10 years after that alpha first appeared in 2014, the first-person survival game The Long Dark is still getting something new. The fifth and final parts of the story from The Far Territory DLC are scheduled for next month, and most of them are about to ratchet up the challenge, but the first and most unusual thing for Long Dark is that for the first time in the game's 10-year history, players avoid permadeath when playing in survival mode. Usually, if you die in survival mode, your saved files will be ruthlessly deleted, so you'll have to start over (unless you secretly back it up). The optional new system will give you the option to accept death or continue playing, but cheating death will make the game "progressively harder," says developer Hinterland. You can fool death four times, but "Your last life will be very difficult.""

Cheating death involves a series of trade-offs," he says, "because you can fool death, but you can't fool death for free.""It's a bit vague and unfortunately there's no explanation for how it works, but I clicked on "Continue" and proceeded as if nothing had happened

"This is the first change to the permadeath system we've made in the game so far," Hinterland says. We want players to get into this spirit and try to make saves instead of backing up and continuing with no results."

If you want a death in court rather than fool it, the hinterland is also covered by you there. The DLC will also include a more hardcore survival experience called "Misery Mode" that introduces six new torments to your survival experience. Details of these pains have not been released, but there are already plenty of injuries in games like frostbite, burns, broken ribs, lacerations, blood loss, sprains of ankles and wrists, addictions, dysentery, intestinal parasites, and even diseases such as scurvy. What could be left to torment you? The last time I walked in the snow, what happened to me was that my boots came off and I took a step into the snow with just a cold wet sock in my sock. Fyi, I would die by complaining about 3 minutes into a real survival scenario long before dysentery had a chance to kill me.

Speaking of death, an interesting new "Alpha Predator" has also come to a long darkness: the Cougar, and it presents a new type of danger to the player. "Cougars are very territorial, and when you start spending a lot of time in 1 area, they will become interested in you," the developer says. "If you hang out in one area for too long, they take interest in the area and occupy it. Then you will begin to invade their territory, which is very dangerous!

You can pick up signs that cougars are in your area, but there's no warning before they attack and definitely tear you apart (this may be one of these new affiliations 1). To avoid this, you can leave the cougar area for a while and eventually lose interest in turning you into a bloody cat toy. Cougars sound like a fun and scary new threat to a game already full of them.

Hinterland currently relies on testing and clearing console authentication, but aims to release a story from Distant Territory part five in "The Second half of the month." You can read the full developer diary on Steam.