You don’t necessarily win The Long Dark, you just learn to get better at it. Thrown headfirst and ill-equipped into a bitter Canadian winter, you must hurry to find shelter, food, water, and heat, all while contending with the ever-looming threat of darkness (the game runs on an accelerated day/night cycle), hungry wolves, and the harshest of elements. The goal in The Long Dark, at least in its sandbox Survival mode, isn’t to complete the game so much as to survive as long as possible. That rhythm is one of death and reincarnation.
As I wrote in my review, the genre works best when it’s finely balanced: The pinnacle of the genre remains, in my opinion, The Long Dark, a Canadian-set/Canadian-developed survival adventure set in a hostile, frozen climate. All games that force you to focus on the minutiae – the ever-dwindling stamina metre, your character’s empty stomach and parched throat, the joys of discovering an abandoned cabin. All games that simulate, effectively, the experience of being lost and stranded in a harsh environment, barely struggling to survive. That’s the conclusion I’ve reached after a decade-plus of This War of Mine, Don’t Starve, Stranded Deep, and a dozen or more open-world survival games. The world is too big, and there are too many survival games. Subnautica: Below Zero (Switch/PS5) Review: Space Sharks! SURVIVOR: SEASON 2
But boy does this game not know how to shut up. Like The Long Dark before it, it has a certain, frigid charm. Yet another open-world survival game, except this time it’s colder! IS IT GOOD?
Subnautica: Below Zero (Switch/PS5) Review: Space Sharks! WHAT IS IT? Available Now for PS5/Switch (Reviewed), PS4, Windows, macOS, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Our review of Subnautica: Below Zero, developed by Unknown Worlds Entertainment.