Favorite episode so, far poll.

[RegentRelic]

Favorite episode so, far? Because I am curious.

[Leeanda]

13 hours ago, RegentRelic said:

Favorite episode so, far? Because I am curious.

Which was your favourite?

[Luca Loquax]

I love episode 3!  I got to play doctor! 

[Bimbobjoejr.]

Episode two, so much happens and there's so much movement. The ending battle as well was icing on the cake

[Istvan82]

Loved this last episode but Ep. 2 is still my favorite, the "Bear Legend" cinematic is just awesome. I just wish we could get so much more background stories like that in the game!

[RegentRelic]

7 hours ago, Leeanda said:

Which was your favourite?

Luminance Fugue.

[Long_Dark_Fan]

Episode 4 is my favourite- felt it really bought the story to an end ( sadly) 3 was also good liked playing as the girl but  I didn’t like the first much because it took me ages to kill the bear - I was trapped in the cave with it for way to long lol 😂 I’m pretty sure I will play all of it again though 👍🏻

[Hilayla]

Every time I think of replaying story mode I remember the bear cave and decide against it. 😂 I thought I was the only one.

[mfuegemann]

1 and 4 for me. I did not like the bear cave either. It is unnerving with no option to save. EP 3 starts interesting but bringing the survivors in is quite a chore with the TW packs and the slow carrying.

[Pencil]

Episode one was boring for me. Episode three was ok, but gathering the supplies was not very exciting (saving the survivors was actually really fun, believe it or not). The last chapter of Episode 4 was great, but the rest of the episode was just ok.

Episode two was great. Dealing with the Old Bear was exciting, and the cave was epic. It's really fun to speed run. 

Edited November 14, 2021 by Pencil

[RandomPlayer]

1 hour ago, Pencil said:

Episode two was great. Dealing with the Old Bear was exciting, and the cave was epic. 

I'd have to agree with your assessment.  I think there was a lot more action and adventure in Episode Two.  The story was clear and concise and the action dealing with the bear with multiple engagements was exciting.  I think the biggest let down was at the end, the final battle was over almost as quickly as it had begun and I was really looking forward to finding my way out of the bear's cave/den.  I was utterly disappointed however in the abrupt conclusion of what could have, should have, been an epic showdown between Will and his nemesis. 
curious if you had that same reaction?

[Pencil]

On 11/14/2021 at 3:31 PM, RandomPlayer said:

I'd have to agree with your assessment.  I think there was a lot more action and adventure in Episode Two.  The story was clear and concise and the action dealing with the bear with multiple engagements was exciting.  I think the biggest let down was at the end, the final battle was over almost as quickly as it had begun and I was really looking forward to finding my way out of the bear's cave/den.  I was utterly disappointed however in the abrupt conclusion of what could have, should have, been an epic showdown between Will and his nemesis. 
curious if you had that same reaction?

Spoilers

Well, I wish that you encountered the Old Bear in Mystery Lake in more than just cinematic cutscenes. Having to actually use the rifle at first to scare him off was what I was hoping for when I first played the episode. Kind of like what the episode was before the redux, but not actually killing him with it, and still killing him with the spear. 

For the cave, I didn't necessarily think it ended quickly, but I understand where you are coming from. It is quite sudden. 

[Catlover]

Kind of spoilers for episodes 1-3

Personally episode 1 is my favourite so far. Though I'm only halfway through ep3 so maybe that gets better, I don't know. 

I just really liked the first episode, where you have no idea what's going on. Plus I got really attached to Grey Mother and I'm still hoping that Will keeps his promise and comes back to get her.  

Episode 2 was great, but I just found the final boss fight with the bear to be too difficult. And I completely agree with what @RandomPlayer said about the whole showdown ending rather abruptly. How did Will escape the cave and manage to stagger back after the maulings? 

Ep 3 I'm only halfway through so can't state my opinion on that though I find the whole survivor saving to be slightly tedious

Seems like ep 4 is by far the favourite, and I'm intreagued to see if it lives up to my very high expectations. Can't wait to play it!

Edited November 17, 2021 by Catlover

[lillitys]

It's hard to choose, but I'm going to say EP 1. Everything is new and exciting and life isn't too hard! 😂
I do love EP 2 for the most part, too. Love how big the world becomes, though sometimes the Walking Simulator aspect gets tiring. This might be my favourite episode if not for the final fight... The cave puzzle was pretty immersion-breaking since I had to do it many many times over.
Really loved EP 3, probably partly because I just love Astrid a lot. I have a love-hate relationship with the timberwolves. On one hand, they bring more variation to the game. On another hand, they are... very annoying.
EP 4 wasn't exactly to my liking. Too much action and too little wandering in the wilderness. Didn't feel like "The Long Dark" to me. 

[ToAsT]

In order from favourite to least favourite:

Episode 1: Post-redux. New story, cleaner approach, and it's always fun to start with nothing and build yourself up. Felt like the base survival game in many respects, but more forgiving and with a little more direction. New Milton location quickly became one of my favourites. An air of mystery surrounded the episode, which I loved.
Episode 2: Getting the spear and travelling across multiple zones reminded me of when I first played survival. You put your skills of surviving the wilderness and the weather to the test. Integration of the aurora into actual gameplay. The legends side-quest was a fun distraction that took me to parts of the regions I wouldn't have normally explored.
Episode 4: I enjoyed the intro and the general storyline surrounding the episode, but it was too much of a straight line. I like the new region, but the amount of wolves was a turn-off, as was the annoyance of frequently dumping my gear. Could've used some more polish, as there were instances where I said to myself "why couldn't McKenzie have just ___?". The noisemaker was sorely needed, IMO. Region felt a little cramped overall - maybe it was the number of wolves?
Episode 3: Timberwolves - can see you from super far away, blue flare doesn't do much, and they're out during blizzards. Too railroad-y. Forced encounters. This woman who saved me somehow always knows where I am and only rings that telephone nearby? She keeps a dead body in her basement? The crashed airline passengers are dying and she can't be bothered to help out even though she apparently knows the area extremely well? What? I did enjoy how they filled in parts of Pleasant Valley with more locations.

Things I enjoyed overall:
- Ability to save: this was really nice to have, if only to allow me to go at my own pace and try new things rather than asking on forums or watching streams, or saving my game file via script.
- Characters: Overall, I really liked the characters, the voice acting, and so on. Very well put together. There were some cheesy moments, but it kept my attention for the most part.
- Side-quests: Some of them were fetch quests, but I liked how they integrated them into the region and storyline to make them seem natural and relevant.
- New regions: Without storymode, we probably wouldn't have all these new regions, or discover any sort of connection between them.
- New flavour: Each episode had its own flavour to it, and I would always look forward to it from the initial announcement to the release date.

Things I didn't like overall:
- Lack of randomness: Part of the intrigue and replayability of the Long Dark (to me anyway) is that you don't know exactly where things are in the world even if you know the general layout of the land. They could've done this more for the storymode; item X could be in one of several places (loot tables), or the puzzles could be randomized to have a different layout each time.
- The dialog flow: Often the characters would say something and there wasn't an option for me to dig for more information even if it was necessary IMO to fill in some of the gaps. Motives were rarely explored and characters rarely provided actual meaningful advice to your character about the environment they were about to be thrust in. Too many unanswered questions. Interactions felt hollow and without decision trees.
- Lack of skills: Set the character's base skill depending on the difficulty and then you can appreciate your character learning as they go along. As it currently is, there's no feeling of progression other than to advance the story.
- No divergent paths: The main storyline was very railroad-y. There are ways of providing different paths that make some choices matter. Provide a default option if someone starts an Episode without completing the previous ones.
- Poor tutorial via in-game mechanics: The characters didn't explain certain things that would be useful or things that differed from the survival mode. "Watch yourself in the blizzards; the timberwolves aren't afraid of bad weather" or "Flame will keep the wolves at bay for a short while; but you'll need to be threatening to get them to back off". I still felt largely on my own and at the mercy of the game mechanics (which changed several times during the course of Wintermute!), especially when it came to things like deterring wolves or using some of the weapons.

[Kranium]

I said 1 because it was my introduction to this amazing game experience. I went into TLD totally blind, I had no idea at all. Blew me away. So, nostalgia wins & EP1 it is.

[elpresidente]

It's hard to choose since they all have their purpose in the story. But if I have to pick my favorite maybe it will be episode 3. At that point I already had gotten the ropes of the game, the map had good loot, had plenty of ammo and weapons to defend myself, so I felt in control. Episode 2 is also a good contender because it introduced new zones, the first time you step into Forlorn Muskeg and later seeing the Aurora for the first time was amazing. Like I said, they are all equally good.

[Vinceofpyrenees]

Episode 3 because of more wilderness.