all: Try everything to gather resources. Communicate thoroughly and routinely with the players. Let us know where you are and what your obstacles are. Ask for help either in donation or just to spread the word for the game. Lay out new plans for monetization, new dlcs, new game modes, whatever to give us and investors hope. Give it a last ditch effort to turn it around.

TLDR: I bought this game more than 8 years ago. The core gameplay was already complete back then and the game has only gotten better. The overall experience is unique and well worth the asking price.
This review is honestly overdue. I bought this game aaaall the way back in 2016, when it was a ~$20 early access title, before the "survival/crafting" genre became the entrenched domain of shovelware.
So, first thing first: This game is NOT a survival/crafting game. You will not be building massive bases and crafting AK-47s. You will be walking, slowly, through the snow, with your exhaustion and temperature meters at zero, trying to calculate if you'll reach your shelter before your health ticks down to zero and praying you don't hear a wolf barking as you come around a tree. Now, I absolutely understand how that would not be appealing to everyone. But if you are looking for something genuinely different from the survival/crafting same-old-same-old, The Long Dark is definitely unique.
I also really want to highlight that TLD is unique in its development cycle. I've seen complaints about how the story mode is not complete after about 10 years. A few points about this.
First, the story mode is released in 'Episodes' and these aren't like scammy battle passes. Each episode is a complete section of the larger narrative and there are currently four (out of a planned five). The game itself is in a complete state and the story mode releases are simply additional content for the game platform. That is, we are still waiting to see how the STORY ends, but the gameplay itself is complete. It is definitely good to be wary of unfinished games in the current market, but TLD does not fall into that category.
Second, the story mode is currently offered separately for $20 at FULL PRICE. That is quite reasonable for the current state of story mode content. Additionally, you can get both the Wintermute story mode and the standalone survival mode bundled for $35. Which again, is easily worth the price as is. The only other major content offer is the Tales from the Far Territory DLC, which is also $20 full price and brings two additional regions and what I would describe as an additional, lite story mode. So a total of $55 for the complete game content at full price, which I believe is well worth it, and all three of these offerings are still receiving content updates. And if you are interested but not 100% sure, TLD is frequently on sale for 40-50% off. With the ongoing sale at time of writing, you can get Story mode + Survival Mode + DLC for a total of $32. And the current level of content is beyond worth that price point.
Which brings me to third, the content is already there. This is not a game that is languishing in the roadmap, with promises of a complete game that never comes. Take it from someone who was having a great time with the game even back when it genuinely was unfinished, before the story mode even started. The core, wilderness survival gameplay has been there from the beginning and hasn't changed. But Hinterland has still been providing regular (if infrequent) updates which focus on continuing a story and throwing in new and interesting challenges for survival. And that also makes this game unique. The game is old, and still being developed. But the updates are about getting more stuff to do with the existing and stable core mechanics. Which is EXACTLY how continuous game development should be. In a market where half-finished games are farted out with a promise of a finished game some time in the future, TLD was already a whole game even in early access which has just been updated into a BETTER whole game as time goes on.
There are definitely things that will feel awkward to folks who have gotten used to the standard of fast-paced, high-mobility, combat-focused survival games. You can't jump. You walk slow. Your inventory space is extremely limited. Guns and ammo are precious. Your gear requires a ton of time and resources to upkeep. These things feel very very weird in the current climate of popular games. But that's honestly one of the reasons I love this game. If you want a genuinely unique gaming experience from a studio who, by the best of my abilities to tell, absolutely deserves support, I cannot recommend TLD enough.

Excellent game.
Do not listen to the haters whining about no episode 5. The community said they wanted DLC for sandbox mode prioritized over story content, so the developers listened and provided. Episode 5 is coming out in late 2024 as they stated many times already.

man between this and project zomboid i cant get enough of these cozy yet challenging survival games... I know this is blasphemous but i wish there was coop in the long dark so i can survive with a pal

Very good survival game. My car broke down one day in the middle of remote-ish upstate New York. With no phone service I had to walk and ask people where the nearest car repair shop was. It was also during a blizzard. When I played this years later I got a weird good nostalgic feeling remind me of that.

My first dozen attempts at this game were confusing and infuriating to say the least, it takes a while to learn what actions are valuable and which are thumb-twiddling invitations to death.
I got somewhere like halfway through the second chapter of Wintermute before having my WTF moment with the survival mode (taking breaks from story mode and cluelessly dropping into freezing hell DOZENS of times before finally catching a break) and never went back.
There really is nothing like trudging against the wind in a blizzard with only the snowbank beside you to indicate where you might be, your body and vision swaying madly due to being at the end of your life, only a tiny etch left on your health bar, all your stims, food, water, and heat items used up, and you think "this is normally where I would just quit and try again" but somehow you made it to the porch of the PV homestead, you're inside, there's a fireplace and enough to get you back on your toes in a day or so - heck - you even managed to keep all those toes (and fingers, too).
The next evening you're caught outside around dusk, looking around for twigs and hopefully a sewing kit to fix everything damaged by yesterday's icy winds and you're stopped dead by the stunning sunset as it plays across the sky, the mountain, and off the snow in the valley. Then an ominous string section and the growl of a wolf nearby startles you and you rush off back towards the house, knowing that a wolf is not going to help the state of your clothing (at least not today, not with your current tools) and that fresh toilet water is calling your name.
Staying humble and cautious will eventually lead to a dull tedium but any time you decide to push outside of sensible pragmatism there's a hard lesson waiting for you, and sometimes that hard lesson really is your only move.
There were many times I wished for jumping or at least vaulting mechanics to be introduced, but I don't think the effect on gameplay would be worth the Dev's resources and effort.
There were times when the hit boxes for gathering and shooting seemed really janky, like you'd expect with network lag, but those times were the exception, and you really can't expect every homemade arrow or bullet to fly the same as the last, plus you're lucky your shivering, low-calorie, unwashed ass can even tie a string as it is, so chalk it up to video game reification.
There are still times I wish you could get some sort of strength or health or endurance perk for, y'know, 500 days of walking with a full kit, but hey I suppose I should be thankful only the frostbite has a permanent effect on your health and performance and leave it at that.
The current perks are half-decent, though over half seem like throw-aways to players who aren't willing to commit much time to the game, so basically useless to those playing on stalker and interloper.
The game play loop is rewarding, I could easily lose an entire day to this game, then switch to one of the challenges and feel like it's an entirely new thing.
I will always come back to this one - it's like a breeze wafting in shade of a tall tree when the sun is scorching overhead. The core gameplay loop, sound design and visual aesthetic just get under the skin and call you back over and over. I don't know the current state of the modding community but this game is prime fodder for great mod fun, though I suppose you could always play DayZ Winter Chernarus if you can live without the Group of Seven aesthetic and want the ability to jump over things.
There are a LOT of complaints about how the devs are slow in the story chapters, or some rambling on and on and on, whingeing about how they didn't get what they paid for, etc etc etc - just ignore them - their chirping has nothing to do with whether the game is worthwhile or not and both the Wintermute and the Survival mode are worth full price standalone (but I would get both as they do compliment eachother, treat story mode as a tutorial of sorts), even at ~40 maplebucks. If you get this on sale man it's a steal. Whiners, I just don't get you - it's not your game, move on! Internet archives have a record of the Dev's roadmap and he was pretty clear there were no promises right from the start, so either go file a civil suit for fraud or go outside for air, your input has no bearing on the quality of the game or it's value to others.
PS: I hate wolves now