The Long Dark's next chapter is a frozen prison drama

Last I checked in, The Long Dark was a game about trudging through the snow and digging tins of beans out of old shacks. So I'm surprised to discover than the next episodic expansion for the survival sim is a prison thriller that sees you not only frozen and starving, but stuck behind bars.

Teased with a new trailer this week, Episode 4: Fury, Then Silence sees you bound and dragged and tossed into a cell in some abandoned penitentiary. A mysterious voice on the phone teases that you'll have to pick a side in a "stalemate" within the prison, while your fellow inmates suggest that they may be the one keeping you all alive at all.

Your closest cellmate appears to be voiced by none other than Adam Jensen actor Elias Toufexis (whose character presumably never asked for this, hurr hurr), and appears to be the head of one of these prison factions. The Long Dark has been on this story-driven pivot for some time, and, as a lapsed survivor, it's impressive how much the animation and voice acting has exploded in quality over these updates.

Episode 4: Fury, Then Silence launches on Monday, October 6. After that, developer Hinterland will prepare to bring The Long Dark's frosty thriller to a close with a final, as-yet-unannounced fifth chapter.

20 years ago, Nat played Jet Set Radio Future for the first time, and she's not stopped thinking about games since. Joining PC Gamer in 2020, she comes from three years of freelance reporting at Rock Paper Shotgun, Waypoint, VG247 and more. Embedded in the European indie scene and a part-time game developer herself, Nat is always looking for a new curiosity to scream about—whether it's the next best indie darling, or simply someone modding a Scotmid into Black Mesa. She also unofficially appears in Apex Legends under the pseudonym Horizon.