Drafted with AI from our own data; passed automated quality checks and spot-checked by the editor
About the Game
A solo survival adventure in a frozen Canadian wilderness, where the threat is the cold and nature itself.
The Long Dark is a survival game that blends adventure, simulation and strategy, with a distinctly indie feel. You play alone in the aftermath of a geomagnetic disaster and explore a vast frozen wilderness in northern Canada. The store listing describes about 50 square kilometers of terrain, and the season is winter, so the world feels cold, quiet and unforgiving from the first moment.
The core loop is about managing your body and your supplies. You watch hunger, thirst, fatigue and cold, and every action burns calories, so time becomes your most valuable resource. You can hunt, fish, set traps, climb, read maps and search for food and gear among more than 100 equipment items, including tools, light sources, weapons, first aid and clothing. Wolves, bears, moose, rabbits, deer and crows roam the land, and the weather, time of day and wildlife change dynamically.
The game gives you information without answers, so you have to work things out for yourself. Survival mode is a free-form sandbox with no narration, and dying there deletes your save, which makes every run feel personal. Four experience levels let you tune the challenge from a quiet, contemplative pace up to a brutal one, and a custom mode lets you build your own version.
Beyond survival, there is WINTERMUTE, a story mode told in episodes. The first four of its five episodes are included with the game, and they take roughly 30 hours to play through. Several short challenge modes, each offering about one to three hours of focused play, add variety for players who want shorter goals.
Feature Highlights
- Survival mode is a free-form, narration-free sandbox where death deletes your save file.
- Hunger, thirst, fatigue and cold are all tracked, and every action costs calories you must manage.
- More than 100 equipment items, from tools and weapons to clothing and first aid, are spread across the map.
- Four experience levels and a custom mode let you decide how harsh the wilderness feels.
- The WINTERMUTE story mode includes its first four of five episodes, with voice work from Jennifer Hale, Mark Meer and David Hayter.
Who It Is (and Is Not) For
Recommended For
Players who enjoy slow, thoughtful survival games will get the most out of The Long Dark, especially if you like planning routes, rationing supplies and learning from mistakes. Solo explorers who want an atmospheric world without zombies will find plenty to chew on, since the game does not require fast reflexes. Fans of tunable difficulty and short challenge modes have plenty of reasons to keep coming back.
Not Recommended For
If you want multiplayer, fast action or tight combat, this is not the right pick, because the game is designed for single players. Players who dislike permanent consequences may find that dying in survival mode, which deletes your save, is frustrating. Readers who want a clear, guided story with constant direction may also feel lost, since the game offers information but rarely tells you what to do.
What the Steam Reviews Say
The Steam label for The Long Dark is Very Positive, with 89 percent of reviews positive across hundreds of thousands of reviews. That combination is a strong signal, because a high positive share at that volume suggests a broad base of players who largely enjoyed the experience rather than a small group of early fans.
Steam bases its labels on the share of positive reviews and the total number of reviews, so a label built on a few hundred reviews can swing far more than one built on a huge pool. Here the volume is large, which makes the rating more stable, though it still reflects general opinion rather than whether the survival difficulty suits your personal taste. It is worth reading a few recent reviews on the Steam page to see how players feel about the current version.
Price History & Historical Low
Show price changes as a table
| Date | Price | Discount |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-30 | NT$349 | — |
| 2026-10-16 | NT$349 | — |
| 2026-10-09 | NT$87 | -75% |
These are Taiwan Steam store prices in NT$. The Long Dark currently sells for NT$ 349, which is also its regular price, so it is not on sale right now. In our record, the lowest paid price was NT$ 87, set on October 9, 2026, which was also the first day we recorded its price. The highest price we have logged is NT$ 349.
The game has been discounted often in our record, and the deepest cut we logged was 75 percent. We have not recorded a free-to-keep period, so there is no free copy to claim at the moment. Our price record is still short, so treat any verdict below as tentative.
At the regular price, the game is not on sale, and the latest price is not our recorded low. If you are happy paying full price for a long survival game, the current NT$ 349 is a fair ask for a title with this much content. If you can wait, the frequent discounts and the NT$ 87 low suggest that a sale is worth watching for, especially with the wishlist notifications turned on.
Analysis written 10/27/2026 from our recorded prices; the chart above is live. Taiwan-region Steam prices.
How to Buy
- The Long Dark is not free right now, so you will need to buy it on the Taiwan Steam store at NT$ 349.
- If you are not ready to buy, open the store page in the Steam client or on the Steam website and add the game to your wishlist.
- Turn on wishlist sale notifications in your Steam notification settings so you hear about price changes as soon as they happen.
- Check back here for the price trend before you buy, since the game has been discounted often in our record.
- Once the game is in your library, it stays there, so you can install it whenever you want to play.
Things to Know
The store listing shows Traditional Chinese among the supported languages, and English is marked as having full audio support. The game has no adult content flag, so no adult content warning applies. All prices on this page are Taiwan-region Steam prices in NT$ and may differ in other regions or currencies. Free and discount promotions can end at any time, so check the official Steam page before you buy.
