In the dead heat of August, I often find myself longing for the depths of winter. With the tail-end of summer upon us, I’ve been satisfying that longing by playing Hinterland Studio’s The Long Dark, a video game set in a seemingly endless Canadian winter on an abandoned island where you are forced to fend for yourself. Perhaps survival isn’t your idea of escapism, but The Long Dark offers something much more unnerving than an idyllic tromp through the snowy woods. Specifically, The Long Dark’s horror as a survival game rests on the premise of ecophobia, the ever-present threat of nature, the very real limits of the human body, and the intrusions of the past. The Long Dark reveals that survival is a constant confrontation with the mundane horror of homeostasis.
The Long Dark is by no means a new game—it was released in 2014 as a sandbox-type survival game, and it is the survival mode that this piece will focus on. Later, Hinterland added a story mode, and by then it had gained a loyal following of fans. Survival mode has varying degrees of difficulty: Pilgrim, Voyageur, Interloper, and Stalker. While Pilgrim is fun for new players who want a more atmospheric experience, Voyageur is a good mix of animal-threat and atmosphere that will frequently push your character to its limits. Read more
