The Long Dark’s final episode, Episode Five, is the “largest episode to date”, featuring “between two to three times as much cinematic and story content” as preceding episode Four and about “three-to-four times as big”.
Addressing fans in a lengthy Steam update, Hinterland founder and creative director, Raphael van Lierop said the team “won’t be sharing much detail about the episode until he first teaser”, but it includes “quite a few systems we haven’t used in other episodes”.
“We know many of you – like us – have been waiting for years for this story to be completed. And once it’s done, we can never go back. So that’s really on our minds. The episode can’t just be good; it has to be great,” van Lierop added.
“There are a lot of story threads to tie up across all the episodes, to wrap up the Wintermute storyline, but also to set the stage for the future of The Long Dark, so we have to take you to several different places and hear from a lot of new people,” the director added (thanks, PC Gamer). “Because of what the story needs, we’ve focused on narrative more than we have traditionally, and the mission flow for Episode Five is probably more linear than previous episodes as a result.”
There will be “many” new locations – “everything in the episode is new to the game and the world, so these will all be places you’ve never seen before” – and as “this final episode of the story has you playing as both Mackenzie and Astrid, you’ll also be seeing some of the key characters from previous episodes, so…there’s a lot!”
“We’re also using new motion-capture tech for our team, to attempt to deliver an ever higher bar for story delivery than we have achieved so far,” he added. “These are all things that exist outside the context of Survival Mode, although some of the work in Tales helped set the foundation of some of the things we’re attempting in Episode Five.
“I can confidently say that Episode Five will be the most ambitious thing we’ve done on The Long Dark at Hinterland to date. I know that won’t mean much to you until you have it in your hands, but hopefully that gives you some sense of the ambition behind the episode.”
The update also confirmed that Tales from the Far Territory expansion is now complete, further visual enhancements are being trialled with the test team, with improvements to shadows, fog, anisotropic filtering, enhanced draw distances, terrain blending, motion blur, and more on the way, albeit “mainly apply to high-end PCs or the top-end consoles”.
There’ll also be an update for PlayStation and Xbox players in mid-late June.
Nearly a year after teasing an ‘unannounced survival game’ that looked suspiciously like The Long Dark 2, developer Hinterland’s has officially unveiled its snowy survival sequel. It’s called Blackfrost: The Long Dark 2 and it’s coming to Steam early access in 2026.
While our first tease of The Long Dark 2 in January didn’t go much beyond a slow pan across a slightly ramshackle room, Hinterland’s The Game Awards announcement trailer shows considerably more, with the wilderness action of its predecessor now expanded to cover towns and even cities gripped by the apocalyptic winter.
