While you might naturally discover areas by open exploration (my preference), Interloper challenges your map knowledge. The Faithful Cartographer achievement and studying maps online are both solid methods for learning regions. A great collection of high-res maps is here: https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1901570789 This is the #1 recommendation from most active streamers and community members: map knowledge.

(100% chance), THEN light your fire -- if you fail, the torch is still lit


You don’t always have to use the rope to descend (or sometimes ascend) ledges. Walk, goatlike and elegant, down the ledges you can see. Sometimes they aren’t too far away from the ropeclimb. This saves on your exhaustion level. Some goating techniques include crouching, going horizontal across sheer dropoffs, and sprinting between ledges. Seeing video examples can help.


They stay hot for a period of time on your person. Drinking medicinal teas might not give all of the benefits you might want later, but they’ll still fill your heat bar and give you a Warming Up bonus. Warming Up is nice to have early, as it reduces the amount of heat you lose by a whopping 50%.


Use the wheel. It takes some getting used to, if you didn’t start out with it, but the default key is spacebar. This opens up a wheel where you can select things like torches or specific weapons, or food and drink, without having to enter the inventory screen.


If you’re stuck in the dark, indoors, equip the bedroll. The big red/green representation of where you can place it won’t pass through walls, but will highlight where all of the surfaces are. You can see where the floor is, and get through caves and structures. If it's day 1, and the can isn't cutting it, you can drop a large piece of clothing (i.e. pants) then right click to move them for a similar effect.


At least in the current build, any food left in containers vanishes at 0%. Meat on the ground might be rancid, but you can still eat it. Raw meat will gain 50% condition when cooked, and at cooking 5 nothing cooked will ever go bad. This includes meat cooked at cooking 5 that’s since become rancid.


Animals currently detect meat smells much more potently if they’re on your person. While harvesting several quarter bags (say from a moose or bear) it can be a good idea to use Drop Decoy (3 on PC) to keep raw meats on the ground. You can then easily transition those to your cooking fire by right clicking and dragging them to the cooking spot.


When your condition gets low, Astrid or Will start to stumble around. On PC you can hit 4 to bring out your campfire placement (or use the wheel). No more stumble.


You can pick up some melted snow after one or two in-game minutes, then throw that (usually .3 or .4) on the fire to boil. This can help you to arrest thirst in an emergency, giving you time to do a longer boil.



A note for players just starting interloper: rethink bases. I think there are three acts I tend to follow for understanding loper -

act 1) semi-stable status bars (heat, exhaustion, water, food) with essentials like:

-matches / maglens
-basic clothes (bonus for second undies and warmer clothes
-bedroll

act 2) forge

-find hammer
-optional hacksaw
-curing saplings and gut
-reach forge location

act 3) day 50 prep (temps drop consistently, being very cold at 50)

-summit/ear wrap/distress pistol
-crafted gear
-stims and goals

Want way more vitamin C meat, lantern oil and cooking skill than you know what to do with? OK with a little prep work? Get a basic tool (prybars and hammers are S-tier, knives and hatchets will work but they'll take some damage). Get some fuel (sticks, coal, firewood, all great). Get those, some tackle (guts and scrap metal at a bench) and tip-ups out to a fishing hut. Get the hut's potbelly stove going, and open up 2-6 new fishing holes within reach of the hut's front door. As you fish the main hole, you should see and hear more and more tipped tipups. Get the fish, rinse, and repeat!


Your smell-o-meter goes up by the NUMBER OF PIECES of fish/meat you have, not the weight. Therefore the power of fish frenzy or hunterly success is balanced out by the danger of increased smell - you can attract wolves from a LONG way away if you have 30 cuts of meat, even if those are tiny fishes.


Cooking 5 is epic. It’s my first priority, and what I hate losing when a longer run ends. Fish frenzy will level your cooking faster, but there are a number of other things to be aware of. Canned food and teas also level cooking, provided you don’t burn them. This makes cooking on those huge 6-burner stoves an incredibly efficient use of your fuel.


While it’s not my preference for long runs, many of the top tier streamers prefer the feat that brings your fire skill immediately to 3, where you no longer require tinder. I like to use lantern fuel and jerry cans liberally prior to fire 3, have plenty of sticks, and use the mag lens to start fires where possible, even if just to light a torch.


Use torches to light multiple campfires. If you have the fuel for it, then you’ll get through the cook more time-efficiently.


It is technically possible to reach Archery level 5 by crafting only arrows, and it was done by the twitch streamer Kimiota.


Kimiota, PerfectTrip, Wonzandonly, SlidHomes, Thedeadp00l, BladesCJ and b1gf1s4 will teach you a lot of these techniques just by watching, and between them you’ll hit most global time zones.


Zaknafein and Bashrobe are good go-to creators for tutorials on YouTube, Atheenon multistreams around educational themes, Matty_Fresh_Water and BAD_Ronin have both had runs over 1000 days, and Thedeadp00l has epic goats (one must always shout DEADPOOL whilst sprinting during a goat). BladesCJ and not_too_shabby have great educational youtubes (with great streaming besides), and b1gf1s4 has my favorite tutorials for things like finding bunkers.


It’s welcoming, and a nice place to be. There are new streamers doing the creative and unexpected (when I first wrote this: BladesCJ, RitchOn13, MelKeyStudio, wafflemaus, though all 4 of them are now veterans). In early 2025 I love to watch dhdunn, paraloopable, chefmaria, and probably 200 other streamers I'm forgetting. Not a joke number, as MelKeyStudio once created a BRB stream that listed well over 100 back in 2022. The folks mentioned here represent only a fraction of the amazing folks on twitch you could be learning from. Seriously, if there's interest we could make a list of 101 streamers.

While Misery is a challenging mode for vanilla play, NOGOA (No One Gets Out Alive) a custom mode developed to be immediately harder than Interloper, with some advantages to Misery's ramping up effects. It was made by streamers mentioned above, PerfectTrip and WonzandOnly. The code is 8sHM-/z8P-Dz+3-QZym-XQIC - Think of it as pumping iron. It’ll probably kill you pretty quickly the first couple of times, since there’s no health regen, very little loot, and you start off during a midnight blizzard. Failure is an effective teacher, and NOGOA could be a great mode to play if your goal is to ultimately master Misery.

COAL IS GOLD - HAVE ALL COAL. Not only is it an amazing fuel-to-weight ratio, but each piece of coal is +20C. Coal refreshes every two in-game weeks. You can pick it up in transition caves, along riverbeds, and below sheer rock walls. It will save your life in a sudden blizzard, and is essential past the 50 day mark.


This is usually the first thing you’ll notice, watching interloper streams. These players pick up every stick. Each provides +1C to a fire, increases duration slightly, but most importantly is renewable.


Take torches from your fires. You can do this even with a fire you’ve primarily added coal to. You can put them out immediately, and keep the ones with good condition (RNG is real here). If you then take a lit torch from that fire, you can CHAIN TORCHES.

Drop the lit torch, and pull up an unlit torch.

Hover over the flame of your lit torch

Light the unlit torch

With enough fuel, you can keep one fire going for longer, thus preserving matches/firestrikers/maglens luck, as well as giving you more options for wolf safety as you travel (as discussed next).


If a wolf has detected you, a torch will dissuade it for a time (less time if you have a lot of meat). Dropping your torch (or standing behind your fire), and aiming a weapon will cause it to charge, but frighten off once it gets too close to the fire. Even after acquiring the bow, you’ll see master interloper players carry one rock to use in this fashion. When aiming the rock, the player will appear to “dab” in a fashion equally frightening to the wolf as aiming a firearm or bow. Selecting the rock from the wheel will automatically drop your torch.


Flares scare wolves more effectively than torches. Flares don’t blow out in heavy winds (wind will sometimes change to blow out a torch AS a wolf is charging, giving zero reaction time to light a flare). Flares can be effective against bears. On interloper I always carry a flare, two if I’ve got em.


If you’re in desperate need of rabbit meat, but have wolves on your back, then open the inventory screen and drop your lit torch from there. Throwing them is convenient, but terrifying to the poor, defenseless rabbits you’re trying to murder.


Once cooked, they don’t need to be on the cooking slots to reheat, but rather can be dropped. If they’re near the heat, they will be reheated (but can still burn, so JIGGLE JIGGLE your teas)! A small portion considers this a cheese, so be advised. If you right click (default PC) to move your tea slightly, you should see the cook time increase. This should keep a tea from burning (though if you see the [time until burned] text, your tea isn't safe yet. If you use this method in the current patch, putting a jiggled and hot tea onto a burner (rather than jiggling or picking up) can bring up those words you never want to see: Inedible Burned Stuff.


Interloper’s best food item: second only to Salty Crackers for weight-to-calorie ratio, no smell-o-meter, and edible in smaller portions. Salty crackers dehydrate, making cattails arguably better. That is what I am arguing. They are better. Cattails. The cattail heads are also extremely useful on the ground as blizzard markers and art projects.


The hammer is often thought to be the most effective tool at scaring away wolves, though it doesn't cause bleeding. In controlled tests, however, it's been shown that the hatchet is more effective at breaking grapple, and is less likely to leave you with status conditions (such as bleeding). Whichever tool you choose, the percentage is thought to matter. Always best not to get jumped on, though the game has been known to spawn predators within a few meters of the player.


Weight affects struggles. Exhaustion affects struggles. Being on unreachable terrain prevents struggles. Not being in struggles is the best struggle outcome. Clothing and condition can be targets of struggles (maglens is no longer thought to be a target in the current patch, though if yours is damaged in a Perilous Constraint save many folks would be interested to hear about it). Bear’s preferred dish is ear wrap.

I’m not just talking about standing on a campfire here (although that will do the trick). About half the big streamers have talked about dying in the cold half of a cave. You get very used to having 1-3 negative arrows for temp, that once you’re living that double bear coat double ear wrap life you’ve come to rely on it to tell you where it’s safe to sleep. Caves are common places to spend time, even without cabin fever risk. In larger caves, there’s a line between where you get outdoor temps, and indoor temps. Streamers like Defiantcharles and Atheenon explicitly mark that line, so that they don’t lose track and accidentally lose a run because the weather goes from modestly heinous -> intense blizzard hellscape within that first hour of sleep.


You see this with streamers having epic things occur in chat, then forget to drink before a 9 hour sleep on the wrong side of the cave. There’s an interesting psychology to this, which I won’t TLDR here, but TLD is largely a game about having 50 things you could potentially be doing at any given time, of which you pick maybe the 5 most important. Attentionally, human beings can’t focus too well on more than one thing at a time. One nice counter to this is to drop items in places you’ll see, so that you have visual reminders (say, to carry an item to another location, drink, eat, take the hacksaw up TWM).


The rock dab will usually give you a nice grace period between wolves charging. If you have a full smell bar (or have been microharvesting), wolves will hone in on you.

after a struggle, then sees your torch and turns around. or your torch isn't on the ground (if held, they may still attack). or the wind blows out your torch (even your grounded torch)

isn't directly, exactly between you and the bear (or you strafe too far outside protection, or you draw a weapon when that torch is on the ground).


Dehydration kills quickly - there's a reason longtime lopers sometimes don't sleep longer than 2-5 hours (despite the rest multipliers for longer sleep)


Long sleeps can be essential. In a structure like Mountaineers Hut, which can get very cold even in bed, a sudden blizzard can kill you even after just a few hours.


some of the best twitch I've EVER seen was a 900+ interloper game almost end to timberwolves. A fellow longhaul streamer said that a death here enters potential "see a grown man cry territory"


Or just a plain old aurora in which WOLVES DO NOT RESPECT THE FIRE - predators can also be especially hearty during the aurora. But with foggy or blizzard weather at night, or when in the ice caves with “Sketchy” there can be few indications it’s an aurora prior to the green wolf on top of you. Fun fact: the aurora takes a couple of hours to work its wolf magic. Don’t count too heavily on this grace period, but do use it to get to a safe place.


and not hearing the aurora music


In the transition zone connecting Coastal Highway, Mystery Lake and Bleak Inlet, there are only a couple of ways to shimmy down into the ravine without hitting an invisible wall of death. Don't try this on a long run, or a good run, without having a really clear idea of how to get down.


you fall in once, and then on exiting the ice (if you survive) you can get completely disoriented, walking farther onto the ice. Even before falling in, in the dark you can walk (or run) farther onto the ice, really compounding the problem.

you can get locked in a location around day 50 if you don't have the clothing/coal/teas to be mobile. ML, especially Camp Office, can be a common place for this to happen (for a few reasons).


They’ll let you know when the bear/wolf/deer has bled out from your arrow/flare shot.


There are some situations where knowing your exact condition (and how low/high it is) can be useful for stim/tea use and how advisable travel might be. Checking your current day will display the % range of your condition for that day.


unlike wood, but like steaks, you can quarter a portion of a deer/wolf/bear and stop mid-quarter without losing your progress. I like to cut a couple of steaks off a bear, cook those, then stop the quarter after an hour to repeat the process.

(place water, meat, clothing and other supplies once you can)


ML may have limited coal spawns and no guaranteed matches, but at present it’s a region you must pass through in order to get from one end of the map to the next. This makes trapper’s and camp office desirable options for bases, or at the very least good places to stash emergency supplies.


Not only will they keep you warm, but they allow you to cook as you go, provide protection, and defrost the carcass for quartering


With adequate preparation, you can do a massive second forge (especially if that forge is on the way to a location you haven’t explored yet). A common goal is to reach 20 total arrowheads and craft a hatchet or spare knives if those weren’t part of the initial forge. Some second forgings are considerably more epic, with folks carrying away dozens of arrowheads and several knives/hatchets. An epic second forge can require some prep, but ultimately can be very worthwhile.


The only reliable way to dissuade a moose from attacking is the distress pistol. You won’t need it often, but you do want it LOADED when you’re in moose country. Or windy wolf country without a flare. The alternative is an awkward situation as you hear “click… click” just before a moose stomp.


seriously, temp peaks at midday but is coldest in the morning. keep blizzards in mind, keep auroras in mind but make use of good temperatures.

Not just to sneak around wolves, but prior to crafting, sleeping, harvesting, or really doing anything outdoors that takes time. The outdoor craft bench at the Milton farmhouse is a great example. Crouching prior to crafting won’t save you from everything, but will reduce wolf detection. Note: with meat on your person, predators may not see you immediately but they will smell you.

have a better chance of tricking the fire protection mechanics (with timberwolves in particular, I like to build a fire if possible - just don't walk into your fire)


if you must go through a waterfall, take off your clothes. You'll get cold, but you won't have persistently wet clothes and should warm once you put them back on. Same deal if you expect a high chance for falling into thin ice.


if you need to walk through slush, take off your shoes and socks. Your feet will get cold, but your shoes and socks will be ready to warm them up once you're done.

(at ~30% be sure you have your backup ready... somewhere)

, don't be afraid to make a shelter. Especially pre-bedroll, or when you need protection while crafting in an outdoor location like the CH Fishing Buildings.

Make notes of how much gear you’re leaving in which location. Optionally, add the days of your moose/bear kills to track when they’re likely to respawn. In runs going past about day 100, or if you regularly swap between runs, your future self will thank you profusely.


NOT ONLY can they be used for... emergencies… if you fall into a hole, or get stuck in terrain, an emergency stim can increase your speed such that sprinting and climbing can boost you just enough to get out of the hole. Adding crampons in such a situation adds additional help.


Using a stim unnecessarily feels bad, but not as bad as dying with 8 on your person. This goes with a range of items. If you use it, and live, you lived. I tend to be much more liberal with using cattails, quality food, accelerant or other items in the early game. They’re nice for a long game, yes, but you need to make it to the long game (act 2/act 3) first. Stims increase your condition by 15 (along with the sprint burst). Birch bark is 5%. Herbal tea is 12% on a full drink/sleep.

(25% / 1% cond per hour)

but being unable to run / exhaust encumbered can kill you a lot faster. Some structures that appear to have no bed instead have cars (say the PV workshop). Once inside the car, you can open up the bedroll through the wheel and sleep. Cars can be essential shelters from windchill, wolves and exhaustion.

(25% / 1% CPH)

but it's ok to starve sometimes, esp at base/if weight allowance isn't crucial for a few days and you can afford to lose Well Fed. I love the condition and carry of Well Fed. A lot of epic streamers argue you just don’t need it. I think that there’s a balance to be struck.

(50% / 2% CPH)

drink before you sleep - One of the God-Tier streamers mentioned earlier, PerfectTrip, lost a 576 day NOGOA by forgetting to drink before a sleep. This is a run that he maintained at 1% condition for 200 days. Drink.

(450% / 20% CPH)

hence always picking up coal and heating teas before journeys. Elevation appears to affect temp.


Sleep benefits from duration and bed quality modifiers. Sleeping in a bed/bearskin bedroll for 10 hours potentially restores 32% condition on 10 consecutive hours, as compared to 10% when selecting 5 hours. Standard blue bedrolls recover slightly less. A full chart is on the wiki here (https://thelongdark.fandom.com/wiki/Sleep#Duration_and_interruption). If you're wondering how some streamers take an absolute beating, and then have near full condition the next day, this is how. This is one of the most powerful techniques to master, and ties into something called the starvation strat. You save your food for just before bed, fill up, and then recover that 1% CPH by regaining much more during your hours of long sleep.


if you need to arrest the post-stim total exhaustion, then drink some coffee. This gives you some limited sprint, encumbrance, and arrests the condition loss from exhaustion.


no guns in interloper, you say? While an incredibly rare spawn, in old saves you could find a revolver in Hushed River Valley. When the DLC released, and in a patch a few months after, you could also temporarily find loot that was usually forbidden (my current 725 day interloper has a revolver, hunting knife, and other rarities). if it's too windy for a torch, and you’re out of flares (discussed earlier) the distress pistol will scare wildlife (and cause bleed to wolf/bear/deer). Unlike epic revolvers, distress pistols should be in every vanilla game mode, but be aware that on very long runs (~750 days) the shells do degrade down to 0% condition.


If you’ve run completely out of matches, your torch is out, and you need heat, a flare can be used to light your fire.

at a timberwolf, but not the wolf

Many players know that the red torch won’t scare a timberwolf. The reverse is true. Blue torches don’t work to scare the standard wolf.

before putting in coal

but don't beat yourself up if you spend some extra coal. Coal is precious, but it’s renewable.

There’s almost always something you can do besides pass time. sharpen knives, break down torches, harvest curtains, prepare teas, read by the moonlight, repair by the moonlight, craft in an aurora. Structures like caves, or the Warden's Office in Blackrock (which has windows) will allow you to complete light-required tasks (reading, clothing repair, etc) AT NIGHT if the weather is clear.


With the revolver exception, there’s no guns. But why not? Some interloper players have nearly gotten to level 5 shooting...


unless you desperately need torches, I guess? They’re VERY heavy and don’t add heat, but yeah. I suppose if you need torches. Or added cooking time.


(the wheel gives a popup window warning that can stop you from doing this - use the wheel). It’s actually pretty common to be eating meat in the dark, so be sure you’ve separated the raw from the cooked. Intestinal parasites takes 20 days to heal on Interloper, 10 days to heal on Stalker. While you can't get the parasites on Voyager/Pilgrim, all uncooked meat and fish has a very high chance of giving you food poisoning, so avoid it if you can.


they look so dashing on top of benches. Unless you’re taking them to a specific bench, leave them at the bench.


Sometimes, when crafting, or preserving condition of our clothes, we take them off while indoors. I have personally experienced PERMANENT FROSTBITE in ~20 SECONDS while quickly stepping outside to retrieve an item, while leaving my gloves off. Past day 50, the weather is brutal.


If you absolutely, positively, can’t pick up a piece of coal then right click (PC) to move it slightly to the side. This allows the respawn timer to tick, so that in a couple of weeks more will be allowed to spawn in that location. Then you have even more coal for next time! Or sticks, or stones, or whatever you’re hoping will respawn. Note that many players consider this a bug exploit. Let your conscience be your guide.


even the legendary TLD players miss bow shots, eat the raw meat, and fall into the ice. Working through these issues is sometimes where you find the real fun of the game.


The game can be tense. Enjoying it’s natural beauty can physically pull your somatic nervous system from a fight or flight state (where blood is literally being pumped away from your brain). If there’s no clear way to come down from high-stress moments, then consider whether taking a break might save your run.

with juuuuust enough time... in ultracold weather

It’s incredibly satisfying to leave a chunk of meat on your fire, with just enough fire duration. Say, “57 minutes until cooked” with “59 minutes of fire remaining” - only the weather is intensely cold. Very cold weather stretches out the length, and walking away from this fire and meat may result in burned inedible stuff.

Note: Some of these are a bit easier to show in video. We did the whale processing stuff on Part1 of the stream, and the cannery run and the TWM walk on Part2.

- get on the whale spine, go up the metal shelf, go up (or just... find the platform outside the upstairs office).

- go up the tube across from the whale spine


Overall: follow the spraypainted art

Before beginning: YOU MUST HAVE THE PIECE OF PAPER WITH THE CODE to open the door

That’s right, it’s not enough to look up the code (154) online. The game requires you to have that, as well as the aurora, for a successful unlocking of the door to the Cannery Workshop.

go up the rope,
onto the ship,
onto a dock,
into a cannery building,
across the beams/tops of trailers,
into another building,
over more sketchy metal beams,
to the door that requires an aurora to unlock.

All with timberwolves nipping at your heels. It's not so bad. Don't be afraid to use sprint and crouch variously.

to places you want to get to -

I’m always finding these myself, or via other streamers. Fun little pathways and alternate routes to places.

- sort of like the cannery takes you all the way AROUND the MOUNTAIN

I. summiting TWM (for the first time) takes you around the edge of the ENTIRE ZONE. you don't strictly need to take rope. You need to do several climbs. There’s an alternate route pioneered by the streamer Kimiota that allows you to goat up and around without having to pass the Deer Clearing. It’s complicated.

II. To deer clearing:

Method A: There are a few ways to start the process, the easiest IMO is to go across the downed branch (that overlooks the AC exchange) lots of nice caves along the way, to the deer clearing (it's one climb up).

Method B: A potentially faster route from Mountaineer’s is to shimmy down the cliff past the fishing hut, which nets you possible cave coal, different containers, and a semi-outdoor cave.

Once at Deer Clearing you’ll be near the second AC exchange, if you need coal or have time to loot other goodies. There’s also, if you need a snack, the advertised deer.

III. From deer clearing

Hug the righthand side of the map until you can go up a slight ledge. From there, the path will bend and you’ll eventually see a ropeclimb up. If it’s the correct rope (lol) there will be a cave entrance. This cave can have goodies like mag lenses and coal. It ultimately leads to a ledge. That ledge features a poorly protected cave, and one of the most challenging climbs in the game. This final climb leads to the plane/summit. There's a warm cave at the summit. Warm cave is to your left, as you reach the top. Plane is to the right.

86. AC goldmine / tech pack.

I. There are no fewer than three ways to climb to the ledge you need in order to access the goldmine. Each is very dangerous. From Miner’s Folly, there are literal signposts which will occasionally point you in the direction of the Goldmine Ledge.

II. The Bold Move:

You can technically go up the three rope climbs by Stone Shelf. This is arguably the fastest and most dangerous method. It’s my preference. There are THREE MASSIVE climbs. Well technically, one short, one medium, one massive. to be safe take at least two coffees, and sufficient coal to warm yourself if you must rest (you will need rest). Even that's no guarantee of survival with bad weather, and be on guard for the moose as you approach from below (he has stealth powers and stomped me). This drops you on the Goldmine Ledge.

III. Wolves:

The second way is to path up from Angler's Den. This also involves root climbs, meaning that neither of these first two are possible with broken ribs from either of the two possible moose.

Wolves are typically at the top of this climb. I encountered five, on interloper. Then you must enter a cave with a waterfall and rope climb. Then you must take shimmy bridges to the Goldmine Ledge.

III. Bear:

The third major option is to climb through the middle of the map, over one downed trunk and up two decent rope climbs to near the fire lookout, then go through miner's folly and it's bear, across shimmy bridges, pass the cave mentioned on option two, more shimmy bridges, and finally the Goldmine Ledge.

IV: Also Bear:

It’s possible to goat up to Homesteader’s. Hard to explain with text, but the gist is that you go a it to the left of where the Homesteader’s climb is, goat up the snow, then goat sideways and get high enough to land about where the ropeclimb ends. Then you take the climb up and follow the above Bear path.

Once in the mine, remember to take off your shoes to get through the slush, and don't fall behind the magically floating ore carts.


There’s very little renewable fuel aside from cave coal that’s available at Miner’s folly, especially once you’ve broken down the stuff inside. However, besides the scrub brush, the Miner’s Folly shack is one of the few structures that will shed reclaimed wood. Picking it up/shifting it will allow more to drop. Similarly the BI Cannery can be light on fuel, though the structure itself sheds a moderate amount of reclaimed wood.

, that's not a death sentence if you can get to a ~90 degree cross section.

The streamer twitch.tv/ChefMaria has a good clip of this where she catches herself and successfully shimmies down. similarly if goating/shimmying down, finding these 90 degree chutes can give you a way to descend a climb that looks utterly deadly.


On the other end of the dam, there’s a ledge you can get up, so as to bypass(even walk over the top of) the chainlink fence and get an easier line of sight on the wolf that can hover in that area.


the outer layer is what’s used to calculate your struggle protection and windproofing, the inner layer won’t help you there. Wetness of clothing counteracts your windproofing and the outer layer tends to take more damage in struggles, so a common suggestion is to hide your earwrap/ballistic vest behind your moosehide satchel.

making for an easy bowshot (even easier if your bow is already equipped)

for cloth, items, wood, saplings, and more! Crampons help reduce ice breakage. All you need is to get to the edge of the ice in zones like Desolation, Bleak, or Coastal, and don't fall in! Eventually, you'll see some goodies. Maybe even a chest or locker. If the loot is in a challenging space, you can always take off clothes that might otherwise get wet so that if you fall in they're (relatively!) warmer than your now-hypothermic Astrid or Will.

(having meat on your person will bring them close to you more consistently and from farther - to where you want to harvest them). Especially useful with the cougar, as the right cave can keep you warm during what could be a long battle.


It is technically possible to strafe so that they path to where you were - allowing for additional bowshots. This is arguably easier on controller. Encumbrance control is key. The streamer twitch.tv/PerfectTrip successfully killed 10 aurora bears on the NOGOA / ultra hard mode using this technique alone.


They won’t decay as fast if you can safely sleep without them (indoor areas aren't always safe, but some can be reliably warm enough). Just don't forget to put your clothes back on, or it's going to be a chilly morning.


And strike a balance between the need for pain relief (required to recover from broken ribs) and poisoning relief (20x reishi required for treating parasites). While many players decry how OP the birch recovery is, birch remains the only renewable source of heatable tea. On especially long runs, it can be an essential item to stay warm during travel.


You can also use this technique to position moose and bear. Say you’ve reached the perfect terrain from which to hunt, but the moose is just shy of the distance you want to shoot. While stealthed, throw the rock. They will startle in a random direction, potentially one that you can use to your advantage. You can also use this technique to delegate deer hunting to the wolves, causing them to investigate in the direction of a deer and as shown in Zaknafein’s video here (https://youtu.be/tomIf9X5Qfw?t=204).


While it deflects damage onto your clothing, rather than your health (and sometimes the clothing damage itself is negligible), this can nonetheless be incredibly valuable if traveling through areas where wolves like to hide. It also reduces the recovery time for your ribs should the moose stomp you.

it will remain hot. Food left on a burned out fire also retains its condition, which can be useful if you're not at cooking 5 yet.


Between stims, teas, knowledge and experience, it’s possible to survive even when things are at their most dire. I have seen and played runs that recovered from 3%. While I think in TLD we die by degrees (pun intended), never give up.

Or start a Great Bear Island literary preservation society. Or make art with cooked fish. Or go on a Fishing World Tour (fishing at every hut in the game)! On long enough runs, it’s really up to you to set fun, strange and humorous goals for yourself! What will you be doing on day 1000?

You can find them in Miner's Folly shed in Ash Canyon, along the cannery run in Bleak Inlet, and the top floor of the concentrator in the Zone of Contamination . In case you're worried you'll miss them, here's where they were on my long interloper run:

Along the cannery run (the path which leads you to the aurora-activated code-locked door described earlier in this guide) it's in the two-story building you enter after jumping down to the fishing boat. After going up the stairs and over the broken metal walkway, I found them sitting on a table. Easy to miss if you're not looking for it.

In Miner's Folly it's in the shed. I found them sitting on a barrel to the left of the workbench.


Going into customization (Y on PC) and back out currently saves your game, which can be incredibly convenient while in a safehouse.


Hopefully the UI gets an upgrade for explaining customization, but here are two important things that took me way, way too long to figure out. First, you can't actually view and place your items unless you first go into customization (Y on PC) and THEN go into your inventory. Secondly, some items don't just get deposited into your inventory, they go into a special inventory in your furniture bench. With the bench open, look for a button in the lower right to get items like a Bear Bed.


It takes a long time to get all the cedar to just build the furniture bench, so getting the fir for your first Bear Bed might be daunting. I love it in Mountaineer's, where the +10 warmth makes me feel much more comfortable sleeping there. Of course, one of the greatest moments I've had in TLD recently was...


It took so much wood to repair the roof, but after years of living in a ramshackle this felt incredible to repair. It could be a challenge to take on as an early game project, but with plenty of bear meat and time, this fixer-upper is feeling positively cozy. I'm disappointed that Bricklayer's doesn't offer a door repair option. Yes, you can fix the roof there, but personally I want a functioning door before I take the time to fix a roof. Is that weird?


For some dark areas, like transition caves, you may still want to use the bedroll navigation. For anything indoors (safe a couple spots, i.e. the prison where there are no movable items) this is a lovely feature as it reveals every movable piece of furniture. This often illuminates dark rooms wonderfully.


Two major ways to avoid them, if you're not prepared (or just prefer not to fight), are

• Check the map for cougar icons, and avoid those
  
• Walk briskly away when you hear the cougar
  
• If you're worried, or you physically see the cougar coming, you could run. But I've gone into the cougar's cave and passed some time without him charging. Not that, you know, I recommend that.

Things that you need:

• A ranged weapon you're comfortable with. You need to hit, and they dodge
  
• Plenty of ammo. Though hunting for arrows mid-cougar fight could be entertaining
  
• Bandages and disinfectant/old man's beard (Lacerations potentially require 10/ea)

Things that help a lot:

• Ballistic vest (Many players put this in the essentials category)
  
• Emergency stims
  
• Positioning on unreachable terrain
  
• Health and warmth
  
• Can do attitude and a plucky sense of humor

The cougar didn't jump on me during my first hunt, but he got me eventually. As of the present built (Feb 2025) lacerations works in a specific and deadly way. For me, roughly 50% of health was red (unrecoverable) health. Every 12 hours you have a chance of 2x bleeds and 2x infections. If you are sleeping during this time, you may start bleeding/suffer infection and die. I was absolutely terrified during this time, and very nearly ran out of disinfectant while isolated in TWM. On the 12 hour mark I did not always suffer the maximum 2x. When lacerations ticked this was a great time to be crafting as I would see a red visual indicator.


I know that piece of fir or cedar is the crucial final component to your Wide Display Case. Trust me, I know. If you die of hunger or a burnt-out fire trying to save it, well, you don't get the display case, or bear bed, or meat curing box anyway. Just like trying to save stims, when one has a 50, or even 25% chance to save your life. You can always risk it, but make sure you're staying warm out there!


Now that we can customize safehouses, it's possible to set workbenches so that you can click them both indoors and outdoors in a few locations. Some good options: the enclosed deck at PV Farmhouse, Mountaineer's (customization lets you easily move the bench to be usable from outside). Several good options at the prison. If you've ever fought cabin fever while trying to craft your first bearcoat, this can be huge.


A few areas are not customizable (feb/2025):

The Riken (I suspect this is technical, and hope it will be introduced in a later patch)
Transition Caves
Outdoor Caves
Spence's / Miner's Folly Barn / Outdoor Barns
Blackrock Prison Entrance Guardpost (with the potbelly stove)
Desolation Point Church

Thankfully some are:
Broken Railroad - The outdoor room adjoining Maintenance Shed
Pleasant Valley - Enclosed deck outside farmhouse
Blackrock Prison - Milling Area, Warden's Office, Dorms, Infirmary

Safehouse items that can't be repaired
Blackrock - Bricklayer's Door (Must... let... it go...)
PV Farmhouse - whatever CLANKS during blizzards

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Anything you think wants to be added to the list? Any TLD streamers/YTers or Creators that we should be sure to check out? Comment here, or come let me know on my stream (I'm profneils at twitch and youtube)

Thanks for reading, and I hope these are helpful!

On roughly day 750, all looted flares expire. Flares loaded before hitting 0% will still fire (and do damage) if loaded before becoming ruined. So, for example, I loaded a 3% flare around day 720. On day 793 the rest of my flares were 0%, but I was still able to fire the loaded flare and one-shot a bear (working Feb/2025 - future versions may change this). It could be worth it to grab those spare flareguns and, if you make it long enough, load em up!


In the late game, you might not always have a ton of birch saplings or arrow shafts in a zone. Your bow could be low condition. As much as twitch streamers have trained us to notorch point-blank headshot every charging wolf, it's sometimes fine (if not more interesting) to just walk away. Sure, keep your bow out. But there's a radius of maybe 20 feet before they start to charge. As long as you're not overloaded, overtired, or walking against the wind, outwalking wolves is a great way to conserve resources.


You might have heard that poison wolves will sometimes ignore torches, or have seen aurora wolves fully leap over campfires. There's another sneaky mechanic that shocks even some experienced players who don't understand why a wolf is chowing down on Astrid despite the lit torch: fatigue. If you're fully exhausted and holding a torch, a wolf might still decide to engage a struggle. If you drop the torch and it's between you and the wolf then you should still be able to rock dab or otherwise scare him. The dropped torch also sometimes works for bears, but in my experience never for long, and always breaks if you make an aggressive move (like aiming a bow).


It's located at the weather station, in Sundered Pass. Getting a shot framed up just right is very satisfying, and it gives you one more meaningful thing to do as you move from zone to zone. While I'm personally enjoying my second run to 1000 days, this doesn't hurt. I also love that this combines with safehouse customization to make framed pictures (and you can frame the same good photo indefinitely - please leave this in Hinterland).


But just for recipes. You can still slap a 0% potato on a cooktop for a baked potato, ruined ingredients can't be used for that dockworker's pie you were hoping to make. Gone are the days of using 0% flour and 0% peaches for a pie, it would seem. I wouldn't mind Hinterland reverting this back, but it's probably about incentivizing folks to use the trader. At least 0% flour still makes a handsome safehouse decoration!


No building is ever perfect when it's first constructed. We figure out the perfect arrangement of a space by using it, and living in it. These ideas come from an architect who inspired countless game developers: Christopher Alexander. When I first got woodworking tools, I wanted to instantly have all furniture. But safehouse building takes a LOT of materials and craft time, with only so many fir or ceder branches available. Especially if you're going for 1000 days, it can make sense to do a few improvements, and then come back 20, 50, or 100 days later. You'll have fresh branches and fresh ideas.


Of course Desolation Point would spawn five new batteries in the same patch where you could no longer use the travois in caves. But you can no longer use the travois in caves. Which I understand, but Hinterland hear me out: the rule of cool. Deploying them in caves feels good. Especially when you have 300+ arrowheads, salt, and batteries to haul.


You're going to get mauled by a bear, or jumped on by a wolf, and then it's going to happen again, and then the blizzard. You'll survive, but your pants might not. It might be day 700. It might be day 1400. Having a spare toque, thin wool sweater, wool socks, combat pants, and mackinaw can help. On my current 799 interloper, I started with maybe 4-5 clothing stashes, and that was too many. Two stashes, in two places, might be enough. Will I try to keep maintaining my 5 collections? lol, yeah probably.


Especially on Coastal -> DP runs, Mystery Lake -> FM runs, where temps are pretty good. Tagging out the bear coat to tag in the Mack makes you noticably more nimble, and you reclaim a lot of sprint. I didn't do this on my first 1000 days, even though it's a favorite of the longhaul run master MattyFreshwater. It's situational, but it made trader battery collection much more manageable.


Your outer layer takes the brunt of damage. While slightly less protection (so you may want a moose/bear on the outer layer sometimes), the wolfcoat is much cheaper and easier to maintain, since late game you'll probably have stacks of wolfhides and cured guts. Saving your bear hides for vital crafting activities.

Some of the finest TLD players out there are pretty outspoken: they don't think Misery Mode should be the official "hardest" difficulty level. The jump from Stalker to Interloper is massive, and there's a reason the Interloper achievement is for making it just 24 hours. Misery adds a lot of random "Afflictions" - such as less carry weight, less warmth, worse condition recovery, worse sleep - and a lot of longtime players just don't consider these, especially the randomness of these, fun or appropriate as a core difficulty level. Don't feel like you have to play Misery to be playing "real TLD" - Hinterland considers Voyager as the core difficulty. But if you like pain, and love The Long Dark, this mode can be interesting and even (in its own twisted way) fun.


This applies to every mode, but Misery especially. Dwelling on imperfect play, or even significant mistakes, can pull your focus enough that you make run-ending mistakes. Paraphrasing the godly streamer Kimiota, if you're still alive your decisions weren't the worst decisions. In Misery, there are times where the weather, Afflictions, hunger and the map leave you with only bad options. Keep walking.



Afflictions happen on day:
1: Diminished Form
6: 2nd Affliction (random)
16: 3rd Affliction (random)
31: 4th and 5th Affliction at once.
46: Broken Body

There are a few pathing metas, a few general extensions to the previous tips, and new aspects to Misery that are good to set up before we get into specific afflictions and strategies.

You always start next to a burned down Draft Dodger's Cabin, in PV. A few pathing metas have come out in the last few months. The short version is you can go up, to AC, Summit, and Blackrock, or down to ML, maybe MT (depending on tools) and Spence's. I've dropped a some TLDR pathing routes as tip 133.

Always be crafting reishi/birch teas. On long loper runs I tend to leave teas unharvested once I have a few reishi stocked up, so that I can grab them if I need them. In Misery, you need them. Having plenty of uncooked rose hips for pies (80-160 is good) helps you move a lot faster in the early game. At some point in the pathing, I try to hit cooking 3 with some flour and oil in inventory. Cooking travel teas, reading a cookbook while locked down, or making bannocks at cooking 2, all help. With rosehip pies, we don't need to sleep during forging, or ever. Which is very good in a pinch. I tend to keep my well fed up because the more weight capacity the faster you move.


-5 Kg Carrying Capacity, Less Stamina, and...

Wolves will charge despite torches, similar to when your fatigue bar is empty on Interloper. The fix?
Having the torch on the ground, between you and the wolf. Wolves will still charge eventually, so you need a rock early game, so as to threaten them to have them run. Otherwise, they will eventually cross the torch and attack.


Relative to other afflictions, Sour Stomach is great to see as my first or second affliction.

It can be tricky situationally. If you're relying on rosehip pies to get to your forge, or continue forging, and suddenly you need to wait 8 hours before you can eat again? Be watching for day 6 and 16, so that you're not stuck and exhausted, with no bedroll, and completely reliant on pies...

Or without reishi teas or antibiotics, AND a place to sleep, if there's even a slight chance of food poisoning.

Long-term, this affliction also means that cooking 5 won't help you to avoid parasite risk from predator meat. So if you do have cooking 5, and day 31 is approaching, wolf down those steaks.


I rate Rheumatic Joints as worse than Sour Stomach mechanically, but probably the worst for the impact on how enjoyable Misery is as an experience. Sprinting, even stimmed, is roughly as fast as your regular slow walk. Getting stuck with Rheumatic Joints in the upper regions of Ash Canyon? It feels awful.

Sprains will be more frequent, and bow aiming stamina is also reduced. If you don't always use the Interloper trick of doing a quick aim/release to get a wolf to charge, it can help here. Rheumatic Joints is hard on the emotional game, but it does save your fatigue bar, and makes the Ballistic Vest a very solid choice in Misery.


Hope you have teas, because unless you're sleeping a long time the cheap methods of warming up start to be very negligible. If this is your first affliction, the -5C can mean that otherwise warm, safe structures still need a fire. And that fire takes longer to get you warm. Having plenty of coal is critical, and planning your trips becomes a bit more tedious.


Haunted Mind attacks your two cornerstone methods for recovering condition through rest. You not only get a flat 50% reduction to condition recovered, but you must stop at 7 hours. If you're not one of the 5 TLD players who know why those last few hours are so strong: sleep is multiplicative. Interloper players don't sleep until they're at 1/4 of their fatigue bar, because those last 7-10 hours provide MULTIPLICATIVE benefits, it's a tip provided earlier in this guide.

Haunted Mind is a brutal early on, because it's asking you to play with that Broken Body / NOGOA mindset right out the gate. NOGOA players might have a benefit here managing condition in an early run, meaning that NOGOA custom is still very relevant for practicing Misery.


No condition recovery. Double damage.

Prior to day 46, consider whether to use stims for the 15% health. They could be useful, later, for climbing ropes, but they don't speed you up and leave you losing condition from exhaustion.

Now when those sprains take 2% condition, they take it for good.


Major Option 1 (Dangerous, but fun!) START -> TWM -> AC -> TWM -> BR -> PV -> ML -> FM (forge)

TLDR: START -> Plane Crash -> Mountaineer's -> 3-Way Cave -> AC Transition Cave -> Angler's -> Wolf Gauntlet -> Miner's (Woodworking Tools/Flour/cloth for shelters if no bedroll) -> Backpack/Cramps. It's possible to do this path in 2 days, and when doing so I haven't encountered the Cougar down the 3 rope climb. Then 3-Rope -> BRR Transition -> Trailer -> Back path to Prison -> Vest. I haven't made this faster than 6 days, getting locked down in snow shelters in AC and TWM, but with a bedroll should be possible by day 4 or 5. Then to Spences, preferably with guts and saplings curing.

Major Option 2 (Loot now, backpack later) START -> ML -> MT -> FM (forge) -> PV -> TWM -> AC -> TWM -> BR

TLDR: START -> Farmhouse -> Barn and surrounds -> Dam -> Camp Office via cattail river -> Trappers -> MT until Hammer/Hacksaw (getting metal and scrappables) -> Basin -> Spence's for forge, ideally with guts and saplings curing. If you have the hacksaw/hammer by Camp Office, with enough scrap, you could always path to Poachers -> Spences, for an even earlier forge.


Meat curing box = no parasite risk for predator meat.


As someone who played Misery for a 24 hour stream, it helps. Especially once Rheumatic Joints hits, or you start to really struggle against Haunted Mind and condition micromanagement, Misery is fantastic at making you physically and emotionally feel the weight of struggling against an inevitable demise. Breaks, snacks, water and coffee help!