The end of The Long Dark is in sight after over a decade in development, culminating in a fifth and final story episode that is '3 to 4 times as big' as episode 4

The Long Dark has been in development for a long time. Hinterland's chilly survival game launched into Steam early access way back in 2014, before formally releasing three years later. But the launch in 2017 only represented the completion of the game's survival mode. The episodic story mode, titled "Wintermute", has been grinding glacially forward ever since.

Now, that journey is nearing its completion. Hinterland has already stated that episode five will release sometime this year. Now, creative director Raphael van Lierop has explained why this final episode of the story has taken so long. Short version, it's a big one.

"The episode is the most ambitious we’ve built so far, and it has quite a few systems we haven’t used in other episodes, so it’s proving to be quite challenging for the team," wrote van Lierop in a Steam update. "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 didn't share too many specifics about what the episode will include, wanting to "avoid spoilers". But he did provide a clear estimation of the episode's scope. "Episode five has between two to three times as much cinematic and story content as Episode Four, which is our largest episode to date," he explained. "The game world you’ll be playing in is about three to four times as big as Episode Four."

Alongside the size of the episode, van Lierop also detailed its structure, which he says is slightly different from the earlier parts of the story. "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." That said, the places these missions will take you will be brand new to the game. "Everything in the episode is new to the game and the world, so these will all be places you've never seen before."

Episode five isn't the only thing van Lierop covers in the update. He also mentions that The Long Dark is getting a bunch of visual enhancements. These are apparently finished and will be coming to PC in late May. Graphical improvements include coloured shadows, ambient particle effects, enhanced draw distance, and improved anti-aliasing.

As for what the release of episode five will mean for The Long Dark, Hinterland considers it to be the end of the project, insofar as delivering what they promised for the game. At that point, the studio's priorities will shift to Blackfrost: The Long Dark 2, which was announced at last year's Game Awards. But the original will continue to receive support, and Hinterland is open to the prospect of adding more to the game in future:

"We still intend to continue updating the game, but completing story mode has been a point of accountability for Hinterland all these years," van Lierop writes. "With the story mode finished, we are looking forward to having some breathing room to figure out what's next and continue to do our work without the weight of a big promise hanging over us."