The Long Dark is a game about surviving in the unforgiving conditions of frozen North Canadian taiga. The Arctic wilderness may be breathtakingly beautiful, thanks to the game’s artful visual style, but it is also deadly. Low temperatures, hungry animals like wolves and bears, and starvation can easily kill your character. To stay alive, he will need to learn how to light a campfire, find shelter, care about his wounds, hunt for food and protect himself in an unfriendly environment. Many necessary items in the game, including some of the weapons, need to be crafted out of the junk that you can find in the woods and in abandoned buildings. In the story mode, called Wintermute, you control a pilot, Will Mackenzie, who was hired by his ex-wife Astrid to deliver a mysterious cargo. Eventually, his plane crashed in the woods. Will is injured, and Astrid is missing, presumably lost somewhere in the wilderness. Your goal is to survive and to rescue your companion. Wintermute follows a linear plot and only allows you to explore a limited area. However, it is recommended to start with, since it serves as a sort of tutorial to the open-world sandbox mode. This is the most popular mode, in which you are not confined to the plot and can discover new areas.