Scavenging for food and water. Crafting tools and improvised shelters to protect you from the elements. Fighting tooth and nail against wild animals. Fundamentally, The Long Dark has a lot in common with its survival game contemporaries, the same foundational mechanics as Rust, Sons of the Forest, and Project Zomboid. But what makes Hinterland's opus stand out is its gorgeous, natural world. Sometimes beautiful, sometimes brutal, even after eight years, The Long Dark's combination of shimmering auroras and decaying, leafless forests is instantly recognizable. With the final episode of the Wintermute story on the way, as well as the sequel, Blackfrost, a significant update transforms The Long Dark's visuals.
There's a lot happening with survival game isn't finished just yet. Wintermute episode five, which brings the eight-year-long main story finally to a close, is coming later this year, and now, the entire world has been visually overhauled.
Free for all players, The Long Dark's visual upgrade adds dozens of new settings and effects. Structure shadows, anti-aliasing, and ambient occlusion have all been improved, and there are now colored shadows and fog. Draw distance has been enhanced, anisotropic filtering is available, and you can activate motion blur. All of these new features are optional – Hinterland explains that the update is targeted at "high-end systems" – but if you have the technology and want to make The Long Dark look completely new, this update is the answer.
On top of the visual overhaul, Hinterland has pushed temporary fixes for a couple of recent frustrations. Initially, the developer updated the cooking system in The Long Dark so that ruined ingredients could not be used in any recipes. However, that change has apparently caused some other technical issues elsewhere, so until those can be resolved, Hinterland has reversed the original change – you can use ruined goods in your cooking again, for now.
Similarly, if you've been playing The Long Dark for a long time, you might find that some of the top-tier recipes that use canned goods are no longer cookable – because even the food in cans has now gone rotten. Again, Hinterland is working on a more rounded fix, but until then, the lifespan of all canned goods has been extended, so they should all be perfectly edible again for the time being.
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