You’ll learn how to wantonly waste fuel and food – in fact, you’re required to do both to progress – in a manner you’d never do in the game proper, but you won’t be told anything about recovering health or the requirement for sleep. These few days serve as The Long Dark’s tutorial and while it does introduce some key controls and ideas, it generally does a poor job of setting you up to go out on your own. After surviving a plane crash in the mountains, you start with the absolute bare minimum of supplies and must stay alive until you’re strong enough to climb out of the ravine in which you’re stuck. Most players will start out with Wintermute, the game’s episodic story mode.
