The Long Dark

Steam Reviews

Read all reviews on Steam

• Recommended Posted March 10, 2026 on Steam I love this game. It's one of my go-to games. I have issues with seizures and when I reached out to the company about accessibility options they worked with me and added the warning at the beginning of the game. I appreciate everything they put into the game and updates they have done. Survival is my favorite.
• Not recommended Posted April 2, 2026 on Steam I’ve owned The Long Dark since 2014, back when it first launched into early access, and for a very long time I considered it my favorite game of all time. That’s what makes writing this review so frustrating. Let me be clear: the game itself is not bad. In fact, at its best, The Long Dark is one of the most atmospheric and immersive survival experiences ever made. The quiet isolation, the art style, the slow, methodical gameplay loop, it’s something special. I’ve had plenty of genuinely memorable moments over the years. But this review isn’t just about the game...... it’s about how it’s been handled. We waited over a decade for this game to be finished. Story mode began rolling out in 2017, and since then it has been a constant cycle of missed deadlines, delays, and overpromises. After waiting all these years for the final chapter, I won’t spoil anything, but it simply did not meet expectations given the time investment players have made. The bigger issue is Hinterland as a company. This isn’t a case like other studios pushing out repetitive yearly releases, the problem here is different. Hinterland released an unfinished product, continued to sell additional unfinished content, and repeatedly failed to deliver on timelines they themselves set. “Tales from the Far Territory” is a perfect example. Selling a DLC in an incomplete state with the promise of future updates might be acceptable if those updates were delivered reliably, but they weren’t. Deadlines came and went, again and again. Updates felt inconsistent in quality, and some additions (like the infamous cougar cutscene) felt completely out of place and underwhelming. On top of that, there’s been growing frustration within the community regarding how criticism is handled. Players have reported being banned or silenced on official forums for voicing negative feedback about the game. Whether intentional or not, it creates the impression that honest criticism isn’t welcome, which only further disconnects the developers from the community that supported them for years. Another major red flag: starting work on a sequel before the original game was even finished. That decision alone speaks volumes. It gives the impression that the studio wanted to move on but couldn’t fully do so without at least somewhat wrapping up the original product to preserve their reputation and future sales. And at the center of it all is leadership. From a player’s perspective, it feels like constructive criticism has largely been ignored over the years. There’s a strong sense that feedback isn’t welcomed unless it aligns with a specific vision and that disconnect has only grown as time has gone on. What makes this all sting more is that the foundation is incredible. The Long Dark truly feels like the “Mona Lisa” of survival games unique, influential, and capable of brilliance. But that brilliance has been overshadowed by years of mismanagement, poor communication, and broken expectations. I wanted to love this game forever. For a long time, I did. But after ten years of waiting, hoping, and being let down, I just can’t recommend it the way I used to. And honestly, I’m worried about what this means for the future. Also- Bring back the FOX LOGO!
• Not recommended Posted November 12, 2025 on Steam God knows, I loved — and still love — this game. It’s a peculiar one: slow-paced, sometimes illogical from a realistic point of view, but it creates a world and atmosphere of its own. Yet the further things go, the more the developers distance themselves from the players. The game is technically still unfinished. Players have been waiting for the final episode of the story for more than four years now. What are the developers doing? They’ve split the sandbox and the story into two separate games. They release paid DLC. Yes, not immediately, yes, with delays — but still, they release it. They’ve even announced a sequel. But they haven’t finished the story. Originally posted by HiddenBlade: Episodes 1 & 2: 8/1/2017 (1.0 Launch) Episode 3: 10/22/2019 (2 years, 2 months, 22 days) Episode 4: 10/6/2021 (1 year, 11 months, 20 days) Dev Diaries: ~4/22: E5 in 2023 ~10/22: E5 in late 2023 ~5/23: "[not] this year" ~11/23: "It'll ship in 2024" ~12/23: "late 2024" ~10/24: "We haven't announced a release date yet" ~4/25: "end of 2025" Current date: 11/12/2025 (4 years, 37 days since Episode 4; 49 days till 2026) Naturally, that frustrates the players. The players start asking questions. They start reminding the developers of their unfulfilled promises. And what do the developers do? First, they stop posting specific release dates so that no one can hold them to their word. Then they start heavily moderating the forum, deleting comments that criticize their inaction, and banning players who post them. Eventually, they just stop saying anything at all. Well then — good luck to them! UPD 14.04.26: Unfortunately, the developers banned me on the Steam forums for comparing them to children in a post I made twice. The first one was deleted by a moderator; I reposted it, thinking it had been some kind of glitch — and that was it. Permanent ban from the forums. That’s when this negative review appeared. Unfortunately, according to Steam rules, I can’t even comment on my own review now. But I can still edit it. The final episode has been released. A lot has already been written about the plot inconsistencies. After reading the reviews, I had imagined something completely ridiculous. But when I actually played it myself, it didn’t seem nearly as bad. Maybe because I was prepared for the cringiest moments. My one major complaint to the developers is that they still never explained how Astrid — a loving woman and a doctor — could leave the crashed Mackenzie behind in the first part, abandon the medical case she was transporting to Perseverance Mills, and just walk off somewhere. They could at least have tied the prisoners into that somehow. It gives the impression that the team was simply dragging the project across the finish line while moving the main development team over to Blackfrost. Raphael even took what seemed like an unthinkable step — he set a deadline, because player dissatisfaction had already begun affecting Steam reviews, which presumably was hurting the wishlisting of the new game. Didn’t work out. Before this, players were generally positive about the game, but now everything that had built up over the years of waiting has spilled out: all the dashed hopes, all the accumulated frustration. Now, before the launch of the new project, people will remember the sloppy ending of the previous one rather than the solid game that came before it. However, here I want to highlight just one issue which, in my opinion, has really come to the forefront with the latest updates to the game: artificial padding of the gameplay. The Long Dark has always been a meditative game. Large regions, slow movement — we got used to that and were ready for it. But something was always happening. Roughly speaking, while playing I would go through several stages: I have nothing, so I search nearby locations to get my first gear. I go to places with guaranteed good loot: Timberwolf Mountain, Ash Canyon. I start systematically vacuuming locations one by one. At each of these stages something interesting awaited me — loot, encounters with animals, weather changes. It was routine, but an engaging one. But starting with the DLC, this routine stopped being interesting. Walk to the Far Territories through a long empty corridor. Walk to the airfield through a long empty corridor. Return to the starting territories to search for bunkers through a long empty corridor. Go back again to the Far Territories through a long empty corridor. It’s boring. The achievement “Survive 1000 Days.” Are you serious? “Survive 500 Days” was already the most tedious achievement for me before. I spent several hours of my life repeating the same actions, basically just fast-forwarding time in the game. There isn’t even enough content for those 500 days, let alone 1000. In my current playthrough, I completed the DLC story and visited all regions to get the achievements — which, by the way, are bugged to hell and back, so you never know whether an achievement will even trigger on a save that started before an update. All of that took me 150 in-game days on Stalker. One hundred and fifty, Carl! What am I supposed to do for the remaining 850 days? Walk in circles around empty locations? Increase the difficulty? Sure, the beginning becomes more interesting, but after a certain point it’s exactly the same thing — just with more routine and more chances to fail the achievement because you must avoid death. Then Episode Five comes out. What do we see? Once again, extremely long, empty, corridor-like levels. Only the first region offers some room for maneuver. Everything else is just corridors with nothing in them. The path to the ship? A corridor. The ship itself? A corridor. The mine? A corridor. The train? A corridor. Actually two corridors, since on the way back we ride a different track — but the process doesn’t change: a long journey down a corridor where nothing happens, an event (wolves, or searching for some random item in a small section of the map), and that’s it. Repeat this loop 5, 10, 20 times — however much the developers feel like. All of these travel segments could be shortened with absolutely no loss whatsoever. A good example is the train mission. The idea is very cool, but its implementation is a complete mess, clearly thrown together in a rush. It’s obvious they tried to justify why the train is needed — because the destination is far away. To demonstrate that distance, they stretched the corridor. But they couldn’t come up with anything to fill it, so they just copy-pasted the same solution: switching tracks, wolves, coal. But why, when I arrive at the final station, do I have to walk another five minutes through an empty corridor to the helicopter, and then another five minutes back? For what? Why not just place the helicopter next to the final station? This is basically homeopathy: you dilute a substance with water to the point where none of the substance remains, yet you sell that water for an absurd price as medicine. The latest updates to The Long Dark are homeopathy — a beautiful shell containing nothing but empty water. Good luck with Blackfrost, Raphael. I certainly won’t be buying it.
• Recommended Posted March 9, 2026 on Steam I bought The Long Dark when it first hit Early Access. Back then I had hopes, dreams, and cartilage in my knees. Fast-forward many winters later and the game is still one of the best survival experiences ever made. The atmosphere is incredible, the quiet isolation is unmatched, and nothing in gaming quite captures the feeling of desperately lighting a match during a blizzard while a wolf judges your life choices from the tree line. It’s brutally fair, deeply immersive, and somehow manages to make a can of peaches feel like winning the lottery. That said… I’m fairly certain the final episode of Wintermute will release shortly after the heat death of the universe. I started this story mode as a younger man. By the time Episode 5 arrives I expect to be playing it from a rocking chair while telling my grandchildren about the ancient times known as “Episode 3.” Still, jokes aside, the game itself is fantastic. Few survival games respect the player’s intelligence this much, and even fewer create such a strong sense of place. So yes, I absolutely recommend it. Just be prepared to survive not only the Canadian wilderness… but also the development timeline.
• Not recommended Posted October 1, 2025 on Steam I’ve played The Long Dark for years, and while the survival mode is strong, I can’t recommend it anymore. The game has been in development for over 9 years (Early Access started in 2014) and the story mode, Wintermute, is still incomplete. After nearly a decade, the developers have shifted focus to selling *paid* DLC instead of finishing the game we already paid for. What really leaves a bad taste is how the devs handle criticism. I’ve asked questions in their official showcase streams about when the full game will be finished, and I’ve been muted or shadowbanned for it. Instead of addressing long-standing concerns, they silence them. That tells me they know the community is frustrated but would rather ignore it than engage honestly. At this point, it feels like they’re more interested in milking the player base than in delivering on their original promise. If you’re new to The Long Dark, just know you’re buying into a product that’s been dragging on for nearly a decade, still isn’t finished, and has devs who punish players for asking the obvious questions.
• Not recommended Posted April 1, 2026 on Steam After 5 years, the Long Dark Episode 5 finally comes out. I've had this game for a very long time and I have to say that Episode 5 is probably the most single piece of embarrassing game content I have ever played. I actually cannot believe just how bad this experience was and it's to a point where it actually doubled back to being a comedy. We had softlocks, broken mechanics, unskippable 15 minute cutscenes ended with them saying "the long dark" like it was the hardest drop they've ever done, a nonsensical ending that makes absolutely no sense and baits a sequel. The survival part of the game is riddled with flaws, but I can thorougly say the story is one of the worst out there, I really mean that. Hinterland have outdone themselves. If anyone at Hinterland ever reads this, I cannot believe I waited 5 years for you to take a dump in my mouth. Blow me. EDIT: They also now mute, delete and ban criticism. Wonderful! EDIT 2: I have been permanently banned from the community forums for posting the following. "Hey hey, I can't tell you guys what to do but I think with the current quality of your latest release, I think you guys should probably stop deleting and banning people who bring it up. It's a really bad look and that kind of behavior can and likely will backfire more than it will do damage control. Alternatively, you could try to prevent this kind of embarrassment in the first place by hiring even 2 playtesters."