Finally got the end of Chapter 4 of The Long Dark's "Wintermute" story campaign. 5 is supposed to come out late this year, and I'm actually looking forward to it.
It obviously carries the stink of Modern Year gamedev in the narrative/character choices, and the script writing for cutscenes verges on atrocious at times. But it also never goes so woke that it prolapses itself, so its easy enough to ignore.
The core survival gameplay loop is actually pretty good... much like a high rez version of NEO Scavenger (my other favorite autistic survival game) its punishingly difficult until you learn the basic survival mechanics, and then it remains challenging enough to keep you on your toes without being too frustrating.
For all its writing faults, story mode is better than pure survival for me. Normally fetch quests across open world maps are boring & dumb, but when going from Point A to B to get Item C for NPC D involves the core mechanic of balancing resources, surviving the weather, surviving wild animal attacks, and exploring to find the best route, it makes each leg of the journey a unique struggle, and the story progression is the cheese at the end of the maze to keep you going.
Some may be turned off by the traces of soy in the campaign, but if you can tolerate it I'd say it's a pretty good game under the hood.