➤ The frost of The Long Dark: Wintermute 🎮

The Long Dark has spent many months in Steam Early Access, during which players have been able to try the sandbox mode, that is, the one dedicated to pure survival in a hostile environment, seeing it grow and improve from update to update. However, they had given up hopes of being able to live the promised campaign, which finally arrived in this hot August (playing a title that talks about a world immersed in frost while in reality there are more than 40 ° of temperature creates a nice contrast). Let's try to understand what the first two episodes of Wintermute have to offer - that's the name of the campaign - and if it was worth the wait.

Survival

The beginning of Wintermute serves as a tutorial. The protagonist, fresh from a plane crash, wakes up in the snow and debris and has to go in search of his flight partner, who has ended up who knows where. Before doing so, however, he must be able to heal himself, because he is wounded and hungry and the journey that awaits him requires that he be in full strength. The first missions of the campaign are therefore all focused on its recovery and the simplest survival. Those who have played the sandbox mode of The Long Dark will have no problems, as it involves performing some of the most basic actions, such as lighting a fire to warm up, melting snow to get water, bandaging a wound and so on.

The frost of The Long Dark: Wintermute — Minimalist, but not ugly for that

Those who approach the game for the first time will find themselves confused, given that the tutorial, consisting of retractable text messages, does not explain very well the fundamental mechanics, which are not exactly very simple, also by virtue of the numerous menus mentioned. the interface is formed. During the entire phase, which takes place on a narrow cliff, we also witness the first filmed sequence: a flashback on events immediately preceding the plane crash, which introduces us to the story. Having solved the immediate problems and understood that what is happening to the protagonist is the fault of a favor done to an important person from his past, we reach the aircraft carcass and witness another filmed sequence that delves into the relationship between the two. Our goal from this moment becomes clear: we must follow the woman's footsteps to find out what happened to her. These first few minutes of the game have taught us something about The Long Dark: it has particularly deep survival mechanics and, above all, it is almost ruthlessly difficult.

Damn wolves

In our memory we do not remember such a difficult tutorial. As already mentioned we are given very few explanations on what we have to do, but on the other hand the resources that are around are few (more than in the sandbox mode, anyway) and, in case they go to waste, you can do nothing but start over by reloading. the last save. It almost seems as if it is taken for granted that the player knows what to do.

The impression is strengthened by the continuation of the adventure, in which we find ourselves struggling with other great difficulties, without being given any help. For example, meeting the first enemy, a wolf (more on that later), we are explained its behavior, but we are not given any tools to deal with it. It takes us little to understand how to overcome it, but the underlying feeling remains that we lack the fundamental concepts to get by. An impression that turned into frustration when we found ourselves with an automatic save done in the middle of the night, in a place we did not know, teeming with fearsome wolves, without the possibility of loading a previous position, which forced us to restart the whole first episode. On the second try however, we were able to really appreciate the many nuances of the game system, which provides for a complete and accurate management of the character, threatened by hunger, thirst, disease and, above all, by the cold. However, if you are interested in the survival part, it is better that you dedicate yourself directly to the sandbox mode, because the story mode unlocks the different mechanics in a gradual way and at the beginning it is really limiting.

Wolves deserve a few lines apart, because they are the biggest threat and biggest annoyance encountered in The Long Dark. Hypothermia isn't that bad either. They are really everywhere and they are very ferocious. Why they went crazy is told within the game, but that doesn't make them any less dangerous. Let's say that when you encounter one, the best choice is to try to avoid it, even if it is not always possible to do so. Fighting unarmed a wolf means certain death. In case you manage to get away with it, it is almost certain that you will come out battered from the fight and have to bandage a few wounds so as not to bleed to death. Facing two wolves in a row is suicide. Since wolves are practically everywhere, without logic, you will understand when The Long Dark can become punitive from the first hours of the game.

What you say and what you do

Reading this far, many will feel that we did not like the Wintermute experience very much. In reality this is not the case, because the survival mechanics work well ... for a survival. The problem is when they are related to the narrative, with which they clash a lot. When after so much wandering you arrive at the village and you begin to get more in touch with the story staged by the developers, the situation improves. Reconstructing the lives that are about to be buried in that place by solving small missions makes you forget for a moment the difficult situation in which the protagonist finds himself and gives the whole campaign a greater breath. Wandering through the houses bitten by the frost that hit the planet, gives moments of great atmosphere and finally begins to understand the overall meaning of the whole story. Too bad for the presence of too many filling missions, that is, designed only to make us waste some time, which instead of enriching the experience artificially lengthen it.

It is also a pity that the narrative quality of some sub-stories is not exceptional. However, this is where the fusion of survival mechanics and storytelling works best, expressing its full potential. The village is the perfect setting to dramatize the protagonist's condition and his actions. Indeed it is when it does not directly tell something, leaving room for the emerging narrative, that The Long Dark offers memorable moments. For example, it happened to us that, returning from a search, we were in bad shape due to a fall that had caused us a sprain. We couldn't run and it was now dark. We had almost reached a shelter when we heard a howl behind us. We turned around and found ourselves with a wolf running towards us to tear us apart. We threw the flashlight we were holding at him to frighten him, then we continued our slow march almost completely in the dark and with ever heavier breathing, invaded by the fear that the wolf would return.

The Spanish will be there

We updated this box, which was dedicated to the lack of the promised Spanish translation of the game, to notify you that we have received communication from the development team that in reality the translation is in preparation and that, therefore, The Long Dark will soon be playable also in our language. Unfortunately, there has been no announcement when the dedicated update will be published. Meanwhile, we are happy to be wrong and to be able to give you this news.

Black is the night

In its simplicity The Long Dark is confirmed to be stylistically well elaborated, even if technically not superlative. The visual minimalism renders the scenery well and, even if some models are not exceptional, the general atmosphere is not affected, especially by virtue of some extreme choices such as having made the passing of the hours, with relative changes in lighting, and changes in weather conditions, active parts of the gameplay.

In short, a snowstorm is first of all dangerous, then it is also pleasant to observe, while the night is not used to produce visual virtuosity, but to throw the player into a desperate darkness. Much more elaborate is the interface, to the point of being cumbersome. Some menus could be merged in order to avoid redundancies and a certain dispersion of functions, while certain options could be highlighted more. It is also a pity that there is no tutorial that really helps to get into the game by explaining the numerous screens (what is there, as already mentioned, is bad). However, with a little practice the situation improves and you manage to master everything; and after all, survival are titles that have very steep learning curves, so fans won't complain too much.

PC System Requirements

Test Setup

Intel Core i7-4770 processor
16 GB of RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 video card
Windows 10 operating system

Minimum requirements

Windows XP operating system
Processore Dual-Core Intel i5 CPU @ 2GHz+
4 GB of RAM
Scheda video Intel 4xxx Series w/ 512MB VRAM o superiore
1 GB of hard disk space

Recommended Requirements

Intel i7 CPU @ 2.6GHz or higher processor
4 GB of RAM
Scheda video GeForce nVidia GTX 555 w/ 1GB VRAM o superiore

Comment

Tested version PC Windows Digital Delivery Steam, GoG, PlayStation Store, Xbox Store Price 31,99 € Resources4Gaming.com

7.2

Readers (27)

8.1

Your vote

The Long Dark is a great survival, but Wintermute is so far a mediocre tale that simply takes little account of the game mechanics it rests on. This is demonstrated by the fact that the moments that are most remembered are all linked to survival and little to history, moments that are also his lifeline on a qualitative level. The hope is that in the next three episodes there will be a decisive change of course, because what we have seen so far does not work very well. Of course, there is always the sandbox mode to delight fans, but it is not right to use it as a justification for the flaws of a poorly designed campaign. In short, if you like pure survival, The Long Dark taken as such is a game of nine, but if you are interested above all in the narrative, the judgment drops quickly.