Starting way back in 2014, Hinterland Studio started their work on The Long Dark. At the time little was known about the game but people started to follow. Every year since then, Hinterland has kept up with their followers and progressed through building one of the most anticipated releases yet. Luckily, now in 2018, Hinterland is back with updates and messages to the community about their next step with The Long Dark and what we can all expect.
In the beginning , The Long Dark started strictly as a sandbox survival game. You, the player, are crash landed somewhere in Canada in the middle of winter. You must survive the frigid temperature and survive. Mostly a basic tutorial at the start, eventually you move on to search for the last person you remember being with and find out what happened. When the episodes started getting released, everything moves everything forward with flashes of memory.
Now with the upcoming release of Episode 3 (coming in December 2018), Hinterland has a great approach to their community’s questions and concerns. They decided to take all of the information and feedback and use it in a way that would revive interest in their first episodes and still continue the game. As time went on and their 2017 release became official, the story mode was put in to the game, making things cohesive. The flow really changed how everyone saw the game at that point.
Since then, the developers have gone back and changed almost everything about the story and how the first two episodes play. They are calling it “Redux.” For a company to almost scrap everything and use every bit of advice is refreshing in the busy world of gaming. Players can expect new dialogue, an updated system that makes for better images and speed and so much more. Players are encouraged to go back and play the first two episodes before December so they can get a better feel for the game as whole.
In December however, anyone that has saved progress in the first and second episodes will come back to quite a shock. Hinterland will be deleting all progress when Episode 3 officially comes out. This is so everyone can be on the same page with the story. Luckily however, if you buy the hard copy of the game in stores, episodes 1 and 2 the “Redux” issue, all of the subsequent episodes will be downloadable for free. Seeing as how their will be 5 episodes in total, this is great news.
Hinterland has taken a big leap in being progressive when it comes to redoing their game The Long Dark. Not only is the game already a psychological survival experience, these changes show a side of the developers that make them feel that they are doing the best by their fans and their game. This is definitely a win win.
8/10
Available on PC, Xbox and PS4
