How long the game is depends as well on how many features of the hud you are using. If you go with a minimal hud, just health/stamina bar, don't use fast travel and avoid to look at the map beside finding the next object marker - but then memorizing it's whereabouts and not look at the map again until this mission is done - then you get a more realistic gameplay, where navigation alone is already a challenge. Then you get a real feel for the size of the game and you will need more resources, because you will come across more events and have more interaction with wildlife. If the game is played more in a hunter/gatherer style and unrealistic gaming aids like compass, minimap and hud features avoided to the most part, then the game experience will be long-lasting and be intense. But if you just walk or fast travel to the next mission icon, you reduce the game to a set of locations, instead to have a seamless landscape where landmarks and distances actually matter. Just switch off most of the hud, the aiming aids and the reticle and it will be a different experience.
I use these rules for myself:
1. minimal hud - just health/stamina bar
2. no aiming aids, no reticle
3. no fast travel
4. looking at the map just in the wenja village and claimed outposts, bonfires and at owned camp fires
5. whenever I use hunter vision, I eat 1 meat - if I have no meat anymore, I don't use hunter vision - so I use it actually rarely
the last point makes it a real challenge, because I have to actually spot game to hunt it - and their camouflage fur pattern is hiding them quite well. Try it out, it is by far harder to hunt any real predator with it, they are so well camouflaged and blend into their surroundings.
1 people found this helpful