THE LONGING — Steam Gift

THE LONGING: 400 days of solitude underground

THE LONGING is an unusual idle-adventure from the German studio Studio Seufz, released on March 5, 2020. You play as the Shade — a small, lonely creature, the last servant of an ancient king who has fallen asleep in an underground kingdom. Before sleeping, the king gave the Shade just one instruction: wake him in 400 days. And those 400 days are real. The timer ticks in real time, even when the game is closed and your computer is off. Here we sell the full game as a Steam gift that our bot sends to you on Steam.

What kind of game it is

THE LONGING is hard to pin to a single genre. It's a blend of a classic point-and-click adventure and a waiting game. Most of the time you simply live near the king: explore endless dark caves, gather mushrooms and crystals, furnish your little burrow, draw on the walls, and read genuine classic literature from the built-in library. And you wait. The game keeps quietly asking the same question: how do you fill your time when there is so much empty time ahead?

Time as a mechanic

The heart of THE LONGING is that time isn't a backdrop — it's the whole point. You can close the game for weeks and return once the timer has counted down on its own. Or you can speed the wait up: the cozier your home, the faster the hours pass. So every choice — whether to dig a new tunnel, drag home a couch you found, or read a long novel — is a way to cheat or to live through time. The ending depends on how exactly you spent those days.

What's included in the gift

You get the full base game of THE LONGING for Steam — uncut, with all its content. It's the same version sold on the Steam store, with support for Windows, macOS and Linux. The game has no DLC or add-ons — it's a complete, self-contained work, so there's nothing extra to buy.

How we deliver it

Delivery is via a Steam gift. You provide your Steam friend invite link and your account region. Our bot adds itself to your friends, sends the gift, and leaves your friends list once delivery is done — no need to accept anything by hand. Steam Guard is not required. The gift usually arrives a couple of minutes after checkout. You just accept it in Steam and THE LONGING appears in your library.

Important conditions

• Region. Your Steam account region must match the gift region — otherwise Steam won't let you accept it.
• Library. The game must not already be on the account: Steam won't allow a gift for a game you already own.
• Friends. Adding friends must be allowed in your profile settings so the bot can reach you.

Atmosphere and world

The underground kingdom in THE LONGING is hand-drawn in a dark, almost fairy-tale style — glittering crystals, echoing empty halls, dripping water and quiet ambient music that makes the Shade's loneliness feel all the sharper. This isn't a game about danger: there are no enemies, no fail timers and no game-over in the usual sense. Instead there's genuine melancholy, dry humor in the Shade's diary entries, and a wealth of hidden details that only reveal themselves if you take your time. Many players finish the game not for a goal but for the meditative state itself.

What there is to do

Despite the slow pace, there's plenty to do in THE LONGING. You can dig new passages deeper into the caves and stumble on unexpected finds, gather resources and haul furniture home to make your burrow cozier, strike up conversations with the rare creatures you meet underground, and read dozens of real books — from philosophy to adventure novels — right inside the game. Some puzzles only open up over time: a path may become reachable only after many days of real waiting, and that's the whole character of the game.

Platforms and compatibility

The Steam version of THE LONGING officially runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, so it suits owners of any of these systems and runs comfortably even on modest hardware — it's a 2D adventure without heavy graphics. Since you receive a full copy in your Steam library, you can launch it through Steam on different devices, and cloud saves work just like any normally purchased game.

Who will enjoy it

THE LONGING is for those who love slow, atmospheric and slightly sad games where mood matters more than action. If contemplative indie adventures are your thing, take a look at INSIDE and GRIS — equally quiet stories about solitude and a journey. And anyone who loves heartfelt tales of care and parting will appreciate Spiritfarer. And if you're unsure whether it's your kind of game, THE LONGING is built so that you can only get a feel for it slowly — and that's exactly what makes it unlike anything else in your library.