Random Video Game Review - The Long Dark

So since the coronavirus pandemic first occurred, some of us have been curious as to how this affects certain industries. With video games, it's the least affected of most of them. Sure events like E3 have been cancelled and games like The Last of Us II have been delayed. But when you really think about it, video games are all developed on computers. Therefore, the development team should still be able to get their games done in time because they should in theory be able to get their development parts done at home. Then its just a case of bringing each part together and you then have a game that is almost ready for release. Just get all the parts together and then comes the manufacturing (if any) of the game disc (or cartridge in Nintendo's case). But this would normally be done in a factory somewhere in the world which may cause some delays because of the pandemic. Not to mention that the same or different factories are also responsible for the manufacturing of consoles whether they be new or not. So if you were hoping to get the PS5 and/or the Xbox Series X, they may still be released on time but I wouldn't count on it. So what does all of that have to do with The Long Dark. Probably nothing as I just wanted to get all this out there. So let's dive into this game which just so happens to be set in the wake of a fictional global disaster:

So a global disaster occurs and you play as a crash-landed bush pilot who tries to survive the frigid Canadian wilderness. Its basically another one of those open world survival games and that's ok as long as its done right. So players play from a first person perspective as you try to survive at everything thrown at you. A real challenge considering that much of what has to be taken into account is done at a random pace. Everything is spawned randomly meaning that no new game is the same as another player's session. You get to go through at least ten different regions which unlike most games is all in the base game this time with no DLC needed (but updates are another story). Several play styles are available to tailor to well the play style of a player such as one for the experienced player and one for the casual player as well as custom mode too. Interestingly is that the save function is also random, but if you die, the game's save file is deleted and you have to start again. This is what I call the Megadrive Effect as Megadrive games (or Genesis in some areas) are known to not have a save function anywhere in most of that console's games. And yes there is a story mode as well as a survival mode as previously mentioned.

As one of a few games that actually gained the support of an outside funding company as well as a successful Kickstarter, this game is OK at best. It's your average open world survival game, but for obvious reasons is more challenging due to how the save system works. So if you want a challenge where you can only save as long as you keep surviving, you will almost certainly get that so-called challenge here. But don't expect it to be easy going even for casual gamers. 7/10