Surviving in extreme conditions is difficult, to say the very least. You have to take care of yourself, making sure all your needs are optimally provided for. After all, exhaustion invites hunger as your body struggles to keep warm in the cold. But that’s not just what survival is all about. In reality, making do in hostile conditions is a webway of interactions in which every factor plays a pivotal role - you have to watch out for the weather, keep your supplies in mind, factor in the pros and cons of obtaining additional supplies and contrast it against the necessity to take risk compared to ensuing your own prolonged sustenance. In other words, it’s a lot.
First and foremost, your personal needs come in the forefront. Hunger, thirst, exhaustion and heat are what you will concern yourself when making sure your body doesn’t collapse in on itself. Eat, drink and plan sleep while making sure you’re never away from warmth - at least, that’s the assumed ideal. In reality, you will find that sleeping will make you grow hungry, and extreme hunger means less resistance to heat as your body has nothing to burn for fuel. One thing will inevitably pull against the other.
To provide for yourself, you will find the need to expand your worries to the environment. Things are distant from each other, and these require time to reach them. This travel time means being exposed to the elements, causing your heat to diminish. In that time, you will find the day turning slowly into night, and once blue skies clouding up with the coming storm. Again, risk management becomes your bread-and-butter skill. Can you allow yourself a lengthy trek, knowing some signs strongly imply a storm will come at the break of dusk?
Finally, you are not alone. And while these words would steel any heart hearing them, in Winter Survival Simulator, they will instead inspire dread. It’s not humans out there with you, but predators that see an easy picking to feed their bellies full for the evening. Animals will leave tracks and follow behaviour patterns that you can, with time, figure out and memorise. Watch out for signs of a disturbed bear, or rowing packs of wolves about ready to start a hunt. When a howl is joined in by a chorus against the pale moon, you’ll know it’s time to run home.
Every decision has consequences, but every consequence can be predicted given experience. Take your time figuring out the best means of approach to any given situation. Factor in every possibility and every outcome, because means to end your attempt at survival will be abundant and plenty.