I know many of you are planning to play or return to Fallout 4 for the first time when the new update is rolled out (and pushed to the Prime Video series), perhaps you’re killing time in Fallout 76 until it happens. Surely others of you have not been able to endure the wait and have been touring the Commonwealth for a few hours. In any case, I want to remind you how horrible life in the wasteland can be.
Bethesda made many Fallout fans go completely crazy with the release of Fallout 4. Anyone, regardless of their level of involvement, could enjoy everything from a totally relaxed experience to a real challenge during combat, and I’m not even talking about resource management.
Fallout 4 Survival Mode
We had to wait until April 2016 to see the most infamous and terrifying face of Fallout 4: Survival Mode. Calling this a mere Difficulty Level does not honor how much it changes the experience. It is a game mode and I will tell you what you should know before you make the mistake of choosing it for your first game.
The developers of Survival Mode took the four main pillars of Fallout 4 (Strategy, Exploration, Resource Management and Role Playing) and remodeled them to make a much denser and more complicated experience. They took decision-making to the extreme, making it so that even the smallest ones can have a significant impact on the experience.
Save Game, sleep and fatigue
When we say that decisions have been taken to the extreme, it is not an exaggeration to point out the difficulty. We talk about a new reality in Fallout 4. One of the first mechanics we learn in this mode disables almost all save types (manual, quick, and most automatic) and the only safe way to save progress is to sleep in a bed.
Official art from Bethesda
It doesn’t seem like much, but it completely changes the way you play. Furthermore, sleeping becomes a crucial decision with different aspects to take into account: the fatigue system and the effects of bed types. Resting is important to avoid fatigue, but at the same time choosing where to do it is another added problem. Each type allows you to rest more or less (the better the quality) and it goes without saying that it is not advisable to sleep in dirty beds.
Fatigue works like radiation, but affects action points (AP) instead of health points (HP). The more fatigue you accumulate, the less AP you will have for actions such as sprinting and using VATS. The amount of accumulated fatigue is displayed in red on the AP bar.
Fast travel, combat and exploration
Another determining point of Survival Mode Fallout 4 is that there are no fast trips. Exploration becomes almost mandatory, although you will want it due to the infamous scarcity of resources. “I ended up searching every building for water and food, which is something I didn’t worry about in the base game,” said Michael Dulany, the mode’s programmer.
The elimination of fast travel enhances another important factor: confrontations. Learning to choose battles in this mode is perhaps one of the fundamental lessons: they consume resources, life and cause fatigue. The positive part is that we will do much more damage to the enemies, but the negative is that they can destroy us just as easily. Now, more than ever, positioning and skill are key.
Official art from Bethesda
Bethesda introduces Adrenaline for combat, a new effect similar to radiation or fatigue, which increases our damage (up to 50%) as we kill enemies, but causes fatigue and we must lower it by sleeping from time to time.
And to make world exploration and combat a little more complicated, Bethesda has eliminated threat detection on the compass unless we focus on them with the crosshairs. In other words: you have to use your eyes like in games like Metro y S.T.A.L.K.E.R., For example. Finally, locations take longer to regenerate enemies and resources.
Character Wellbeing: Health, Hunger, and Thirst
Keep the character healthy in the normal version of Fallout 4 It can be a real headache, so imagine the madness we find in Survival Mode. The new exhaustion and adrenaline systems are only the tip of the iceberg, since Bethesda adds a huge number of variables so that our character suffers in a thousand different ways. It is no exaggeration to say that each decision determines the state of your health.
Hydration, nutrition and radiation continue to be the three basic pillars for survival. Unlike the normal version, not taking care of them ends up causing a cascade or domino effect in the character that can lead to death from illness, exhaustion and even starvation.
Official art from Bethesda
Going long periods of time without food, water, or a good night’s sleep will begin to negatively affect your health, lowering your SPECIAL stats, increasing your fatigue, lowering your immunity, and eventually even causing you physical damage. […] Some in-game items will now have negative consequences to offset their positive effects. These side effects could make you thirsty, hungry or tired, and even lower your immunity, leaving you vulnerable to disease. – Bethesda official blog
Illnesses were my nemesis during all the games I tried to win in Survival Mode. Fallout 4. Radaways and other objects that cleanse the body of radiation can cause and compromise our body’s immunity, making us more prone to contracting diseases and ailments: parasites, insomnia, apathy, weakness and various infections. Not resting and being poorly fed also lowers defenses.
Added to all this is that we can contract environmental diseases, either from the air of the place itself or from the bugs that manage to hit us. And to finish off the task and finish bothering us in the medical section: stimulants are no longer the definitive cure and healing is much slower, especially they incapacitate our limbs during combat.
Last but not least, the carrying capacity is greatly reduced and most objects have weight. The ammunition stands out, the weight of which depends on the caliber of the projectile. And yes, carrying overload affects both our fatigue and the possibility of suffering damage to our legs, even disabling them. It also applies to companions, so pack mules are no longer valid.
Survival Mode is not exactly the best way to start in Fallout 4, especially without experience in other games in the franchise. Nor do I point out that it is the worst idea. The only advice I can give you in this regard is that you only venture if you are looking for a slow experience that requires your total attention. Otherwise, I would bet on the difficulties of the normal version.
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