Okay, so I’m a gamer.  But it’s been a while since I’ve had a decent computer and I won’t play many FPS games on console.  But then the whole point of The Long Dark is not to shoot: it’s to survive.  And while it can be challenging and stressful, knowing that everything out there (including, to some extent, yourself) is trying to kill you makes surviving even just one more day rewarding.

I had watched Edberg play through a bit of an early version of the game, and when I found it on the PS4 store I picked it up.  It was one of the most exciting yet low key games out there.  The story of The Long Dark is that you’re a bush pilot, and there’s been a geomagnetic disaster that disables electrical devices (well, most of the time) and you end up crashing in the mountains of Canada.  I don’t know what time of year it is supposed to be, but there’s a lot of snow on  the ground, most of the water is frozen over, and there’s no one to be found … no one alive, anyway.

You have to work out what’s likely to kill you soonest and try to fix that problem.  Here’s a short list of what might kill you:

• Bears
• Wolves
• The Cold
• Hunger
• Disease or illness, usually from eating something rancid or ill prepared

And frankly when you start out you’re not at all prepared to take on any of these issues.  Your clothing is not good enough to protect you from the weather for long, you might have trouble finding shelter, and your ability to make a fire is severely limited.  Add to that that what supplies you do find are usually limited and subject to wear and tear (literally, in the case of clothing), it can make survival questionable on everything but the easiest setting (and I still died on that setting 20 days in to hypothermia/drowning because of thin ice).

The wild-life is usually avoidable … unless they’re between you and where you need to go to avoid dying to something else.  You might survive a wolf attack only to bleed out from the injuries if you don’t have bandages and disinfectant to clean your wounds with.  Walking a little too much can result in a sprained ankle.  And if your matches run out … well, hope you like the cold.

On the default difficulty, in supposedly one of the easier regions to survive in, I died to the cold after four days while trying not to die to hunger.

You can find guns, or make a bow and arrows, but again, your gear needs caring for and eventually will stop working.  You can find food, or if you’re lucky and come across a deer carcass that’s fairly fresh, harvest the meat and cook it.  But killing the deer yourself becomes very difficult without a weapon and of course the wolves, which in most difficulties will attack you, are also your competition for the deer.

It can be an exciting, rewarding, but also frustrating survival game.  There are players out there that have survived on some of the more difficult settings for hundreds of days though, so it’s possible.  Me?  Well, eventually I’ll start a new Pilgrim game and try the easiest setting again.  If nothing else, exploring the regions (a little more cautiously this time, of course) can be relaxing.  Also, useful preparation for trying it again on a higher difficulty.

Worth the $35 it is on the PSN store?  Mmmmm, I would have rather waited.  Unless this is your type of game, I’d suggest waiting for a sale.  At $20 it’s a no brainer though – pick it up.