Today’s ‘Fallout 4’ Survival Mode Update Continues To Increase The Difficulty

The entire point behind Fallout 4‘s survival mode overhaul, which is currently undergoing testing on Steam, is to offer players a more challenging experience inside the newest entry of the popular post-apocalyptic series. When the PC beta for the survival changes launched last week, Fallout 4 fans got their first glimpse of exactly how hard the ruins of Boston would become with the proposed tweaks.

The overhauled mechanics of survival mode already made Fallout 4 a much harder game thanks to the removal of plenty of the game’s convenience features like fast travel and the ability to save at any time. The mode also implemented new concerns such as sickness, hunger, and thirst. However, it now looks like the Fallout 4 team is still hoping to make survival mode even harder.

New features and fixes to our #Fallout4 #SurvivalMode Steam Beta. Get details https://t.co/TUqeuFVDnF pic.twitter.com/UolX62OJhe

— BethesdaGameStudios (@BethesdaStudios) April 6, 2016

Just one week following the start of Fallout 4‘s survival mode beta, Bethesda has now released a new update for the PC test that includes several additional changes that will make the overhaul feel even more unforgiving. The developer published a list of patch notes for the beta on their official forums that explain all the changes that were included as part of today’s update.

For the most part, the patch moves to further increase the difficulty of attempting to play Fallout 4‘s survival mode. Players will now find it easier to become ill as the chances to contract a disease has been increased. Fans will also have to sleep more often to remain well rested since the amount of time before a character will become fatigued has been nearly cut in half, leaving players with only a 14-hour cycle before suffering the negative affects of being tired.

One of the new challenges of the survival mode overhaul was to make it so users couldn’t carry as much gear around in Fallout 4 by reducing their total carry weight and giving all items an encumbrance rating, including Stimpaks and ammunition. With today’s update, however, Bethesda decided to lower the amount that characters can carry even more. The update also increases the weight of fusion cores, making it harder to stockpile the rare power cell that is required to operate Fallout 4‘s popular power armor,

This week’s new beta patch for Fallout 4 also fixes a few bugs that have been discovered within the survival update which could cause various status effects related to thirst and hunger to incorrectly trigger. Also, not all of the changes universally made the mode more difficult. For example, it now takes less food and drink to remain nourished.

A few graphical updates were also applied to Fallout 4‘s user interface. The individual icons of a character’s needs will now change color as their status changes. These icons exist for hunger, thirst, sleep, and sickness.

While the survival mode changes are currently being tested on PC, the overhaul will eventually go live on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One once the beta has concluded. Back in February, Bethesda’s Todd Howard told Game Informer that the beta test will give the studio time to make additional changes, such as those applied in today’s update, before the content is pushed live across all platforms.

“Survival mode has a lot of changes that can be pretty dramatic. Once we get it honed where it’s working well enough, we’re going to put it on Steam beta for a while. ‘Here it is. Start playing it. Give us feedback.’ It’s far easier to update and iterate on [PC]. Once we settle on it, then we’ll release it for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. We want to get it up soon on Steam beta. It’s not going to be months and months off. If it’s not really working, and we need to iterate on it, it may stay in beta for a month, depending on what we are changing.”

In addition to the free content updates for Fallout 4 that will bring new features like the survival mode overhaul, the developer is also working on more DLC as well as preparing to launch official mod support for the game. Unlike previous Bethesda titles, Fallout 4 will also give console gamers a chance to enjoy user-crafted mods. Based on information that the development team has shared in the past, the Inquisitr put together a guide on how mods are expected to work on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

Do you intend to try out Fallout 4‘s difficult survival mode once the overhaul goes live?

[Image via Bethesda.Net]