Bethesda has published a blog post detailing the new Survival Mode for Fallout 4 players. In Survival Mode you will have to forego niceties such as quicksaves, autosaves and fast travel, and cope with the very real threats of exhaustion, hunger and thirst. Additionally you will both deal and take more damage in combat, with hindrances such as longer healing times and crippled limbs requiring extra attention. If the idea of this tough mode of gameplay appeals then you will be happy to know you can go and test it out yourself via the beta test you can grab via Steam.
The idea behind Survival Mode is to make players take tough choices, says Bethesda. It spells out the four pillars of Survival Mode as follows:
- Strategy: Intensify decisions involving when to get into combat versus when to avoid it, and also make you think more about what gear to take into combat. Then back up those decisions with faster, more brutal fights.
- Exploration: Slow down the pace of the game and encourage players to explore the nooks and crannies of the world.
- Resource Management: Balance out items in the world that may be too easy to acquire or horde, giving players more to consider when planning their current loadout.
- Role Playing: Increase the realism of the world and the issues one might face there.
The way the above bullet points are implemented are in the gameplay tweaks outlined in the introduction. In Survival Mode saving is done through sleep. To save your game, you'll need to find a bed and sleep for at least an hour. This takes away a lot of player chancery and you will now likely carefully consider fights with extra scouting and information gathering before committing. The quality of the beds (both for game saving and recuparative sleep) you can find in the gaming world will grow in importance as will medicine, weights carried, injuries, and so on.
With fast travel gone you will be exploring more, with workshop placement encouraging you to move from your familiar wasteland stomping grounds. Increased lethality is another factor that will make you really pick and choose your battles. You will have to learn good block and parry techniques to make the most of your chances in Survival Mode.
Your wellness is an important factor, and in Survival Mode there seems to be more things than ever that can drain and damage you. However Bethesda has added a standard Perk of adrenaline in Survival Mode. This balances against Fatigue which is a factor related to tiredness, hunger and thirst. There is certainly a lot of depth in devising a successful strategy for players of Survival Mode to enjoy.
As mentioned in the intro, the Fallout 4 1.5 Survival Beta is now open and available for testing. You can access it by logging into Steam, right clicking on Fallout 4 in your games library, selecting settings, selecting betas and opting in to the Survival Beta Update. The update will arrive on consoles sometime next month.
