A World War II game doesn’t have to say you will fight Nazis, and a fantasy RPG doesn’t need to specify there is a dark lord. It’s gotten to the point where a lot of the zombie survival games on Steam don’t even use the word ‘zombie’ in their descriptions, as if they’re so much a part of the genre they don’t bear mentioning. With popular survival games like DayZ, How to Survive, Dead State, or the upcoming Dying Light, you don’t even need to look past the titles to know they are going to be infested with the undead. It almost seems strange that the game’s official description stresses that “There are no zombies,” but it’s true that the survival genre has become dominated by games that feature zombies as your primary adversary. While many games portray the struggle to survive as an empowering adventure, The Long Dark’s dedication to realism makes it a bleak and lonesome experience.

I’ve logged seven hours in The Long Dark’s Sandbox Mode so far, and the game has already made me jump, yell, flinch, shiver and crank up the space heater beside my desk. The studio, operating out of the wilds of Vancouver Island, is offering a unique and often emotional experience that strands you in the freezing wilderness of northern Canada. The Long Dark, currently available on Steam in Early Access, is an arctic survival simulation from Hinterland Games.

The long dark wolf struggle