Imagine the lights go out, never to return. Bright aurora flare across the sky, and all humanity's technological might is laid to waste, neutralized in a kind of quiet apocalypse. Everything that has shielded humanity from the disinterested power of Mother Nature is suddenly wrenched from us, dropping us a few links down the food chain. Food and water are scarce. The roads are no longer safe. And winter approaches…

The breathtakingly picturesque Pacific Northwest frames the backdrop for the drama of The Long Dark. You take on the role of William Mackenzie, a newly stranded bush pilot crashed far from the nearest human habitation. Lost, wounded, and with wolves circling, you'll have to quickly master basic wilderness survival skills if you're to last long enough to understand how the world has changed since the aurorae appeared in the sky. And that's just the beginning.

In the first season of this episodic series, players experience this grim new reality through the eyes of bush pilot William Mackenzie, isolated with other survivors in the Northern wilderness as a result of the event. Gameplay emphasizes exploration to gather resources and knowledge about the world, while mastering a deep survival simulation to overcome the myriad natural and man-made hazards of the new frontier. Players will also face difficult moral choices that will affect the outcome of gameplay, story, and ultimately, the course of humanity’s recovery.

This update introduces major performance improvements due to project migration to Unity 5, as well as some other improvements and bug fixes.

THE LONG DARK SANDBOX UPDATED to v.226 -- CHANGELIST

UPDATE TO UNITY 5

* The Long Dark has now been updated to use Unity 5. Everyone should experience performance improvements between +50-300%. Depending in your hardware, you may now be able to play at higher resolutions or quality settings than you could before. In general the game should feel smoother and look better for everyone.

ADDITIONS & TUNING

* All skies and Time of Day settings have been revised to utilize Unity 5's improved skybox technology.
* Bears have now migrated to all regions of the game world.
* Adding fuel to a fire at the embers state now restarts the fire.
* Increased rate at which warmth reduces player's Freezing rating.
* Improved loot spawn variation in car trunks and fishing huts.
* Improvement to Item Transfer UI: Items in a stack will transfer one by one unless the stack is greater than five items.
* Cat Tails can be harvested once to produce both the Stalks and the Heads.
* Harvestable plants can be inspected before committing to the harvesting action.
* Rifle Aim sensitivity can be tuned separately from mouse zoom settings. This should improve rifle aiming.

BUGS FIXED

* Fixed UI issue that could cause some HUD elements to not be visible at certain aspect ratios.
* Fixed issue that could cause Cat Tails to have zero weight and zero calories.
* Fixed problem with movement not resuming if movement key was held down when exiting an interface.
* Fixed bug where flare audio would not end if the player was attacked while holding a lit flare.
* Fixed problem where certain containers (e.g., file cabinets) would never have loot in Stalker
* Fixed problem with not being able to bind the Apple Command key (Mac only).

The episodic nature of the game's narrative refers to story structure, and not necessarily to the amount of content you're getting in the game, which we estimate to be 5-6 hours for single-player "story mode" and dozens of hours for sandbox "survival mode".

Features:

• Immersive first-person exploration gameplay featuring a stunning, original art style. Players take on the role of franchise protagonist, Will Mackenzie, as he navigates the savage beauty of the Northern Wilderness and faces the hazards of the new “post-digital” frontier.
• Be on the lookout for potential supply caches, all the while using survival skills to overcome hazards introduced by harsh weather, wildlife, lack of food and water, and other survivors.
• Deep survival simulation gameplay where every decision matters. Explore a large open world in search of resources, and balance Condition and Willpower against the needs of your daily survival.
• Morally challenging scenarios that challenge players to answer the question: “How far will you go to survive?” Any survivor you meet in the world can be friend or foe. Will you risk your life to discover what they know and selflessly sacrifice for the common good, or live — and potentially die — by the adage “might makes right”?
• Rich episodic fiction featuring dozens of locations, a cast of memorable characters, and a mature post-disaster storyline inspired by the creative risk-taking we see in many of today’s exciting television series. This isn’t the end of the world, but you can see it from here.
• urvival Story mode provides hours of narrative-driven exploration gameplay where you play as Will Mackenzie, struggling to understand what has happened to the world. Survival Sandbox mode provides potentially hundreds of hours of free-form survival gameplay where you push yourself and your skill to last as long as possible in a variety of survival scenarios.

The Long Dark is currently available on Steam Early Access for $19.99.