Why do you play video games? Everyone has their different reasons and justifications for their favorite genres, but lots of players share the same core convictions when picking up a controller.
Me? I’m basic. I like the power. I like to be a game-changer. Reviving all my fallen heroes to cap the point, commanding the elements to subdue enemies and leaping from building to building escaping the flailing grasp of the undead. They are fantasies that we, mere mortals, will never enact nor feel the consequences of, which is some of what makes gaming so undoubtedly fun.
I like the ability to effectively help anyone who calls for aid. The game gave me the option to defuse this situation, a sweet weapon, and the means to utilize either for guaranteed success. The pacifist route in choice-based narratives will invariably be my modus operandi, because the benefits of altruism are so easily and quickly realized. Plus, I feel disproportionately guilty for disappointing fictional people.
I like the control — to carefully sow the seeds as each turn passes and reap the virtual rewards of shrewd strategy. Should I tire of the campaign, old games can be reinvigorated with mods and cheat codes bend the rules, sometimes to ridiculously fun dimensions. If I mess up, I scroll through and load a recent save. But there is that second chance.
I don’t feel powerful, helpful or in control very often. Occasionally I will wake up on a bright, beautiful sunny morning and my anxiety disorder boards up my apartment door for me, notwithstanding plans and classes to attend. It will cause me to freeze as I cook in the kitchen, suddenly ice cold with paranoia because someone wanted to grab a glass of water. I flinch at loud noises and abrupt movements, I ignore my stomach’s complaints as I go without eating for hours, I sit inert as I analyze each letter of the cheery email reply I received, convinced that the sender secretly despises me.
As much as I am jittery when confronting garden variety adventures, I am equally as much the excitable wisecracker. Who once or twice point blank refuses to order fast food at the mall because no really, that’s terrifying. My mental illnesses don’t define me, but they’re kind of like mystery unlockables that weren’t that exciting after all.
Launching a video game cleans the slate. I instantly feel the stresses of navigating the unexceptional tasks of the day, successfully or not, wither as I assume another identity. A character that can count their change in the queue and define an empire’s fate without breaking a sweat.
And yet, some of my favorite games are the ones where I’ve had no control at all.
The Long Dark is a first person survival simulation game from indie developer Hinterland Studios. Mysterious surges of electromagnetic energy destroyed humanity’s communications and technology, crashing the player character’s airplane into the Northern Canadian wilderness. The player must learn to survive, and fast. It is an apocalypse that is hushed, serene and lethal.
There are five regions available to explore, each harboring its own set of environmental variables that are grueling. The settings are reminiscent of chalk strokes or watercolor paintings, interactive and burnished by the changing light and weather patterns. Gazing down from the high ground, the wind rattles the frozen forest and snow crunches satisfyingly underfoot. The backpack jangles when sprinting along the coastline, punctuating the slow swoosh of the waves and accompanied by wolves howling somewhere on the mainland. A blizzard ensconces the risky journey following the railway tracks, and it is only when it begins to dwindle that a second set of deadly footfalls are detected. All this and the occasional soft music intensify the loneliness and create a gaming experience that is truly therapeutic and bewitching. At the mercy of the elements, The Long Dark strips it all down to one person and one purpose — survive.
Not only are the environments beautifully constructed, the game’s mechanics will unmercifully put the player through the wringer while backlit by a particularly pretty sunrise. When traversing through the harsh regions, health is referred to as Condition and given a percentage value — this is determined by a multitude of factors. Hunger is satisfied by of course, eating, though the calorific intake will vary depending on whether you crack open a musty can of dog food, or cook the comparatively delicious rabbit snared earlier. Thirst is quenched by sodas or melted snow, yet unsafe water will almost certainly cause dysentery — remedied by antibiotics or herbal tea, should you be so lucky to find these.
Luck is extremely important. As a lone figure enduring the unpredictability of nature, the odds are very much not in your favor. Random procedural generation of items available in locations decide how easy survival will be — with one playthrough, the house next to the lake could be chock-full of goodies. In the next, it could waste your invaluable time and energy, and inadvertently leave a trail for predators to track. The experience is totally and wholly solitary in sandbox mode. You will find the bodies of humans who have unfortunately already succumbed, and while rifling through their pack for scraps, it serves to show the indifference of real survival to identity. Predominantly, fictional stories with apocalyptic settings share the bleakness of this game but expose their characters in a critically different method. In these terrible worlds, Westernized hypermasculinity is the weapon of choice. The people who do survive — and deserve to survive — are people with an unquenchable aggression permeating every action and reaction, rational yet brutally efficient minds, a skill set suited for violent ends. There, you construct your protagonist, the morally questionable savior willing and capable of committing assorted atrocities to safeguard a paper-thin peace. That is how you win. Claims such as these are met with eerie silence in The Long Dark.
The frozen surroundings are aggravated by the geomagnetic disaster. These pulses of energy interfere with the Aurora dancing in the skies, precipitating dramatic weather shifts over the course of just a day and upsetting typical wildlife behavior. Lone, desperately aggressive wolves prowl the forests and icy lakes, willing to chase and attack anything to survive the intensified conditions. Lumbering bears tread somberly through the snow with no need to prove their fearsome reputation. It seems incredibly foolish to engage the kings of the mountain, but once bested, their furs and skins can be crafted into hardy jackets perfectly suited for withstanding the cold.
Once night falls, the darkness envelops everything as temperatures plummet and a flare will be your new best friend when fending off glowing eyes in the gloom. Best to sleep in a shelter, revel in the little victory of surviving one more day, and start the challenge all over again at dawn.
As the game is in Alpha and thusly always tweaked and modified, the parameters are changing each time I play. Summarily, it is here where the theme of control in video games is completely reversed. Each decision must be weighed and measured; a balance of risk and reward that could suddenly skew and undo days of progress and achievement. Yet, why not try? As scary as The Long Dark is, my mistakes aren’t scary. In the tundra I don’t overthink — I act and make do with my resources in that moment, as some have not been so fortunate.
In reality, I feel like I don’t have time for meditation, and I’m not the type who can sit still and ‘empty their mind’, but survival has a very clear and obvious goal. And this meditative experience is a way of just letting go of all the things I’m holding onto so tightly. It’s a relief to be at the whims of Mother Nature, rather than the random contrivances of my anxiety disorder.
The wolves at your door aren’t next month’s rent, your essay due in three days, the results you’re waiting on from the doctor. They’re literally just wolves at your door. Even better is that these wolves aren’t real. Fall, rise, try again — all contained within the safety of a virtual wasteland.
About the Author
What Imogen Donovan lacks in height, she makes up with ridiculous enthusiasm for video games and all the fantastic things they entail. Follow her on Twitter @_idolon.
