The Long Dark developer Hinterland has said the conclusion of the multi-year Wintermute storyline won’t mark the end of “meaningful development” of the first-person Arctic survival game.
Episode Five: The Light at the End of All Things launches today, 31st March, for The Long Dark, finishing a storyline that’s been unravelling episodically for several years. The first two episodes were released alongside the game’s 1.0 launch back in 2017, so this Story mode conclusion has been a long time coming.
On LinkedIn, Hinterland boss Raphael van Lierop characterised the release of Episode Five by saying “a long journey comes to an end”. He added, in a developer diary for March, “The end of Wintermute and the completion of Episode Five is the end of an era for Hinterland. Finally, we will be able to talk more freely about our plans and ambitions for the future. Some of those plans relate to ongoing TLD development. Some of those plans relate to our work on Blackfrost. Some of those plans relate to other unannounced projects.”
It was against this backdrop I contacted van Lierop to clarify whether this was an end of sorts for The Long Dark development, because as he mentioned, the studio has a sequel, Blackfrost, in development. An early access launch of that sequel was touted for early this year, but didn’t happen. Perhaps 13 years after The Long Dark was crowdfunded, the studio is ready to move on.
“This isn’t the end of meaningful development for The Long Dark,” van Lierop told me in an email, “but it’s the end of this part of development and we see it as a major milestone as well as the completion and delivery of what we promised our fans years ago. So, not the end, but also an end.” He added in a subsequent email: “We’ll have more specifics to share about what comes after Episode Five, after Episode Five launches.”
Story mode is separate to the game’s Survival mode, by the way, which pits you against the perils of a frozen North. Also note that Episode Five won’t launch on Switch today, alongside other platforms, as “the Switch certification process is so much slower than the other platforms”, van Lierop wrote in the developer diary linked above. “Our hope is to have Episode Five out on Switch by the end of April, but depending on external timings, it could take longer.”
Additionally, van Lierop explained that Episode Five might feel different to the game’s other episodes in that it’s more linear, in order to bring the story to an end. Despite that, it boasts 12-15 hours of adventure so it’s substantial compared to the combined 30+ hours the other four episodes offer.
Oh and if you’re playing through the story for the first time, “please keep in mind that each episode reflects the period during which it was created by the team”, van Lierop wrote. “Our tools and our skill with them has improved over the years.” He added: “We hope you can play the earlier episodes with their age consideration in mind and be gentle in your assessments.”
