Ubisoft is no one-trick pony. Despite the resounding sucess of its recently released "The Division," the developer is hard at work producing new content for another hit that came out just one month before: "Fary Cry Primal."
Come April, "Far Cry Primal" will see a new update that will make the fight for survival in Ubisoft's prehistoric action game far more brutal, with the introducing "Survivor Mode," which among other things, features "permadeath."
Ubisoft revealed the upcoming update in a blog post today, saying that the new mode is the product of community feedback.
"The idea of doing this mode actually started from the team, saying they wanted to create this mode based on feedback they got from the community," says Thomas Simon, "Far Cry Primal's" game director. "The keystone of that survival mode is the change in the exploration, crafting, and difficulty of the game to make it even more realistic. After that, there are options the player can activate to go further."
The key change in survival mode is the introduction "permadeath," meaning that once you die, you're done for good. The only exception to this rule is when you die during vision quests because they're technically not "real." If that seems too intense, players do have the option to turn on a second chance option which grants players a backup life. But even then the option isn't too lenient, as you only get one and it's only restored at specific story completion points.
"We've also decided to make this combo of Survivor and permadeath available at any difficulty level," adds Simon, "so even players that don't necessarily like to play extremely hard difficulty modes can still enjoy the change of experience in Survivor, and also try permadeath if they want to."
Other introductions are similarly brutal. A stamina gauge has been added, making story protagonist Takkar weaker and slower once it runs out, with the only way to replenish it being to go to sleep. This wouldn't prove to be much of a problem in theory but this leads to the next addition: fast travel has been nerfed, now requiring both both food and stamina. Furthermore, there are less animals in the wild meaning less food for your travels, while the minimap has been turned off by default and the fog of war has been strengthened.
This all bleeds into one nasty scenario: imagine running out of stamina in the middle of nowhere and you desperately need to rest. No stamina means no fast travel, which means a weaker Takkar now has to hoof it. But now with no map, you don't even know where to go and you have to wander around in a weakened state until you do. You better pray you don't run into a bear or a sabertooth tiger.
Other nerfs include a greater weakness to cold and slower crafting. The only upside to any of this is that Takkar now has improved Hunter Vision which is a blessing since nights will become "longer, darker and deadlier."
Takkar isn't the only one getting nerfed, however. His stable of feathered and furry friends will also be getting weaker. First off, players can no longer call on their owl to divebomb enemies in their absence. Regular pets won't be able to fulfill this role either, as they've become weaker as well. Ironically, they've also become harder to tame with some of them needing to be reduced to half health before taming them even becomes an option.
However, the most significant change to pets is that they too are susecptible to permadeath. Yes, you can still revive them as many as times as you like, but if you ever miss that window of opportunity to do so then they're done for good. This isn't a big deal for easier animals like wolves or leopards, but you're courting death everytime you try to tame a bear or sabertooth tiger. On the other hand, this isn't even a consideration for legendary creatures like the Bloodfang Sabretooth as there is only one.
The update comes with new Ubisoft Club challenges and those who activate both permadeath and survivor mode on Expert difficulty will receive a special reward once the game is completed.
"Far Cry Primal's" Survivor mode will be available as a free patch for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on April 12, and the PC patch will also add 4K textures to the game.
Check out a video for the update below:
