I’ve played The Long Dark on and off before: I enjoy the slow-paced survival gameplay, and focus on grounded realism is not something that’s particularly common in survival games. I stumbled upon Majuular’s review of The Long Dark: I liked his take on the fact that The Long Dark difficulty doesn’t meaningfully change as you play: a campfire is just as welcoming after weeks pass in-game, and a wolf is just as dangerous as it was in the beginning of your run.

Most importantly for me (and this being Unmapped Worlds), The Long Dark does great work with navigation gameplay. You have to find your way around handcrafted landmarks (did I already say that I dislike procedurally generated maps?), use the sun (when the weather’s good), and even have access to a few navigation assistance tools. While you do have access to (initially empty) in-game map, you have to use a piece of charcoal to map out surrounding area - the higher you are, the wider of an area you’re able to map. While charcoal is plentiful, this has a cost - mapping an area takes time, which means you’re losing heat and getting hungry. The cost gets higher the higher the difficulty is. The weather must be clear too! There’s also a spray can which you can use to leave marks in the world - they stay in the world (really helpful for finding your way back), and show up on the map. Most importantly, the played location is never shown on the map. Navigation gameplay becomes so much more shallow when games do this, ugh.

So, I dug the game out of the depths of my steam library, and decided to see what the game’s highest difficulty - interloper - has to offer. Here’s the thing though: interloper’s built for players intimately familiar with the game. I’m not. I spent some time in the game’s starting area - Mystery Lake, and the only other area I’ve tried was remote Desolation Point. With that in mind, I ran through interloper difficulty 7 times, died a bunch, but the whole experience was glorious.

1. A brutal introduction

A railroad track in Forlorn Muskeg. Found a railroad, which must lead to civilization, but the cold was already setting in hard.

Interloper threw me into the deep end. My run started in Forlorn Muskeg. I check my inventory: no matches, not enough clothing, and just the biting cold and the gnawing fear of the unknown. Fell through the ice feeling my way around the muskeg. Freezing to death, I stumbled upon a railroad track: hopefully this will lead to warmth!

Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t - the fact that all my clothes were frozen solid made me succumb to hypothermia within minutes. Brutal introduction to interloper, but a worthy one.

Death screen reading 'You faded into the long dark...' A quick end, but a lesson learned about the relentless cold. And water, be afraid of water!

2. Is that a campfire smoke?

Spawned in Hushed River Valley this time. It’s an area with no man-made structures, and I wasn’t familiar with it. Turns out you also don’t start with a bedroll in interloper. Sleeping is going to be a problem. Despite that, I somehow immediately stumbled upon matches on a frozen corpse - score! I learned to gather lots of sticks for firewood, which helped keep me warm, but sleeping was impossible without a snow shelter, and I didn’t have enough cloth for that without stripping naked in the freezing cold.

Hushed River Valley: campfire smoke in the distance. Is that a campfire out in the distance?

Then I saw smoke from a distant campfire. I haven’t seen any evidence of anyone alive in The Long Dark before, so I headed towards it. Sprained an ankle on the way. Died from exposure, though I probably would have starved eventually anyway.

3. There be wolves

Spawned in Forlorn Muskeg again. Got attacked by a wolf immediately. Died.

A wolf attack in Forlorn Muskeg. Well, that was fast. Thanks, interloper.

4. There be timberwolves

Spawned in Blackrock, another new area for me, but the signs pointing to the prison made navigation easy. Found a marine flare in an abandoned car – lucky find. Shortly after, ambushed by timberwolves. This was my first time encountering them; they’re much more aggressive than regular wolves and work as a pack. Terrifying. The flare helped a little, but they kept circling and biting me. As the flare was running out, I managed to run inside the prison and shut the door, but bled out from the bites while trying to make bandages from my socks.

How cruel.

Death screen reading 'You died from blood loss.' Bled out literally steps inside safety. The irony.

5. Watch your step

Spawned in Hushed River Valley again. Saw that campfire smoke in the distance again and got fixated on reaching it. Rushed towards it, wasn’t watching my step, and walked right off a cliff edge. Sprained my ankle, attracted a wolf. Can’t really get away from it with a sprained ankle, can’t really start a fire without matches. Lost the fight. Still have no idea what’s actually at that campfire.

I’ll probably never know. Maybe some mysteries are best left unsolved. And some cliffs best avoided.

6. It’s too dark to see!

View of charred trees from above in Ash Mountain. Ash Mountain views are breathtaking during the day. Too bad I got spawned in in the middle of the night.

Spawned in Ash Mountain. Looks unfriendly, and I have no idea where I am. Worse, it was the middle of the night, pitch black. Found a desolate picnic area and even spotted a storm lantern, only to find it was broken – didn’t even know that was possible. What a tease. Wandered around blindly in the dark until I found a small cave behind a waterfall. It was probably a breathtaking view in daylight, but I was too cold, hungry, and tired to appreciate the view.

Froze to death.

7. A pyrrhic victory-ish

Lighthouse in the distance at Desolation Point. The lighthouse, a familiar and welcome sight.

Spawned in Desolation Point! Finally, an area I knew, somewhat. Easy to navigate, plenty of coal, and a forge available once I found a hammer. Things were looking up. Warmed up at the lighthouse, looted the beached ship, and found a hacksaw in the mine near Hibernia Processing. Had food, some tools, plenty of fuel. Got comfortable, spent two days exploring the whole map. Got mauled by a bear but survived.

Inside the Hibernia Processing plant with the large whale carcass. Plenty to explore and scavenge inside Hibernia.

Decided to press on to the Crumbling Highway. Bad move. Got turned around, ran low on food, and fell through the ice. Clothes soaked. Made it to a cave and used my coal supply to thaw everything out by the fire, but now I was starving. Passed two deer carcasses but didn’t realize I could harvest them with the hacksaw – I thought I needed a knife, which requires the forge to craft. Tried to push on, got attacked by a wolf, and hid in a car. The wolf wouldn’t leave. I kept popping out to keep a fire going outside the car, but eventually ran out of fuel and froze to death inside the car accompanied by both the wolf and my stomach growling. Still, surviving for two days felt like a real accomplishment on interloper.

The Long Dark journal screen listing seven interloper playthroughs. I survived for 2 days, 4 hours, 46 minutes. That’s a victory in my book, better quit while I’m ahead.

Overall, banging my head against interloper difficulty was a great experience. I learned the game mechanics better. Going back to stalker difficulty afterwards felt like a cakewalk – making the game feel nice and cozy. I felt showered in resources! I died after a couple of days because I got cocky and tried to face down a bear with just a pistol, but I had fun.

Inside the cozy fire lookout tower on stalker difficulty. Back on stalker difficulty, finding this lookout felt like checking into a five-star hotel.

I’m not good at the game, but I think that contributed to my enjoyment. Initially I planned to run through 10 attempts, but I accidentally found a guide after my seventh attempt and learned of many cheesy strategies which I could’ve employed, but would’ve gamified the experience and reduced the brutality of it all. No affront to you of course if you love to optimize here.

Definitely recommend trying interloper if you want a real challenge. I gained increased appreciation for the game’s systems.