• The Long Dark

    Survival Mode

    I acted as Open World Designer on this mode from Winter 2019 through Winter 2020.

    Played and captured by Jensen Gaming, includes music composed by Cris Velasco

    Showcase: Highlights from Bleak Inlet survival gameplay

    I contributed to foundational concept work and paper designs for the entire region.
    My implementation responsibilities included bringing Last Resort Cannery from greyblock to release.
    This level was completed within 3 months by delegating across a team of 4 other designers and environment artists.

    Read more about level design on Bleak Inlet and The Long Dark: Survival Mode

    The Long Dark: Survival Mode

    Story Mode

    I held two roles on Story Mode — Technical Narrative Designer and Level Designer

    The Long Dark‘s original Kickstarter promise was to tell Will MacKenzie and Astrid Greenwood’s story of quiet apocalypse. I was brought on as a third designer dedicated to assisting delivery on that promise.

    Console release promo art with no text. Will is standing, facing away, and walking towards a snowy landscape with a wolf on a nearby rock and mountains in the background. He is wearing a red toque. He has a rifle in his handle, held down across his body with the stock end above his right elbow. His backpack is carrying many objects including a hatchet and arrows.
    Joining less than a year after premiere releases or Episodes 1 and 2, my early tasks were to establish a higher quality bar for cinematic interactions and create non-linear missions.

    Episode 1 and 2 Redux, Episode 3, and Episode 4

    Follow these links for more details

    The Light At The End Of All Things

    Notes about Episode 5

    After I left, the final episode for Story Mode saw intermittent development from 2021 through to 2025.
    Story Mode was originally included in all copies purchased before 2021. New players will find this mode in a separate DLC purchase from 2021 onwards, now titled The Long Dark: WINTERMUTE.

    Before Story Mode became DLC, all changes to Survival Mode and Story Mode were deeply interlinked in a single Unity project build pipeline. This required the team to refactor all regions and episodic content with every update, adding significant time costs to the open development practice.

    Play original releases for content above using the Time Machine feature