the devs will never finish it, gotta push them paid dlcs

I loved the first moments of The Long Dark, but it quickly turned into what felt like an inventory weight management simulator for min-maxers. Reddit is full of discussions about what items to carry or stash to optimize weight limits, but to me that kind of bookkeeping doesn’t feel like gameplay. I couldn’t find a working mod to remove the restrictive carry cap, and equipping better but heavier clothing made the encumbrance oppressive. (Since when does a full set of winter clothing weigh 25 kg!?) On top of that, QoL features like a compass, watch, or usable map are absent, which feels more annoying than immersive. Unlike other survival games where you feel progress in new skills or environments, here progression seems tied too closely to learning the details of gear math. Some players clearly enjoy the “every gram counts” realism, but for me it leans more toward irritating realism than actual fun.

skyrim if it was good

I remember when I played this on gamepass years ago and asked the devs for an option to disable eating/drinking sounds.

Buying this and booting it up today, I am incredibly happy to see that's an option. Based devs. 10/10 would simultaneously be dying of hypothermia and hunger while being chased by wolves again.

Also one of the lines in the Interloper difficulty description "You are not part of Mother Nature's plan" goes hard.

The feel is good, but the gameplay is not.

Your character is quite useless and can't even go a day without food without suffering consequences. A lot of micro-managing your own character and everything is soo time consuming, ingame and in real life.

It's not what I expected.

Honestly the devs started pushing paid dlcs without even finishing the main story, the game itself isnt that bad but the devs took the approach of "you dont own the game you own a copy of the game"

.

"My backpack is kinda heavy" simulator.

10/10 in that it truly manages to feel long and dark.
I guess I just prefer short and light.

I've been playing for a long time and keep coming back. If you want a cozy game, play easy mode and go exploring; if you want some adrenaline, play on interloper or misery and go hunt a cougar.
Yes, updates can take a while but it is an independent game studio, so in my opinion that's to be expected if you want the update to be good.
Fantastic game!