The Long Journey Home

Another advertising statement, generously seasoned with trendy phrases like “procedural generation”, “autonomous world” and “endless number of unique events”, often causes caution among those familiar with modern trends in the gaming industry. On paper, these concepts look fascinating, but in reality, there is often a gap between the marketing and the final product. This is especially typical for the indie scene, where developers, warmed by the interest of the audience, tend to overestimate their capabilities. As a result, players who succumbed to the preliminary excitement may face the harsh reality – the project turns out to be far from what was promised and leaves a feeling of incompleteness. A striking example is No Man’s Sky, the release of which is associated with a wave of disappointment: the game, which promised an inexhaustible universe with endless discoveries, did not live up to the ambitions of the developers at the start. This case clearly demonstrates that such statements should be approached with a critical eye and common sense should not be lost when faced with “revolutionary” ideas.

The Long Journey Home may not have the same spotlight as Hello Games’ creation, but it undeniably shares numerous traits with last year’s significant letdown. Regrettably, it’s not merely the resemblance in the space adventure setting and the reliance on procedural generation that connects them.

Determining the true value of each team member will take more than just one or even two playthroughs, as their unique skills and abilities can be a bit elusive at first.

The Long Journey Home Free Steam Account

In a not-so-distant future, humanity eagerly embraces groundbreaking space technologies, fully preparing for its highly anticipated first journey beyond the stars. A diverse team of adventurers, composed of an eclectic mix of individuals—including a former soldier and a powerful corporate titan—has been assembled to test a revolutionary hyperdrive that enables extraordinary long-distance travel through the cosmos. However, during their very first jump, disaster strikes unexpectedly. Instead of materializing near Alpha Centauri as planned, the ship ends up hundreds of light-years away from the Solar System, lost in the vastness of space. With many critical systems compromised, the surviving equipment reveals to the shocked and bewildered crew that a return home might still be within reach. Thus begins their long and arduous quest back, filled with challenges, discoveries, and the unbreakable spirit of humanity…

This is how the journey begins for the characters. To start, the player is required to select four crew members from a diverse pool of ten, along with a ship and a landing shuttle. While it seems wise to think ahead about the upcoming voyage, during the first run, it’s quite unclear what each choice really means. The game takes its time to explain the significance of the various items that potential spacefarers carry, leaving new players feeling somewhat lost. The ships and shuttles are available in three distinct versions, each boasting unique looks and features. One might be highly maneuverable but less sturdy, while another offers greater durability at the cost of agility, and the last presents a perfectly balanced option. All that remains is to enter a “seed” (a string of symbols commonly used for procedural generation)—and then it’s off to explore the vastness of the stars!

It’s time to go home

Returning to Earth is no easy task. It’s all clear just by looking at the navigation chart. The path home runs through many galaxies, and obtaining fuel for hyperspace jumps is associated with a number of serious difficulties. There are few options for replenishing supplies: you can take a risk by flying close to the stars – but intense radiation can damage the ship’s hull. An alternative is to collect fuel by exploring planets and moons encountered along the route. Each method has its own risks and potential benefits. The landing shuttle plays no less a role than the main ship. It requires not only regular refueling, but also maintenance.

The gameplay in The Long Journey Home is built on survival and the constant search for resources. The main task is to find fuel for the hyperdrive to move between systems, while collecting everything necessary to repair equipment and heal crew members. This endless period of learning, making decisions and fighting for life makes each new journey both tense and exciting. In order for the mission to be successful, the player will have to repeat these actions more than once, stability to new conditions. Absolutely—what we have here is yet another manifestation of that notorious “resource grind” that has become so “popular” in the infamous No Man’s Sky.

Initially, it seems like the trek home will be filled with thrilling adventures and unexpected encounters. Not quite. Sure, we’ll meet various aliens, face random events during our flights, and land on a multitude of fascinating planets, but we can’t escape the relentless cycle of gathering resources simply to acquire even more resources. This endless loop becomes necessary if we want to inch our way closer to our ultimate goal, making the journey feel less like an adventure and more like a chore.

The gameplay primarily features arcade-style flying: in the vastness of space, you navigate your ship, while during landings on planets, you take control of a landing shuttle. The controls are incredibly straightforward, yet they can feel awkward, especially for newcomers. If you have the option, using a gamepad is highly recommended—keyboard and mouse definitely fall short in this regard. To encounter any object in the expanse of space, whether it’s a planet, moon, star, or even another spacecraft, you must carefully align your orbit with that of the target. This task is no easy feat, especially considering the intricate physics simulation at play in this environment. Mastering it requires practice and patience, as the nuances of movement and gravitational forces can be quite challenging to navigate.

It seems logical at first glance, but until you truly adapt to the complexities, you might find yourself crashing into the surface of a planet or even a star more than once. The consequences of such impacts can be devastating, ranging from equipment failures that disrupt operations to injuries or, in the worst-case scenario, the loss of crew members who rely on their craft for survival. During planetary landings, the situation doesn’t improve significantly—shuttles are maneuvered exclusively by adjusting the thrust of the main or nose engines and tilting the entire craft. It appears that designing engines capable of facilitating horizontal travel has become an overwhelming challenge for engineers in the future. This predicament strongly resembles the classic arcade game Lunar Lander, which has now celebrated over 40 years since its initial release, highlighting the ongoing struggle to master the art of space travel.

Landing a shuttle in one of the designated areas of interest on the planet’s surface can be a challenging task, even for experienced spacecraft operators. Each celestial body has its own unique set of gravitational characteristics and climate conditions, which, without changes, affect the behavior of the landing module during descent and entry into the sphere. After reaching the target point, the crew will have to make a number of vital choices. Depending on the specifics of the location, it is possible to begin drilling operations to extract important materials or to begin ground reconnaissance in search of artifacts that can provide an additional advantage during the mission. But such activity is associated with certain risks – any action on the surface can threaten the safety of the crew. It is important that the term “research” is deliberately put in quotation marks: it indicates the need for a difficult decision – whether to continue the journey forward or to go back.

At times, everything concludes in disappointment, and you often find yourself returning empty-handed, pondering what went wrong. Yet occasionally, you succeed in acquiring something truly worthwhile—be it a simple medkit or a mysterious artifact whose purpose remains unclear. This journey is filled with unexpected encounters with various alien species, trading opportunities, intense space skirmishes, and resource extraction from distant asteroids. However, the majority of your time is spent at the controls of the landing module, navigating the vastness of space. You gather essential fuel, perform crucial repairs, and jump to a neighboring star system, hoping for better luck. Along the way, you find materials to fix your equipment and engage in brief conversations with representatives from different alien races (the dialogues, like everything else in the game, are quite simplistic and lack depth). After gathering more fuel and making necessary repairs, you prepare for the next leg of your journey, hoping for a more fruitful outcome.

After a few hours, you begin to lose sight of why you’re doing this at all. Earth feels as distant as a dream, and the journey is so repetitive and monotonous that when the last crew member perishes, you can’t help but feel an odd sense of relief—at least this “long trek home” has finally reached its bittersweet conclusion.

Mining resources from asteroids is an incredibly tedious task, often draining the spirit, but sometimes it’s simply unavoidable, a necessary part of survival in the vastness of space.

The non-obvious is probable

Daedalic Entertainment genuinely had the potential to develop an outstanding game that would deserve all the praise highlighted in its Steam description. However, as it currently stands, The Long Journey Home feels like just another “mobile port.” This is quite frustrating, especially since it isn’t a port at all; it has been specifically designed for modern consoles and PC. Yet, it unfortunately displays all the common issues associated with ported titles, making it hard to overlook the flaws that detract from the overall experience.

Although the awkward controls can be gotten used to over time, the path to mastering them is often perceived as an element of a kind of “hardcore” aesthetic. But the complexity of the gameplay is one thing, and a bad interface is quite another. Huge and non-functional buttons, unclear descriptions, chaotic arrangement of elements – all this turns even the simplest actions into an exhausting quest. Some options are hidden so unintuitively that the user gets lost, not understanding how to get to them. For example, accidentally clicking on the name of a module in the ship menu is enough – and it will be immediately deleted, without confirmation, without the possibility of recovery. The game does not offer even the slightest warning about the irreversibility of the action, which becomes a serious blow for beginners who are just beginning to understand the game systems. To understand how useful this or that piece of equipment is, you have to go through a series of trials, errors and guesses.

However, the menu structure leaves much to be desired: the necessary information is often buried under layers of confusing navigation. Players have to spend more time fighting with the interface than playing the game itself, which greatly reduces the pleasure of the process. The lack of logic and intuitiveness in the design makes you wonder – did the developers even think about the users?

Everything that doesn’t involve shuttle flights feels like an unfinished concept that requires extensive refinement and creative input. Interactions with other species, whether through intense combat in the vastness of space or relaxed, casual dialogue, come across as rather basic and might only captivate players through a clever presentation of quirky alien banter or amusing cultural misunderstandings. Trading and quests do exist, but it’s evident that the trading system lacks proper balance — almost every transaction yields no real advantage, leaving players feeling unsatisfied. Meanwhile, the challenges of the missions significantly outweigh any possible rewards, making them seem hardly worth the effort. It proves far simpler and more rewarding to search for resources on various planets, make necessary repairs, and then jump to the next system to continue the cycle of resource gathering… you catch my drift, right?

Conclusion

The developers really deserve credit for taking constructive criticism and responding to it promptly. They released an update that fixed a number of technical flaws, and also introduced a new mode aimed at simplifying the gameplay. This inspires hope that such targeted adjustments will be able to change the perception of the project among players who previously found it overly complex or inconvenient. At the same time, it is difficult to argue that The Long Journey Home is anything more than a modern reimagining of the cult Lunar Lander. In fact, it may make sense to pay attention to later iterations of the original idea, which do not have controversial elements that distract from the main process. Despite the updates, the main concept of the game – an arcade simulation of a spaceship landing – has remained virtually unchanged.

Pros:

• nice graphics and music;
• shuttle control in the best traditions of Lunar Lander.

Cons:

• monotony of the gameplay;
• inconvenient interface; balance issues.

The Long Journey Home system requirements

To embark on your adventure in The Long Journey Home, you’ll need at least 4 GB of RAM and a minimum of 16 GB of available disk space. While a GeForce GTX 650 serves as the baseline for graphics performance, the developers highly recommend upgrading to a Radeon R9 380 for a much richer and more immersive experience. Regarding the processor, the minimum requirement is a Pentium Extreme Edition 955, but if you’re looking to elevate your settings and enjoy a noticeably smoother gameplay experience, opting for an A6-5400K or a better processor is the way to go.

How to play The Long Journey Home for free on Steam via VpeSports

Want to lead a crew of a lost spaceship, explore mysterious systems, make contact with alien civilizations and fight to return home through a hostile galaxy? Great news: now you can play The Long Journey Home absolutely free! No pirated copies, viruses or suspicious sites – only deep gameplay, science fiction and a real feeling of loneliness in the Universe.

The VpeSports website offers the opportunity to get access to a Free Steam Account with The Long Journey Home – and it really works. It’s simple: go through a quick registration, go to the free Steam games section and find The Long Journey Home in the list. Then – the “Download” button and step-by-step instructions.

If the game captivates you (and it does – thanks to a combination of roguelike, survival and a non-linear plot), do not forget to leave a review. This will help others make a decision, and you will get a bonus – after moderating the comment, you will receive a login and password by email. Didn’t work the first time? Try changing the text a little according to the hint and send again.

To stay up to date with all the new distributions and maintain access to all the games, subscribe to our Telegram channel and visit the chat. There they discuss routes, give advice on negotiations with races and share finds. A detailed guide to the system is already on the website – don’t miss the chance to start your great return home!