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The Long Dark’s ‘Desolation Point’ update adds weather system overhaul, retextures almost everything

The Long Dark update v.264

Hinterland Games have just introduced a host of new features to The Long Dark, their snowcapped first-person survival sim, set in post-apocalyptic Canada. Days are getting shorter, and winter is almost upon us – or as they’d say in Game of Thrones, “winter is almost upon us” – so there’s no better tie to brush up on your survival skills in colder climes. 

As is the trend with Hinterland’s updates, v.264 is a substantial one. In addition to a new weather system with smoother transitions and a new “light fog” condition, Hinterland have added metal forging, an item placement system (cue a bajillion wang mosaics painstakingly assembled in the snow), and a entirely new region called Desolation Point. Once a hub of the whaling industry, now it lies as barren as… well, literally everything else in The Long Dark. Oh, and Hinterland went and replaced “most” of the textures in the game, too.

There are a few new items:Hammer, Improvised Knife, Improvised Hatchet (when it’s my time to go, please don’t let my passing have anything to do with the words ‘improvised hatchet’) and a long list of squashed bugs, HUD tweaks and the like, which you can examine in their entirety over on Hinterland’s blog. Here are the big hitters, though:

DESOLATION POINT, a stretch of coastal highway pockmarked with the abandoned remnants of a formerly thriving whaling industry.

ITEM PLACEMENT: You can now place any gear item in a valid location in the world (vs. dropping it on the floor).

METAL FORGING GAMEPLAY: Using a Hammer and raw materials like scrap metal, you can now forge a small number of improvised tools.

UPDATED WEATHER SYSTEM: We’ve also updated the Weather system, to allow for longer and smoother transitions in and out of weather states. We also telegraph bad weather (like blizzards) more, so you can begin to prepare yourself. Weather transitions now occur in patterns, so that you can gradually learn to “read” the weather. There are multiple weather patterns for each weather type, and weather patterns change from region to region.

UPDATED HUD/UI: We’ve removed all on-screen text from the HUD, and replaced it with icons. We’ve also replaced the old Survival Panel with a new Status screen, which is where you also access your Backpack, First Aid, Bedroll, and Fire-starting.

MULTIPLE SANDBOX GAME SLOTS: You can now run up to 5 simultaneous Sandbox games.