Bethesda has revealed the details for Fallout 4‘s revamped Survival mode, which is now in beta on Steam for PC players to try. In an interesting development twist, Bethesda cited that they took inspiration on how to design the choices a player makes from the Dark Souls series. With this in mind, the major concepts of Survival mode are as follows:

1. 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.
2. Exploration: Slow down the pace of the game and encourage players to explore the nooks and crannies of the world.
3. 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.
4. Role Playing: Increase the realism of the world and the issues one might face there.

Sound familiar to Dark Souls players? With those concepts in mind, the revamp has taken the following shape.

Survival Mode Concepts

• Save at sleep only. All other saving is disabled.
• Fast travel is disabled.
• You deal more damage and take more damage.
• Hostiles no longer show up on your compass, and locations of interest trigger at a much closer distance.
• Adrenaline is a new perk that provides a bonus damage output and is increased by making kills. Every 5 gains a new rank for a max rank of 10 and max damage boost of 50%.
• You must stay hydrated, fed and rested or it will adversely affect your stats, as well as Fatigue which works like radiation except it affects your action points and not your health.

Survival Mode Adjustments

• The type of bed you sleep in limits the length of time you can sleep, which then limits your recovery. The rarer real beds are the best option, if you can find them.
• Illness and antibiotics are an element that must be contended with. Anything can make you sick, but you can craft medicines and be healed by doctors.
• Items that remove radiation now leave you vulnerable to illness.
• Stimpaks and food recover health at a much slower rate.
• Crippled limbs won’t auto heal and must be healed by a stimpak or slept to health.
• Carry weight has been reduced and items like ammo and Stimpaks now have weight.
• Exceeding your encumbrance will now build your Fatigue and will eventually cripple your legs!
• Companions carry weight has been reduced and they will no longer automatically get up after being downed. If ignored they’ll return home.
• Cleared locations will now repopulate at a much slower rate.

Sounds pretty brutal doesn’t it? It’s certainly not the vanilla experience and will challenge the most hardened of wasteland warriors. There’s not a definitive release date for all platforms, but with it in beta, we can expect it soon. How do you feel about the mode? Has it gone too far? Or has it not gone far enough? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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