Iron Will to Live

[Rover East]

I have always found “The Will to Live” achievement alluring. The idea of surviving for in game years, having to plan months ahead, and inevitably leaving your mark on nearly every crevice and corner of Great Bear have the makings of a great survival story.

However, on the lower difficulties the monument of this achievement is somewhat diminished on behalf of the plethora of supplies, tools, and weapons available. I personally found that by day 150 or so on stalker their was very little reason to do anything and few external  threats on account of my gear and supply reserves. To amend this, I tried my next run on Interloper and found it breathed new life both into the challenge and the game. Sure, at a certain point it was physically possible to shack up somewhere, make a stockpile, and grind down time; however I found the utter scarcity of manufactured goods and the gradual diminishment of both equipment and natural resources promoted a more demanding lifestyle and required continual self assessment and evaluation to continue surviving. Additionally the cold continues to pose a threat even with full skin clothing and the bearskin sleeping bag. 
 

I personally call surviving to day 500 on Interloper “The Iron Will to live challenge” and I was wondering if anyone else was trying it. If you are, share a story or two, discuss tactics, and let me know if you think they should make an official achievement honoring such endeavors.

[gotmilkanot]

I enjoy long playthroughs too, in fact, I only play two save files - a 700-day Voyager save where I pretty much learnt about the whole game from scratch, and then an Interloper save that just turned Day 500 not too long ago.

I've seen some streamers with thousands of days on their Interloper saves but really, if you got the game mechanics right and can keep motivating yourself to find new things to do, you could pretty much survive "forever" on Interloper.

[piddy3825]

4 hours ago, Rover East said:

I personally call surviving to day 500 on Interloper “The Iron Will to live challenge” and I was wondering if anyone else was trying it. If you are, share a story or two, discuss tactics, and let me know if you think they should make an official achievement honoring such endeavors.

LOL,

playing the long survival game over 500 days should probably more aptly be named "The Iron Will to Keep Playing Challenge!"
Yeah, all things being equal, they should update the merit badges to include awards for extra long term survival.  It is hard to stay motivated and continue to play a character when there's not much to do expect pass time because you got everything dialed in just right.  I can see why Cabin Fever is a necessary part of the game, regardless of it's clunky application, because boredom both real and figurative manifest themselves in the long game.  

[Megaloceros]

5 hours ago, Rover East said:

 

I personally call surviving to day 500 on Interloper “The Iron Will to live challenge” and I was wondering if anyone else was trying it. If you are, share a story or two, discuss tactics, and let me know if you think they should make an official achievement honoring such endeavors.

There is a user who goes by @RationalBassistwho has survived on interloper for over 12 in game years, and as far as I know that run is still going; what's more, from what I understand, he challenged himself by never killing deer or rabbits in the game, and by spending a full in game year in every region. I recommend you chat with him if you can; his is the most impressive Interloper run I know of, so if anyone has any pointers about both surviving and staving off boredom, it's him!

Perhaps he will finally discover if William Mackenzie can die of old age, haha!

[Lord of the Long Dark]

The biggest myth about interloper is that there is any skill in surviving for years.  After day 100 you can essentially live forever. The longer you play the easier it is to survive.

  A person with a 3000 day interloper character is not nearly impressive as much as a player with ten 30 day characters.   Living “years” in game is just a matter of going from massive food and water storage location to the others. 

[Mistral]

Yeah I tend to think that 100 days on Deadman is more impressive than 10,000 days on Interloper, it's just a matter of perspective. But at least 10,000 on Interloper would show admirable act of persistence and endurance

Edited June 1, 2021 by Mistral