The Long Dark on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
Quick menu
THE LONG DARK is a thoughtful, exploration-survival experience that challenges solo players to think for themselves as they explore an expansive frozen wilderness in the aftermath of a geomagnetic disaster. There are no zombies -- only you, the cold, and all the threats Mother Nature can muster.
The Long Dark is a survival, open world survival craft and open world game
developed and published by Hinterland Studio Inc..
Released on August 01st 2017 is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux
in 19 languages: English, German, Russian, French, Spanish - Spain, Finnish, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese - Portugal, Simplified Chinese, Swedish, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Portuguese - Brazil, Dutch, Italian, Polish and Ukrainian.
It has received 112,575 reviews of which 101,846 were positive and 10,729 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.9 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 16.99€ on Steam, but you can find it for less on Gamivo.
The Steam community has classified The Long Dark into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at The Long Dark through various videos and screenshots.
Load More
System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS *: Windows 8
- Processor: Dual-Core Intel i5 CPU @ 2GHz+
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: Intel 4xxx Series w/ 512MB VRAM or better
- Storage: 7 GB available space
- Sound Card: Any on-board chip will work.
MacOS
- OS: OSX 10.9.3
- Processor: Core i5 @ 2.2GHz
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 5000
- Storage: 7 GB available space
- Sound Card: On-board.
Linux
- OS: SteamOS or Ubuntu 16.04 or 17.04
- Processor: Dual-Core Intel i5 CPU @ 2GHz+
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: Intel 4xxx Series w/ 512MB VRAM or better
- Storage: 7 GB available space
- Sound Card: Any on-board chip will work.
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
This game has taught me many things. The most unusual one would be probably what it's like to slowly die. Darkness, snowstorm, mounting injuries. Hypothermia. Exhaustion. You hear your heart slow down, letting out its final beats. And yet, you fight; look for shelter, warmth, anything that'd let you live just a moment longer. Desperately. Against all odds. Seconds feel like minutes. Vision gets blurry. And then you ingloriously fade into the Long Dark. ...alright, that's a little depressing. Let's instead ask ourselves, why are we drawn to survival games? Why zombie apocalypse is such a popular concept? I'll tell you. It's because in a world where the social order has collapsed, you are ultimately the only person who has any degree of control over your life. No taxes. No reputation. No politics. The only thing guiding you - your basic needs such as hunger and sleep. The Long Dark took the concept away from the overdone zombie world and brought it back to something a bit more grounded. Back when it came out in Early Access - 2014 - this was a very fresh concept. No monsters to fight? Just you and wild animals? Yes, and this is arguably what gives this game its weight. It feels so incredibly real - and the feeling of actually being the only master of your own fate in the face of extinction? Intoxicating. Especially in our present world, where all we see is massive systemic decay of literally everything combined with utter powerlessness to make any difference at all. I should probably mention here: Almost all of my ~500 hours of gameplay are exclusively in Survival Mode. There is a story mode - Wintermute - but it completely failed to resonate with me. A friend of mine called it "a bit of a tutorial", so perhaps that's why. If you never played The Long Dark, you might want to start there? I don't know. I literally can't say. While I consider this game to be one of the baselines of what other survival games are measured against, it certainly carries the "scars" of being in Early Access for a pretty long time. Some elements might feel out of place, but that's because they're what remains of systems that were given a complete overhaul. For example, Fir Firewood's description says "While not technically a hardwood, fir burns like one." Who said anything about hardwood? Well, 10 years ago foraging for wood was completely different, and you could choose whether to forage for softwood or hardwood. Given all this development time, the mechanics are carefully refined. There are five difficulty levels, and they differ not only by things like damage or recovery but they have additional mechanics which change the way the game is played. The final two levels - Interloper and Misery - outright deny you loot and force you to rely on crafting, which requires specialised tools (that you can't take with you; they're location-bound). Stalker - level 3, my choice - forces you to hunt herbivores, as eating meat from animals that actively pursue you (e.g. wolves) comes with a very significant parasite risk. That said, it's all manageable... if you know what you're doing. But everything you do merely postpones your inevitable demise. You ran out of canned food you looted from the abandoned camp? It's not coming back. You have to move on. Oh, you can fish? Sure, but eventually your fishing equipment will deteriorate, and you'll run out of spare parts. You can hunt? Indeed, but ammo is very precious, and that's assuming you found a gun. You can use a bow and arrows? Yes, but even the arrows will eventually degrade and break. Entropy only goes one way. That's the deal; the only things - to my knowledge - that reliably respawn are animals and wood. But even then, chances are you'll hunt out everything in the area, and you will have to move on. Find a new place to settle for a week or two. The world map is static - if you know the geography, you can get an idea of when you can hope to find the next shelter. There is no GPS map, and mapping in general requires resources, so you're better off relying on your orientation and memory. I thought that a static world would be a deal breaker, but after 500 hours I can safely say that it isn't. The world is gigantic; and even if you've already been everywhere, the loot is randomised anyway. Still, it follows certain rules - you are more likely to find hunting equipment in locations related to hunting. Tools - probably in industrial areas. Food and medicine are stashed in abandoned human dwellings and so on. But sometimes things are found in unexpected places - so keep looting. Now, you're probably thinking: "Wait, so you can't win, since stuff is non-renewable?" If by winning we assume "ensuring continued existence", then you can indeed win. There are ways to get things that are otherwise non-renewable. There are people who have ridiculously long runs, we're talking thousands of days. So if you know the game well, you absolutely can wrestle it to its knees. That's probably the goal of everyone playing it. But dying is also a part of the learning experience. Sometimes the hopeless situation can be turned around. Sometimes you do find a cave in a snowstorm. Sometimes a corpse of another survivor will grant you the tool you desperately need. And sometimes you fail to notice the giant pawprints of a bear, and you learn that these guys can run very fast. Faster than you. Eventually, you'll learn the laws of the frozen wastes. You'll acquire clothing that will allow you to shrug off the biting cold. You'll see the world through the eyes of a crafty hunter, and the wolves will know that there's a bloody price for crossing you; their furs warming you, now. Their guts used as string for your bow. Their fat boiled into oil which you use to fry delicious Canadian pancakes - maple syrup included! The game has a quite robust cooking system. Or, you know. You'll fade into the Long Dark. [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/42922988/]I only review games I've either beaten or ditched, but for this one I had to make an exception
Expand the review
This criminally underrated masterpiece of a game taught me a lot about myself. The premise of The Long Dark is one of letting go. So many other survival games make you focus on the grind. You run around collecting things, and soon enough they stack up at your base. The Long Dark is different, in that it forces you to keep exploring. The best way to play this game is to not have a home base, but rather carry just enough on your back to get to the next town. The next landmark. The next cave. It teaches you that the journey is the joy, not the destination. This game will punish you for carelessness, and reward you for focus. I highly recommend anyone who plays this doesn't do so lightly, as you will have an uncomfortable experience. If you are able to find how the devs designed this game to be played, your hours spent on Bear Island will impact you in ways you didnt think possible for a video game.
Expand the review
The Long Dark is a game unlike any other. I am, personally, not a "gamer" but when I play this game, I have a hard time putting it down. The Wintermute portion of the game has a story line and characters that are haunting and wonderful. When you finish the game, you find yourself wanting to go back and play more because you miss the personalities/relationships of the characters. It definitely takes you to another place and time. The survival portion of the game is amazing also but does not have the character development that Wintermute does. They do give you tasks and missions to accomplish that are mysterious and fun. Be ready to put some serious time into this game. It is a super long adventure that you will not soon forget. I have finished both parts of this game and in all honesty, I do still once in a while, go back and play both because it feels like a warm blanket with a mug of my favorite coffee every time I do. I will, for the rest of my life, be playing this game from time to time. It is that good.
Expand the review
---{ Graphics }--- ☐ You forget what reality is ☑ Beautiful ☐ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS ---{ Gameplay }--- ☑ Very good ☐ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't ---{ Audio }--- ☐ Eargasm ☑ Very good ☐ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf ---{ Audience }--- ☐ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☐ Grandma ---{ PC Requirements }--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☐ Potato ☑ Decent ☐ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{ Game Size }--- ☐ Floppy Disk ☑ Old Fashioned ☐ Workable ☐ Big ☐ Will eat 15% of your 1TB hard drive ☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it ☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data ---{ Difficulty }--- ☐ Just press 'W' ☐ Easy ☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☑ Significant brain usage ☐ Difficult ☐ Dark Souls ---{ Grind }--- ☐ Nothing to grind ☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☐ Isn't necessary to progress ☑ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ You'll need a second life for grinding ---{ Story }--- ☐ No Story ☐ Some lore ☐ Average ☐ Good ☑ Lovely ☐ It'll replace your life ---{ Game Time }--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee ☐ Short ☐ Average ☑ Long ☐ To infinity and beyond ---{ Price }--- ☐ It's free! ☑ Worth the price ☐ If it's on sale ☐ If u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ You could also just burn your money ---{ Bugs }--- ☐ Never heard of ☑ Minor bugs ☐ Can get annoying ☐ ARK: Survival Evolved ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs ---{ ? / 10 }--- ☐ 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5 ☐ 6 ☐ 7 ☐ 8 ☑ 9 ☐ 10
Expand the review
I love this game with all my heart. Its fun and well thought out. Its exactly what I was looking for in a survival game. I cant wait for the sequel Blackfrost!!!
Expand the review
Similar games
View all
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey
Survive your evolution in Neogene Africa starting 10 million years ago. Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is a third-person open world survival game where you Explore, Expand, and Evolve to advance your clan to the next generation in the exciting new adventure from Panache Digital Games.
Among Trees
Escape to an enchanting, living sandbox surrounded by wildlife and nature. Scavenge materials and craft tools to turn your small cabin into a warm, well-supplied home. Survive by fishing, cooking and growing your own food. Be careful though, the forest is as dangerous as it is wonderful.
Salt
Salt is an open world exploration game where you sail from island to island looking for loot and new discoveries! Relax and explore at your own pace, picking a direction and setting sail across a vast ocean filled with quests, merchants, ruins, pirates, and other mysterious places.
Winter Survival
Winter Survival is a story-driven survival game where trauma turns reality into a reflection of your breaking mind. Battle cold, hunger, hallucinations, and adapt to the wilderness as it adapts to you.
Escape The Pacific
Raw, real survival in the Pacific. Build a modular floating base. Master realistic sailing mechanics. Face challenging Pacific-like weather & seasons. Hunt, craft, build & navigate using Sun Dial, Sextant & Triangulation. Explore an endless island cluster-based world. Simulate real life scenarios!
Crashlands
Fight and tame alien beasts, craft resources into menacing weaponry, befriend the outlandish locals, and go toe-to-chin with a world-domineering maniac.
Stranded Deep
Take the role of a plane crash survivor stranded somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Come face to face with some of the most life threatening scenarios that will result in a different experience each time you play. Scavenge. Discover. Survive.
Miasmata
Miasmata is a first-person survival/adventure game, developed from the ground-up by brothers Joe and Bob Johnson. You play as Robert Hughes, a plague-stricken scientist on a journey to discover a cure. Your adventure begins on the shores of a remote and mysterious island.
Crashlands 2
Slap your way across a vibrant world where interstellar friendships are the key to your survival. Befriend eccentric aliens, craft bizarre weaponry, and stick it to the man in this sequel to the award-winning open world crafting RPG Crashlands.
Force of Nature
Force of Nature is a Sandbox game that combines Action, Adventure, RPG, Strategy and Management genres
Subnautica
Descend into the depths of an alien underwater world filled with wonder and peril. Craft equipment, pilot submarines and out-smart wildlife to explore lush coral reefs, volcanoes, cave systems, and more - all while trying to survive.
No Man's Sky
No Man's Sky is a game about exploration and survival in an infinite procedurally generated universe.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Long Dark is currently priced at 16.99€ on Steam.
The Long Dark is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 16.99€ on Steam.
The Long Dark received 101,846 positive votes out of a total of 112,575 achieving a rating of 8.92.
😎
The Long Dark was developed and published by Hinterland Studio Inc..
The Long Dark is playable and fully supported on Windows.
The Long Dark is playable and fully supported on MacOS.
The Long Dark is playable and fully supported on Linux.
The Long Dark is a single-player game.
There are 4 DLCs available for The Long Dark. Explore additional content available for The Long Dark on Steam.
The Long Dark does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
The Long Dark supports Remote Play on TV. Discover more about Steam Remote Play.
The Long Dark is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for The Long Dark.
Data sources
The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.
Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 22 January 2026 00:30 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 25 January 2026 19:24 |
| Steam price | 28 January 2026 20:44 |
| Steam reviews | 27 January 2026 10:06 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about The Long Dark, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about The Long Dark
- SteamCharts - Analysis of The Long Dark concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck The Long Dark compatibility
Game modes
Features
Online players
2,203
Developer
Hinterland Studio Inc.
Publisher
Hinterland Studio Inc.
Release
01 Aug 2017
Platforms
Remote Play
Clicking and buying through these links helps us earn a commission to maintain our services.