The Long Dark
Last updated: 2025-03-15
- Realistic survival experience with stunning visuals.
- Unique, replayable, customizable gameplay.
- DLC adds significant content to the game.
- Slow pace, grind, and delayed content updates.
- Brutal difficulty and punishing permadeath.
- Tedious backtracking on large maps.
- Reviews
(sample size) - 2000
- Helpful reviews
- 62%
- Unhelpful reviews
- 36%
- Protest reviews
- 2%
- 87%Helpful reviews with positive sentiment
- 13%Helpful reviews with negative sentiment
- Positive points
- 2797
- Negative points
- 1434
- Gameplay points
- 527
- Perf. points
- 42
- Rec. points
- 817
- Misc points
- 171
| Point | Description | Importance |
|---|---|---|
| Realistic, challenging survival experience | The game emphasizes realistic survival against nature's harshness. Players must manage hunger, thirst, warmth, and fatigue while navigating a brutal environment without hand-holding. The permadeath system and focus on vulnerability create a constant sense of tension and reward strategic decision-making. | 90% |
| Immersive atmosphere and stunning visuals | The game features a stunning artistic style, immersive sound design, and atmospheric environments. The combination of visuals, music, and sound effects creates a strong sense of isolation and enhances the overall survival experience, making the player feel truly present in the harsh Canadian wilderness. | 67% |
| Unique, replayable, customizable experience | The game offers a compelling and unique experience with a rewarding gameplay loop, beautiful world, and constant updates. It is praised for its replayability, customizable difficulty, and the developers' dedication to improving the game based on community feedback, making it both relaxing and challenging. | 62% |
| Addictive, updated, great value | The game has garnered long-term player engagement due to its fun gameplay, frequent updates, and dedicated developers. Players find the game addictive, relaxing, and a great value for the price, often returning to it over many years and praising the developers' commitment to continuous improvement. | 40% |
| Challenging, immersive, and relaxing | The game offers a unique blend of challenge and relaxation, requiring strategic thinking and patience. It evokes feelings of loneliness and unease, while also providing a sense of accomplishment and immersion, making it suitable for players who enjoy solitude and a slow-paced, thoughtful experience. | 19% |
| DLC adds significant content | The DLC adds significant value to the game by expanding the world, introducing new mechanics, and enhancing the overall experience. Players find the DLC worthwhile due to the amount of content it adds, making the game feel more complete and providing new challenges and opportunities for exploration. | 16% |
| Active, responsive developers | The developers are actively involved with the community, listening to feedback and consistently improving the game. This dedication fosters a positive relationship with players and contributes to the game's ongoing success and evolution, making it a game that is truly shaped by its community. | 11% |
| Cold is a central challenge | The game emphasizes the importance of weather, clothing, and resource management in a cold environment. Players must adapt to changing conditions and carefully manage their resources to survive, creating a strong sense of immersion and making the cold a central challenge. | 9% |
| World devastation and vulnerability | The game effectively conveys the changing times and the devastation of the world through its story mode. It evokes a sense of awe towards nature and highlights the player's vulnerability against it, creating a unique and immersive experience. | 8% |
| Adapt and evolve to survive | The game allows players to adapt and evolve from prey to hunter, trapper, fisherman, and tailor. It encourages exploration and learning through experience and discovery, with the player's own mistakes being the biggest obstacle. | 8% |
| Continuously expanding content | The game is continuously expanding with new content, including regions, items, and mechanics. This ongoing development keeps the game fresh and engaging, providing players with new experiences and challenges to overcome, ensuring long-term replayability and enjoyment. | 6% |
| Personal survival experiences | The reviewer shares specific experiences within the game, such as finding a hunter's cabin, learning to fend off wolves, and crafting leather clothes. These personal anecdotes highlight the value of resources and the joy of overcoming challenges in the game's harsh environment. | 5% |
| Straightforward controls and exploration | The game has fairly straightforward controls and various maps. It is enjoyable and allows you to explore locations. | 5% |