This game is awful! Glad I only paid $7.99

[EMU88]

I love this game it is challenging and hard at the start and that’s what is so good about it, the game does not baby you through it. But I think that’s it ay, everything is handed out on a platter these days so people don’t like to be challenged, if it’s too hard than that is it "I quit" and it is all the games fault or the company’s fault or the persons fault. Perseverance and the willingness to explore and learn are very uncommon traits these days. Hating something because of your own inabilities or the lack of desire to learn those abilities shows some serious cracks in the foundation of the persons character.  Deep but so is gaming sometimes.

[piddy3825]

13 hours ago, EMU88 said:

I love this game it is challenging and hard at the start and that’s what is so good about it, the game does not baby you through it. But I think that’s it ay, everything is handed out on a platter these days so people don’t like to be challenged, if it’s too hard than that is it "I quit" and it is all the games fault or the company’s fault or the persons fault. Perseverance and the willingness to explore and learn are very uncommon traits these days. Hating something because of your own inabilities or the lack of desire to learn those abilities shows some serious cracks in the foundation of the persons character.  Deep but so is gaming sometimes.

well said!  too many "victims" out there today who always want to blame their own failures on someone else.  Game on!

[Gracia_WolfSlayer]

On 6/4/2020 at 8:00 PM, Glflegolas said:

What I like best about the game is no doubt the artwork. Who doesn't like the look of a multicoloured aurora lighting up the night sky? A beautiful sunrise over the Hushed River Valley? Sunset from the Abandoned Lookout?

I'm right there with you! I adore the look of this game (I also super enjoy the game play, I've never played a game for this long before. I usually don't get more than 3 weeks without playing it before I'm ready to start back up again for a month!)

There have been times where the sky is so breath-taking that regardless of how my survivor is freezing their butt off, I still have to stop and enjoy it for a moment.

I say to anyone put off by story-mode, please try sand-box. While i like story-mode (ep. 3 was the bomb) it's not really a survival game in story mode. Watch a youtube lets play for beginners to grasp the UI and then get to livin'!

Love you Hinterland. thanks for the great game!

[Sherri]

I think I died like 10 times my first attempt. Luckily Wintermute is more forgiving with multiple saves and the ability to re-load a previous save if you die.

[melcantspell]

I get the confusion. Usually when you start a new game, you are excited to learn what it is about, to step by step learn how it goes etc. You know what your quest is about, and you start working on tasks. 

The Long Dark is different, because there is no quest, except the idea that you can survive the cold and wilderness - how you do it, and how you spend your time and resources, that is totally up to you. 

I remember how confusing that felt at first, but it is the best part of the game. The solitude may seem boring at first, but once you explore more, you will know that it is not. 

[BlinkMoFried]

I really don't have an idea with this game but I need to explore more to learn.

[FluffyComeHome]

Its always best to watch the intro videos and fan videos before buying any game. People tend to be really into certain aspects of gaming and if a game doesn't hit those buttons, it will not be enjoyed. The things I love most about TLD is figuring things out on my own and playing solo. But those things may be be terrible for someone else.

Glad you only spent $8. We've all purchased things that didn't live up to our expectations. We learn from it and move on.

But, also dont be too hasty to trash the game either. There must have been something that enticed you to buy it, so maybe its just a matter of getting used to things. Check out some YouTube videos.

And btw.: I guess I'm okay at this game (pretty consistent with 100+ days on Interloper/500+ days on Voyager) and been playing for a few years...but I still cant hit a blasted rabbit with a stone. I can kill bears and wolves all day long, but those treacherous little bunnies thwart me every time!

[Guest jeffpeng]

Some might know I'm pretty much a veteran at TLD, and I'm the last person to dispute the value of the game. I have almost 2500 tracked hours on Steam, and I wouldn't be surprised if I have another 1000 or so untracked. And even if I paid more than the 8 bucks the OP did, I got my money's worth, and there's a reason I keep coming back to this game.

But...

I can totally get why someone would feel that they are not getting what they were advertised. I sure didn't. That's not to say that I didn't like the game - in fact I fell instantly in love with it. But it was nothing like what I had expected to get. Maybe there is something about how the game is advertised that projects a different image into the heads of people. Maybe it's that (for all the reasons we know, but new players don't) the story mode still isn't finished, and has never turned out to be what was first envisioned.

But then again...

The Long Dark is a game that is brave enough to do things differently. Different controls than you might be used to. No hand holding. A learning curve as stiff as a cliff. The introduction of "loneliness" as a game play mechanic. Permadeath on every setting. Finite resources (albeit there are A LOT, even on the hardest setting). All of that culminates to something that is notably different. A little bit antiquated in some aspects, progressively ahead in others, and expressively unique. People always say they don't want to play the same game over and over again, sick of cheap asset jobs and repetitive game play mechanics being cricle-copied between popular titles.

The Long Dark is just that. It ain't for everyone. But I would recommend everyone who bought the game and doesn't feel at home at first to give it a second try, and a bit of time. If then it still doesn't pick you up.... well, that happens, and I'm sorry. But you at least can say you've tried something other than your usual routine.

Edited October 14, 2020 by jeffpeng

[Ape88]

On 5/22/2020 at 5:39 PM, David Vacchi said:

No tutorial? No how to videos? 

There is this thing called the Internet. You obviously know the basics of using it since you managed to make it onto this forum... Now, use it to find tutorials. You might try YouTube. I would recommend Hadrian as he has a survival school series and is a very calm, thoughtful player.

Also, the episodes of the game are supposed to be tutorialish, especially if you try them on easy.

You paid a minimum on a game that has been getting regular updates and regular communication from the Devs, without requiring paying more money for expansion packs.

There's only one game I can think of that really has that same kind of consideration from the devs behind it and that would be Minecraft.

This game and its survival mode is supposed to give you the feel of trying to survive in the wilderness anyway. I think back on my early days of playing when I was frustrated with not knowing where to find a pot for water with fondness. Back then there weren't any pots for water and my naive self didn't know I didn't need a pot to melt and boil snow for water.

[ManicManiac]

@Ape88 makes some good points here.

Also, I think part of that makes the game such a wonderful challenge is that we can also go in blind and learn the game pretty easily just though the gameplay alone.  There isn't a whole lot here that is so esoteric that it can't be intuited by most folks if they are paying attention.

Edited December 11, 2020 by ManicManiac

[piddy3825]

Well said, indeed @Ape88

dont forget that during each loading screen there is also a tutorial message embedded as well.  

Edited December 11, 2020 by piddy3825
spelling

[TIMBERBEAR810]

three months and still going, wow.

Edit-Okay whoops this has been going on since I started playing, Jesus and people are still active on this thread. 

Edited December 12, 2020 by TIMBERBEAR810

[TIMBERBEAR810]

What even is this thread about anymore? Because he probably stopped playing months ago after this comment.

[CORVINON_]

Jogo já faz alguns anos e não tenho do que reclamar. Gosto da dinâmica do jogo, os gráficos são bons. Não tenho do que reclamar...

 

[LoneWolf5841]

On 5/26/2020 at 10:21 PM, Rivukis said:

I understand the OP's frustration. I just bought the game and played it for an hour. I was so frustrated that I immediately uninstalled it. I was really excited about the game and thought I was lucky that I discovered it while on sale. However, the game does not do a good job showing you how to play. I understand that the idea is to learn how to survive out in the wild. I want that part of the game. Instead, I felt like an infant trying to learn how to move my arms. All while freezing to death in 5 min.

The beginning area didn't do a good job teaching me the basic mechanics of the game. I kept trying to put on a jacket and all it would do is comment on the jacket. Later, I got an objective to put it on. I clicked a button and the jacket disappeared. No idea what happened to it. Originally, I thought it was on my body, but then in chapter two, I found it outside the plane's wreckage. The first time I saw the jacket, it mentioned something about equipment on the circular menu. I looked and nothing on it mentioned equipment or clothing. I kept freezing to death very quickly, so I went to the other bigger menu instead and found the clothing sub menu (also the bigger menu has confusing controls). I had no idea how to read it, as nothing shows what anything means or what actions you can perform. I clicked every button to see what would happen. One of the button's made each item disappear. I still didn't know if I was putting them on or destroying them. If I put them on, then I had on 4 shirts and 2 pairs of socks. None of which slowed down the freezing process. I never found a way to see what clothing I had on or how to equip clothing.

From the very beginning of the game, the camera movement was super choppy. I had to turn down the graphics to low/medium. The machine I built has powerful enough components that every game I own is always turned on to the max or close to it, so I know it's not my machine. For example, I have an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080, 3.5GHz quad core processor, and 16GB of memory. Should be enough to run this game and not be choppy.

A little later, I was told I can hit a rabbit with a stone, but really there's no way that's happening. I don't understand why it tells you that. I thought it was a hint on what to do next, However, aiming is difficult and this guy can only throw a rock 10 ft, so why bother trying?

Even with all that, I really want to like this game, so I'm reinstalling it and going to give it another shot. It seems like I would given the many positive reviews, which also make me think I'm doing something wrong or missed some in-game tutorial.

My current questions are what do the buttons do?, should I be using a controller or mouse/keyboard?, how do I tell what is equipped?, how do I equip clothing, how do I fix the camera movement jumpiness?

I hope I wasn't too much of a downer in this post and sorry in advance for the wall of text.

Okay so I decided to probably poorly explain a few of the basic mostly the menus and how to get there slash navigate them there is controls that you can refer to in game but here they are if you want to see them nowif on ps4 

If on Xbox 

If on PC

I play ps4 only so I had to look up Xbox and PC so it may be outdated

 

As for the menus I made them into pictures with explanations as it was a lot to type without physically showing so prepare for a long list of images. Hopefully it's easy to read as some text gets small.

Edit just noticed the above screenshot says "press L1/LB or L1/LB" ignore that second L1/LB. 

status and the map can be accessed through the radial menu and the drop decoy option can be done outside of the radial menu on console you press down on the D-Pad on PC you press 4.

Done hopefully this helps with the menus I didn't show all the menu for example the fire, forge, or workbench menus mostly because my fingers are hurting due to typing and sharefactory on ps4 being not so easy to use but also because I believe the other menus are relatively self explanatory.

like I said before I exclusively play PS4 so the controls for PC may be off (Xbox should be similar to ps4 other than the difference names for buttons) I used the PC controls image I showed early as a reference. I'm also generally bad at explaining things so it still may be confusing. Either way I highly recommend to give the game not just 2 chances but multiple chances once you get the hang of the controls it is really a fantastic survival game that can give you a ton of enjoyment if you like survival games.

Edited December 23, 2020 by LoneWolf5841

[LoneWolf5841]

On 12/11/2020 at 8:16 PM, TIMBERBEAR810 said:

What even is this thread about anymore? Because he probably stopped playing months ago after this comment.

He may have stopped playing but new players still may find this thread so it's still relevant and will always be relevant. 

[TIMBERBEAR810]

oh

[RegentRelic]

On 5/22/2020 at 6:39 PM, David Vacchi said:

Solitaire is more fun.

The long dark takes a similar role as solitaire for me and now I don't even like thinking about solitaire.

[Stoutlander]

Hinterlands failure was to not include "This game is not for whiners" on the label. 

This is the only game that I purchased after playing it on game pass. Usually you play a game on game pass and just move on to another. I didn't have to buy it to continue playing, but I felt obligated after realizing how good the game is. Hinterland games had earned it.

[Skuopbahdwoop]

Thought I’d share my opinion on here, since a lot of the responders seem to be ppl who have thousands of hours clocked into the game and I am,,,not one of them lol. 
 

I first got TLD for the PS4 back right after the rugged sentinel update as a used copy for about 17 dollars. The person recommending it told me it was a really intense survival sandbox like Minecraft, and I was excited to try it out. I immediately fell in love with the art style and the music, and it has a very addicting quality about it that makes you want to invest hours in crafting and surviving and exploring the huge map.

But there were things that made me put it down and not touch it until this year, and a lot of it was for two reasons. I want to preface this by saying in no way am I trashing the game or the developers for their hard work, or trying to whine/complain because I didn’t pay enough attention. Just offering up my perspective.

One reason was just a severe lack of understanding the game mechanics. A big benefit for veteran players is how the game doesn’t offer a tutorial or a huge learning curve, as it has an extreme survival component to it that after enough practice you become appreciative of; but when you’re getting into it it’s easy to feel frustrated and confused. I remember I’d eat up all my rations really quickly, thinking if my food bar went down into the red then I would immediately die and lose my world. I didn’t know how wolves could find you, or weight management, or how to hunt- so I’d be left climbing up cliffs and spraining my ankles every couple minutes with an 80lbs inventory, since I was afraid if I didn’t have a crap ton of fire resources and health items then I wasn’t playing the game right. I’d lead a wolf into a deer and then rush it and take the hit to my clothing/health, and then run after it and harvest the two carcasses and that was the only way I knew how to hunt. And even playing story mode (back before the redux), a lot of the mechanics I was still confused by moving into episode 2. I remember I was in forlorn muskeg once and I died 5 times to a bear, pack of wolves, hypothermia, falling into ice, and just not understanding the buffs/aiming system well enough. And I got frustrated and was a lot like OP- I felt like a game where it didn’t teach you the mechanics in simple terms, or a more forgiving navigation system? The benefits of the atmosphere/exploration didn’t outweigh what I felt were huge costs.

The other reason I dropped it was just because of a perceived incompatibility with the game’s message. I’m not a huge video game enthusiast- TLD is currently one of maybe 4 games I play regularly- but I tend to like games that focus on rich lore, crafting, and especially having some kind of social aspect- whether multiplayer with other people or having fun side quests to do for NPC characters. Going from that into a game that focuses primarily on isolation, hopelessness, and being the only person left alive in a hostile and worsening world made it difficult to get into for more than a few hours at a time- and that initial clash kind of biased me against getting better at the game. So I stopped playing.

However, I decided in 2020 during quarantine, after seeing some playthroughs of it pop up in recommendations, that I wanted to give it another shot. Watching other people enjoy interloper runs convinced me I hadn’t given it a good enough chance, and it wasn’t like I had much else to do. And honestly? I’m not ashamed to say I was completely wrong about it. I started off by watching other run-thoughs, reading through the wiki, memorizing the maps and watching a ton of guide/tutorial videos that explained a lot of the game mechanics I was having trouble with. With that confidence I spawned into Mystery Lake and just started exploring around the map, getting a feel for where everything was and trying to take a few more risks than I had done previously.

I’m still not good at the game, per se- weight management and prioritizing resources are still things that escapes my hoarder gremlin state of mind- and I still find it gets a bit tiring/emotionally draining to play survival for long periods of time; but I’ve actually grown to really appreciate the atmosphere of the game and all the new content. The updates to cooking, navigation, and aiming, for instance, were huge benefits that really helped me work more on the map and not feel as stressed out about conserving every possible resource as long as possible. And accessibility options like camera dampening. Plus, seeing all the new maps I’ve yet to explore are really exciting, and it gives me incentive to get better at the game (and over my crippling fear of wolf encounters lol). So like what most others have said, it is really difficult to get into at first- TLD is incredibly unique in terms of its gameplay and atmosphere, so the unknown difference can make it challenging to get into- but if you look through the wiki or get some help from the variety of wonderful forums here, there’s a lot this game has to offer if you can survive those first couple of nights. 

[piddy3825]

3 hours ago, Skuopbahdwoop said:

Thought I’d share my opinion on here, since a lot of the responders seem to be ppl who have thousands of hours clocked into the game and I am,,,not one of them lol....

...after seeing some playthroughs of it pop up in recommendations, that I wanted to give it another shot. Watching other people enjoy interloper runs convinced me I hadn’t given it a good enough chance, and it wasn’t like I had much else to do. And honestly? I’m not ashamed to say I was completely wrong about it. I started off by watching other run-thoughs, reading through the wiki, memorizing the maps and watching a ton of guide/tutorial videos that explained a lot of the game mechanics I was having trouble with. With that confidence I spawned into Mystery Lake and just started exploring around the map, getting a feel for where everything was and trying to take a few more risks than I had done previously.

I had to chuckle when you wrote that you found it funny that many of the responses come from players with thousands of hours of play time which is true.  then you remarked on how you learned to play, by researching the wiki, watching tutorials and by playing the game, taking risks and developing your play style.  Well, that's pretty much how those of us with thousands of hours in the sandbox did it too!  Back when the game was first released, the forums provided that community experience that you alluded to in multiplayer mode that you said you enjoyed.  We'd play the shit outta those limited maps and then jump on line into the forums and compare notes, discussing techniques and strategies that helped us become better survivors.  You would not believe how many "test" runs I made seeing how much damage my character could take jumping down from the side of cliff, or running out onto the thin ice to see how long it would take to die from hypothermia!  ahh, good times!  Glad to hear your back to playing in the sandbox!

[Bean]

When I started playing a couple years ago, I tried the story mode first.  Got through the first unskippable plane scene with lots of character silence.  It was boring but I made it through.  Then it went to loading after the crash, and the game freaking crashed!   I was pissed.  My take is the story mode is crap.  Don’t play it.  The later episodes are somewhat better, but still have serious not fun slogs (like hauling survivors around pleasant valley).  
I completed the story mode much later but never did it again.  Yuck!  
 

What I fell in love with was the SANDBOX!  Started my first character and stumbled about in the snow a while until I died.  Frustrating but I learned a few things.  The UI needs a tutorial or something.  It’s not that intuitive.  
My second try went longer, up to 3 days before a wolf ate me.  Next three games went much like that.  Finally I got a game going where I was an actual survivor! (Playing Stalker).  It went on and on.  
Then it was discovering the game for myself, starting new games with other difficulties, and then figuring out Interloper.  
Once I got into it, this game has been one of the best I’ve ever played.  
Worst part?  The bugs that make it crash.  Hinterland is slow as hell in fixing basic stuff.  

[Skuopbahdwoop]

On 12/30/2020 at 3:42 PM, piddy3825 said:

I had to chuckle when you wrote that you found it funny that many of the responses come from players with thousands of hours of play time which is true.  then you remarked on how you learned to play, by researching the wiki, watching tutorials and by playing the game, taking risks and developing your play style.  Well, that's pretty much how those of us with thousands of hours in the sandbox did it too!  Back when the game was first released, the forums provided that community experience that you alluded to in multiplayer mode that you said you enjoyed.  We'd play the shit outta those limited maps and then jump on line into the forums and compare notes, discussing techniques and strategies that helped us become better survivors.  You would not believe how many "test" runs I made seeing how much damage my character could take jumping down from the side of cliff, or running out onto the thin ice to see how long it would take to die from hypothermia!  ahh, good times!  Glad to hear your back to playing in the sandbox!

Oh jeez, that actually sounds super cool! One problem I've just consistently been having is wondering how far I can push my character before I die. I'm not really a risk-taker in survival games- I tend to just pile a bunch of resources in a base and then explore and operate from there. But that's not really something you can do in TLD, at least not the long term- it's forcing me out of the comfort zone, and it's actually been kind of fun to take more risks and be more mobile. Still cripplingly terrified of wolves, though... but hopefully if I get better at fighting them off then that'll change! Happy new year to you! 

[ProfessorChaos85]

"No tutorials, no how to videos" made me giggle. Damn, you'd have a pretty tough time gaming back in the 90's, buddy. 

[AnotherColdDay]

It's a shame that the OP doesn't like the game, but I think it has a lot to do with the spirit of the times.

Nowadays it is a rare good to get involved, to enjoy the silence, to question what you have contributed (to the situation in the game). 

Some people just want to be entertained, to be taken by the hand in everything and to be constantly entertained, however shallow and not very profound it may be. 

That is the current tone of the game industry. You can't blame anyone for forgetting to just look under the surface. Unfortunately, that's the way it is today.

Edited January 3, 2021 by AnotherColdDay