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Bright lights flare across the night sky. The wind rages outside the thin walls of your wooden cabin. A wolf howls in the distance. You look at the meager supplies in your pack, and wish for the days before the power mysteriously went out. How much longer will you survive?

Welcome to THE LONG DARK, the innovative exploration-survival experience Wired magazine calls "the pinnacle of an entire genre".



The Long Dark is a thoughtful, exploration-survival experience that challenges solo players to think for themselves as they explore an expansive frozen wilderness in the aftermath of a geomagnetic disaster. There are no zombies -- only you, the cold, and all the threats Mother Nature can muster.


The episodic story-mode for The Long Dark, WINTERMUTE, includes four of the five episodes that form WINTERMUTE. Episodes 1+2 were given a complete overhaul in December 2018, as part of the Redux Update: new mission structure, story beats, dialogue, animations etc.

EPISODE ONE - “DO NOT GO GENTLE”

Bush pilot Will Mackenzie (player character) and Dr. Astrid Greenwood are separated after their plane crashes deep in the Northern Canadian wilderness in the aftermath of a mysterious flash of light in the sky. Struggling to survive as he desperately searches for Astrid, Mackenzie comes across the small town of Milton, where he begins to understand the scope of this quiet apocalypse.

EPISODE TWO - “LUMINACE FUGUE”

Mackenzie’s search for Astrid takes him deeper into the savage Winter wilderness. A mysterious trapper may be the key to finding Astrid, but can he be trusted?

EPISODE THREE - "CROSSROADS ELEGY"

In the aftermath of events in Milton, an enigmatic stranger rescues Dr. Astrid Greenwood (player character) from near death. Facing the blizzards of Pleasant Valley, Astrid must bring all her skills as a doctor to bear on the survivors she encounters. But will she find Mackenzie, and get closer to the mystery that's taking them to Perseverance Mills?

EPISODE FOUR - "FURY, THEN SILENCE"

A murderous gang of convicts has captured Mackenzie. Desperate to escape one of the darkest corners of Great Bear Island, he must somehow survive his fiercest enemy yet. Can Mackenzie recover the Hardcase, continue his search for Astrid, and also save the innocents caught up in this deadly confrontation?



The first four episodes of WINTERMUTE represent approximately 30 hours of gameplay. Episode Five is included in the price of the game, and will be unlocked for free as they are released.

Features performances by Jennifer Hale, Mark Meer, David Hayter, and Elias Toufexis (Episode Three), and the music of Cris Velasco.


Survival Mode is the free-form, non-narrative survival sandbox that has been honed over nearly three years in Early Access.

Survival is your only goal, and death your only end. Make your own survival story with every game.

NO HAND HOLDING

The game challenges players to think for themselves by providing the information but never the answers. You have to earn the right to survive.

PERMADEATH

When you die in Survival Mode, your save is deleted. Every decision matters. [Note that WINTERMUTE does not feature permadeath.

CONDITION & CALORIES

Monitor your Hunger, Thirst, Fatigue, and Cold as you struggle to balance resources with the energy needed to obtain them. Every action costs Calories, and time is your most precious resource. Choose your path carefully.

SCOUR THE WORLD FOR SUPPLIES

Over 100 gear items including Tools, Light Sources, Weapons, First Aid supplies, Clothing, and more.

A VAST LIVING WORLD

Explore a 50 square kilometre Northern Canadian wilderness in search of precious supplies. In Winter. Dynamic time of day, weather, wildlife presence, etc. provide just enough randomness to keep things challenging.

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

Hunt, fish, trap, climb, map, search for life-saving food and gear items, and try to avoid dying from the hostile wildlife, succumbing to hypothermia, frostbite, or dysentery (amongst other uncomfortable afflictions), find and maintain your life-saving gear. Hunt and be hunted by: Wolves, Bears, Moose, Rabbits, Deers, Crows, and more to come in future updates.

CHOOSE YOUR EXPERIENCE

Four distinct Experience Modes let you find a challenge level you are comfortable with, such as Pilgrim Mode, which is meant to be quiet and pensive, all the way to Interloper Mode, where only the most experienced survivors have a chance to last a week. If none of the four Experiences suits you, use Custom Mode settings to tailor your Survival Mode game to your specific tastes.
Features the music of Sascha Dikiciyan.



Several standalone Challenge Modes offer objective-based experiences designed to last 1-3 hours each, such as Whiteout -- the race to gather enough supplies to prepare for a monster blizzard. Or Hunted, where you need to escape a murderous Bear. Complete them to unlock Feats that provide long-term gameplay benefits in Survival Mode. Five Challenges exist at launch, with more on the way in future updates.

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(please see this image for reference: Imgur.com)
The basic idea of the Neighbours mod is to make The Long Dark a share-able experience without making it multiplayer. Players survive in singleplayer the same as ever. What the mod would add--as I propose it--is a "drop box" (also called a "cache") inside the game world which is synchronized between two players across the internet. This allows the players to trade items with each other across game worlds.

This concept models two wilderness survivors who survive in the same area, but never meet each other because the woods are too large, and because they don't trust each other enough to cooperate substantially. They're not friends, they're neighbors. They only trust each other enough to trade items with each other via the dropbox.

The way this mod could function should be simple: each game client already relies on a save file which can be edited. The mod concerns itself with one--or maybe a few--"container" entities that exist in the save file data, which correspond to containers in the game world at some central location or locations.

When player A adds or removes items from the dropbox, the game client should then automatically save to the save file. The mod client then synchronizes that save file with the game server. The game server then reads that save file and synchronizes **only the dropbox data** with corresponding data in player B's save file. Then, at some point, player B synchronizes their game file with the server, and when player B loads into their game world, the world is the same as they left it, except that new items now exist in their dropbox. (see attached image for a graph!)

Obviously the first challenge is to logically order and restrict the synchronization so that the clients avoid duplicating or deleting items. This is up to the developer.

---That's the basic idea for the mod. There are tons of variations that could be built upon it. Here are some other ideas I had:

1. More than 2 players. Maybe 4, or more. All 4 could share 1 dropbox, or there could be some large number of dropboxes so that pairs of players within the "neighborhood" could have 1 dropbox that's exclusive to each other.

2. A separately run matchmaking service. The original idea is obviously that you could share playing The Long Dark with a friend you already have, but randomly pairing two people on the internet together and encouraging them to cooperate to survive would create a very interesting model of the real-life scenario where two strangers are surviving in the same post-apocalypse wilderness.
An extreme version of this would be to add a sort-of "dating app" element to it. The matchmaking service could put two people together, but refuse to share any identifying information between the people, or to allow them to communicate with each other other than the most basic "Request X number of M item." Instead, the players would both have to survive past maybe 50-100 days before the server would present them with the opportunity to communicate. No, I'm trying to create a dating app. This would model the process of building trust between people, and it would also create an intensely emotional incentive to survive and to help keep the other person alive.

---Concerns: Cheating. Aside from avoiding synchronization exploits that would allow for duplication, it would probably be good to find a way to make sure that the players weren't simply editing their own save files in order to survive.

for discussion, this essay is also posted on reddit, here: Reddit.com

Add file RSS Related Files
TLD Save Editor 2.19 (v2.27)

TLD Save Editor 2.19 (v2.27)

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The Long Dark Save Editor lets you easily edit your game save. You can edit your inventory, player position, achievement stats and much more.

UModTld202

UModTld202

UMod TLD Full Version 4 comments

Latest update to UModTld for The Long Dark this runs along with the Meleon mod loader system.

TLD Save Editor 2.18.1 (v1.89)

TLD Save Editor 2.18.1 (v1.89)

The Long Dark Save Editor 2 Archive Tool 81 comments

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TLD Save Editor 2.17 (v1.76)

TLD Save Editor 2.17 (v1.76)

The Long Dark Save Editor 2 Archive Tool 64 comments

The Long Dark Save Editor lets you easily edit your game save. You can edit your inventory, player position, achievement stats and much more.

TLD Save Editor 2.16.1 (v1.67)

TLD Save Editor 2.16.1 (v1.67)

The Long Dark Save Editor 2 Archive Tool 72 comments

The Long Dark Save Editor lets you easily edit your game save. You can edit your inventory, player position, achievement stats and much more.

TLD Save Editor 2.15.1 (v1.62)

TLD Save Editor 2.15.1 (v1.62)

The Long Dark Save Editor 2 Archive Tool 41 comments

The Long Dark Save Editor lets you easily edit your game save. You can edit your inventory, skills, condition and much more.

Post comment Comments
Guest
Guest

is there a version for Mac?

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fioricaio
fioricaio

hey man great work! are you planning to make this game multiplayer?

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Guest
Guest

Isn't the game engine Unity instead of "custom built"?

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