The Long Dark Reviews
In all honesty, the Wintermute should have never been released in the state which it is in right now. And if you take it out of the equation, the Survival and Challenge Modes which also share flaws with the Story mode, are simply not worth the baffling $34.99 which the developers are asking for.
Keep that fire burning, stay warm… and beware the wolf.
The Long Dark is a mostly functional game, but it’s dated survival mechanics make it a mostly forgettable experience.
With better job on technical aspects The Long Dark would be a pretty good game. As for now, it's better to wait for a sale and patches.
Review in Polish | Read full review
I really, really, wanted to love The Long Dark, but a myriad of poor design choices and bugs teamed with a complete lack of instruction made it one of the most frustrating games I have ever played. You can pick some objects up, but not others, you can smash a crate to bits for firewood, but not a table, and none of this makes any sense. If you were freezing death, you'd burn the frigging table! Survival mode is by far the best way to experience the game offering some gorgeous views and real sense of achievement when you make things nice and cosy, it's just a shame that Story mode is so poorly thought out.
Bugs and a rough story weaken what is, at its core, a great survival game.
If it sounds as if I'm overly frustrated with The Long Dark, it's because I am. The sheer number of times that it hints at being a special game that entirely dominates every single survival-based title that has come before it is staggering. But for every one of those times, there's another time where it's broken, bugged, or just plain poorly thought-out. If the development team patches up those bugs and tweaks things here and there, it's no exaggeration to say that this could be a must buy that reaches the top end of the scoresheet. The fact that it gets the score that it gets stands as testament as to just how enjoyable the game can be and often is in the face of a veritable snowstorm of issues and imperfections.
The Long Dark is a game with very good concepts, which has good gameplay. But he has some shortcomings that make him faint. Mainly in its technical aspect. The performance on Xbox does not end up being as polished as it should be, in addition to having an artistic style that, except in the video scenes, does not stand out too much and is a little scarce. In addition, the BSO does not impress, getting as a whole that in the end, it tastes little.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The Long Dark is by no means perfect, but what it lacks in finesse it makes up for in attention to detail. The survival is tough but addictive, coming with a vast array of supplies to find and stats to manage, while the challenge mode and story accommodate players with different levels of experience and ability. It’s got a lot of ground to cover in patches and updates, but there’s still a mighty fine game underneath its shortcomings.
The Long Dark sets a standard for survival games in its core gameplay loop. The tone and feel of the game is top notch and the challenge is brutal in a hostile and frozen world. Unfortunately, there is also another dimension to the game that cheapens the experience. It takes a frustrating amount of trial and error to figure out the mechanics of how you are meant to do something, even when the goal of what you are meant to do is fairly clear. There is also the missed opportunity to utilize the story mode to walk through these mechanics, instead letting the tale try to stand alone. Try to stand as it might, it instead falls rather flat with a progression and narrative that made little sense. There is a very good game in the center of an overall experience that ends up less than the sum of its parts at first glance, but one that if you are willing to put in the struggle and slog through to the other side can reward you with one of the better survival simulations there is.
A pleasingly complex and realistic survival simulator, accompanied by a story mode that so far fails to be anywhere near as compelling.
The wilderness is satisfyingly unforgiving. The world is fun to explore, but story mode offers a lackluster narrative
While the story mode leaves something to be desired, the survival mechanics of The Long Dark's sandbox make it worthwhile. We have three more episodes of Will's journey to weave a wider story throughout the alternately unforgiving and inviting Canadian terrain. In the meantime, I'll be sitting back with my coffee mug, reflecting on my own small stories within The Long Dark.
A good survival experience that could have been even better with a little more polish on its console versions.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
I’m a sucker for survival games, so when the opportunity to review The Long Dark came through I jumped at the chance to review it. Playing The Long Dark on the Nintendo Switch isn’t my first experience with the game. I had previously played the game during its early access state on the Xbox One way back in 2017/2018. Back then The Long Dark was just a shell of what it is now and only contained two explorable areas and none of the episodic story.
The Long Dark takes an interesting approach to the bustling survival genre by adding a story-heavy campaign, and it looks to be paying off so far. The tale being told in Wintermute has not developed into anything wildly deep at this point and there has yet to be given much of a reason to care for the characters in play, but by the end of the second episode I still felt the desire to see everything through to the end. I needed to know how this unique apocalypse pans out, so the developer is clearly doing something right. The slow, methodical pacing may turn some potential players away, but those that can carry the weight of the game’s encumbering systems will find a gorgeous adventure worth the time investment.
I would highly recommend giving The Long Dark a go, especially if you’re after something different and love the idea of a survival sim with an interesting story.
Yes it has a few niggles but overall its a fresh look at a very stereotyped genre.
I’ve played plenty of the different survival games that are available at the moment, yet it’s The Long Dark that has hooked me in the most. The desolate wintery setting just appealed to me from the get go, whilst the tense ‘risk vs reward’ gameplay kept me entertained from start to end. Plus, I can always appreciate a story mode in a game like this – even if it’s not quite finished it… It’s not without its flaws, but overall I’d easily recommend The Long Dark to survival fans. It’s tough as nails and you’re going to die a lot, but it’s so intensely enjoyable that you won’t be able to help but to keep coming back for more.
It has become one of those games interested in transmitting something else, instead of making us have an entertaining time without more. His way of facing nature is plausible (saving perhaps some other detail), such as making us go through an ordeal, whether we are beginners, the learning process, as if we are experts, for the possibility of modifying the difficulty, Because the long darkness, the real one, is what there is after each game, when it's all over. Luckily, we can face that moment again and again, try to do better, prolong it more.
Review in Spanish | Read full review