The Long Dark is one of the most incredibly immersive, unforgiving, and rewarding survival games of all time.

Brief Summary:
This game is all about you vs. environment. Threats include, but are not limited to:
- Freezing temperatures and frostbite
- Sprains, lacerations, stomach parasites, food poisoning
- Starvation, dehydration
- Fatigue, exhaustion

In most games, eating, drinking, and other needs can get rather annoying. In the long dark, these are your daily GOALS, and navigating an unforgiving hellscape of the Canadian wilderness is a daily struggle to maintain yourself, your gear, your condition, etc.

How the health functions:
There is one main "health" bar, which is your overall "condition"
This can fall when certain needs are not met, injuries are sustained without proper medication, or maybe you are just freezing your ass off in a blizzard.
To recover condition, you will need to make sure all needs are at least partially met, and you can slowly recover. Learning to maintain your condition which is directly affected by these other needs is the crux of this game, and what all of the other challenge and reward will revolve around, and depend upon.

Pros
- Incredibly Immersive
- Scaling and customize-able difficulty (Can change MANY aspects to suit your liking, can be relaxed and easy to impossible)
- Unique and interesting (and sometimes incredibly difficult) preset challenges
- Extremely well made and massive maps, each area unique in its own way which completely affects gameplay
- Interesting and fun achievements which become their own challenges
- Long-term goals across games to unlock "perma-perks" you can select for each new sandbox
- Unlimited and varying replay-ability and it's easy to come up with and self-impose your own challnges (for examples, only survive off fish for a month, use only natural medications from nature, cross the entire map with no bedroll, etc.)
- Decently frequent updates with an amazing design team who are passionate about their game.
- A butt load of fun!

Cons:
- Some deaths and events leading to it can feel unfair
- For completionists, some badges are unobtainable, more of an OCD issue
- One main achievement is wonky to complete (still have not been able to get it to work)
- Need sound on always to hear for wolves/bears/moose if aggression enabled, very easy to die without audio

For the record, I have not played story yet! I will update review afterwards. all of my hours are from sandbox

Conclusions:
If you are on the fence, absolutely buy it and try it out, it is totally worth the money at full price!!!

The Long Dark is one of the most incredibly immersive, unforgiving, and rewarding survival games of all time. Brief Summary: This game is all about you vs. environment. Threats include, but are not limited to: - Freezing temperatures and frostbite - Sprains, lacerations, stomach parasites, food poisoning - Starvation, dehydration - Fatigue, exhaustion In most games, eating, drinking, and other needs can get rather annoying. In the long dark, these are your daily GOALS, and navigating an unforgiving hellscape of the Canadian wilderness is a daily struggle to maintain yourself, your gear, your condition, etc. How the health functions: There is one main "health" bar, which is your overall "condition" This can fall when certain needs are not met, injuries are sustained without proper medication, or maybe you are just freezing your ass off in a blizzard. To recover condition, you will need to make sure all needs are at least partially met, and you can slowly recover. Learning to maintain your condition which is directly affected by these other needs is the crux of this game, and what all of the other challenge and reward will revolve around, and depend upon. Pros - Incredibly Immersive - Scaling and customize-able difficulty (Can change MANY aspects to suit your liking, can be relaxed and easy to impossible) - Unique and interesting (and sometimes incredibly difficult) preset challenges - Extremely well made and massive maps, each area unique in its own way which completely affects gameplay - Interesting and fun achievements which become their own challenges - Long-term goals across games to unlock "perma-perks" you can select for each new sandbox - Unlimited and varying replay-ability and it's easy to come up with and self-impose your own challnges (for examples, only survive off fish for a month, use only natural medications from nature, cross the entire map with no bedroll, etc.) - Decently frequent updates with an amazing design team who are passionate about their game. - A butt load of fun! Cons: - Some deaths and events leading to it can feel unfair - For completionists, some badges are unobtainable, more of an OCD issue - One main achievement is wonky to complete (still have not been able to get it to work) - Need sound on always to hear for wolves/bears/moose if aggression enabled, very easy to die without audio For the record, I have not played story yet! I will update review afterwards. all of my hours are from sandbox Conclusions: If you are on the fence, absolutely buy it and try it out, it is totally worth the money at full price!!!