The Long Dark's story campaign continues with Episode 4 in October
Chill out
Splendid snowy survival sandbox The Long Dark will launch the much-anticipated fourth episode of its story campaign on the 6th of October, developers Hinterland Studio have announced. Named 'Fury, Then Silence', episode 4 of the 'Wintermute' campaign sees one of our protagonists captured by murderers sheltering from the strange superfreeze in a prison complex. Have a peek at that in the new trailer below.
"A murderous gang of convicts has captured Mackenzie," Hinterland explained yesterday. "Desperate to escape one of the darkest corners of Great Bear Island, he must somehow survive his fiercest enemy yet. Can Mackenzie recover the Hardcase, continue his search for Astrid, and also save the innocents caught up in this deadly confrontation?"
Hinterland previously said the episode features an hour of narrative cinematics, over 40 minutes of new music, and about 7-10 hours of play. There's your numbers for you.
Wintermute has been a long time in the making. The first episode arrived in May 2017 and the second that August, to lukewarm receptions. Unsatisfied, Hinterland went back and reworked the two. Upon their arrival in December 2018, John Walker (RPS in peace) hailed them as "the game I'd desperately wanted before". Then episode three followed in October 2019.
After the eventual episode five, ah, who knows what's next. In a dev diary in March, big cheese Raphael van Lierop publicly pondered what might be next for Hinterland and The Long Dark, and requested feedback from fans.
"We aren't committing to anything beyond Episode Five, but depending on how passionately you want us to keep expanding The Long Dark, and provided we can make it work from a business perspective, we are open to considering a variety of things," he said. "We love The Long Dark as much as anyone, and would love to see it continue to grow and flourish into the future. For us, it's more than a game. For me, I still want to push forward and show that Hinterland is the industry leader in creating thoughtful survival experiences."
The Long Dark is on Steam as well as PS4, Xbone, and Switch. It's one of the best survival games, according to us.