The farmhouse contains enough food, water and wood to keep me heated, fed and hydrated for a long time, and the medicine cabinet in the bathroom is loaded up with painkillers, antibiotics and bandages. I have preferred loadouts for different types of trip, from fishing to deerstalking, and the lightest of kit for general exploratory work out in the unknown. I'm gathering supplies and preparing for expeditions. Now, in Pleasant Valley, I'm planning for the next day and the following week, maybe even a month down the line. It feels as if you're being scoured off the face of the Earth by wind and biting ice, and the possibility of ever planning ahead more than five minutes seems impossible. I imagine the mortality rate in the first few hours is astonishingly high, particularly for players, like me, who have no familiarity with the map, and cannot rely on memory to direct them toward shelter.
The opening, when you're lost and in need of shelter and food as quickly as possible, is the hardest part of the game. For now, though, I'm happy to stick with my current character and that is notable in and of itself. I'm playing on the default difficulty setting, though I'm very tempted by the ultra-tough Interloper mode, which sounds brutally apocalyptic with a climate that becomes more hazardous as time goes on, and declining wildlife. I have a home, a large stockpile of wood for my fire, and a freezer full of bear, wolf and deer meat. My second attempt has been far more successful. I started playing on Saturday night and my first character didn't manage to find shelter before dying, frozen and exhausted. I'm not sure if it's easier now or if it's that I got lucky with my starting position, but this is the longest I've ever lived. Previously, my attempts to survive The Long Dark hadn't lasted more than a couple of in-game days, but that was a while back, when the game first entered Early Access. These are my adventures in The Long Dark, a game which has singlehandedly convinced me that the survival genre has a bright future. I've been living at Pleasant Valley Farmstead for two weeks but it feels like a lifetime.
They are wary of me, but their hunger for my flesh is stronger than their fear. The frozen fields are already littered with carcasses, and I'm wrapped in a stinking hide, but it's not enough to keep the wolves at bay. If I could, I'd attach their heads to spikes and mark out the perimeter of my territory with their blood.
0 kommentar(er)
