Fallout 4, when released, had a pretty lackluster Survival Mode, which was meant to be the toughest difficulty in the game. Fans were sure to let Bethesda know about it and wouldn’t you know, like the great developers they are, they vowed to revamp the setting completely, to give it a much better feel. They released the beta recently and man, they NAILED it!
The new survival mode has MANY features that make the game much, much more difficult than it originally was. I’ll get to them in a second, but first I want to say that I’ve personally started a playthrough of the new mode, which you can watch here, and from my personal experience, it’s made the game completely fresh for me.
Some of the new features are things borrowed from Fallout: New Vegas’s Hardcore Mode, others are things I honestly never thought I’d see Bethesda implement, for example, no fast traveling or saving without a bed. Let’s take a look at most of the new features:
- Saving will only be done after sleeping. No more pausing to save, nor will loading screen transitions provide autosaves.
- No more fast travel. Yep. None.
- Enemies now do more damage to you, but you also do more damage to them. This comes as a very welcome change to prevent spongy enemies and increase difficulty at the same time.
- Enemies no longer show up on your compass, unless marked with a recon scope.
- Adrenaline is a new perk given by default that goes up in rank (max 10) for every 5 kills you get. Every rank gives you 5% bonus damage (max 50%). Sleeping removes 2 ranks of adrenaline per hour slept.
- Wellness – Exhaustion, Hunger, and Thirst now play a big part. Eating and staying hydrated, while also maintaining a proper sleeping schedule will be critical.
- Bed types are important. Sleep in your nice bed back at Sanctuary (or any settlement/hotel) and you’ll gain a bonus to stats. Sleep in a sleeping bag in the middle of the wasteland, and you’ll just get a nice save point. You’ll still be tired.
- Sickness and curing sicknesses is also critical now. Get bit by a molerat, swiped by a ghoul, or stung by a mosquito, and you have the chance of developing a sickness, which you’ll need to take care of. Those are some examples, there’s many more creatures you need to worry about.
- Rad-X and Radaway are no longer things you should just take at any time. They have status defects that punish you for using them. Same goes for all stat increasing drugs as well.
- Slower healing is ever-present in the new mode, affecting things like stimpaks and food.
- Crippled limbs now need to be directly taken care of.
- Carry weight is going to be a pain to manage. Your overall carry weight has been reduced, along with the addition of weight by ammo, stimpaks, and other things.
- Companions now require you to get them up with a stimpak instead of getting up themselves. If you decide to leave them, they won’t be happy. With the Automatron DLC installed, be sure to regularly use Robot Repair Kits on your new robotic companions as well.
- Enemies and loot no longer respawn nearly as fast as they once did. It takes quite a bit of time now, so resources are more scarce.
Surprisingly, the list goes on from there. These are just some of the more important changes. Bethesda has clearly put a lot into making sure you’re challenged in Fallout 4 from now on, and I honestly don’t see a point in ever going back. The damage increase for both you and enemies is very welcome, as it adds realism to the game.
Gone are the days of incredibly spongy foes and you taking on an entire army by yourself. It makes you think more and calculate every fight before hand.
As mentioned before, I’ve started a playthrough if you’re interested to see the mode in action. Might like what you see. Check it out:
