The Long Dark is an early access survival game set in the frigid Canadian wilderness, and it's truly unforgiving. You must battle the elements, wildlife, and your own calorie count to survive, and the developers are continuing to improve the experience.
Two recent updates have changed the game--the first from Wednesday added content, while the newest fixed some mechanics and balanced the gameplay. The Long Dark is currently 25 percent off as part of Steam's holiday sale.
The new playable area "Coastal Highway" more than doubles the size of the game's Sandbox mode, which you play to survive as long as you can. More maps were always said to be coming to the title, but this one (in the v.152 update, which does also add major gameplay changes you can find here) increases the size of the existing map. To travel to it, follow the railway in Mystery Lake (Dam side).
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The new Hotfix doesn't add as many features, but addresses the balance of the game. V1.54 focuses on game balance and tuning in addition to some fixes, the highlights of wish are posted below (full patch notes here). One big changes should be the frequency in which you need to eat, which was an issue I have with the game--you almost constantly needed food, which was scarce.
- Reduced the Wolf population along Coastal Highway. In general, areas with a high concentration of Supplies are balanced to present more of a risk to players.
- Rebalanced Calorie costs per activity level to find a better "sweet spot" and average daily Calorie requirements. This should address the need to eat frequently.
- Reduced rate of Freezing increase for cold "Feels Like" temperatures.
- Reduced Fatigue modifiers for Running, to avoid penalizing players for exploring.
- Wolves will no longer "camp" at entry ways for as long as before.
- Sleep interruption no longer occurs indoors.
- General art fixes and optimizations.
