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Posted October 30, 2019 by Peter in News
 
 

Remnant: From the Ashes looking forward to killing us in hardcore mode update

Remnant From the Ashes logo
Remnant From the Ashes logo

If you like third person shooters, it’s been a good year. After yesterday’s announcement of better-than-expect shooter World War Z getting more content, there is now news that tomorrow is Remnant: From the Ashes turn.

Remnant was very much a high concept game, describable at the simplest level as “like Dark Souls, with guns!”. But the shooting is satisfying, the difficulty makes surviving feel like victory, and the multiplayer – once they worked out balancing issues at launch – leaves players feeling like they’re allies rather than rivals. As well as healing and reviving, loot is common to everyone – one player loots, everyone gets… for a game built around finding gear and upgrading it, it provides a rewarding loop.

Remnant From the Ashes screenHardcore mode is described pretty much as you’d expect it to be – one life to make it through the game. And Remnant - in the early stages before you’ve geared up, at least – can be pretty challenging, so this is no small task. Sure, with experience you learn when to fight, when to run, when to heal, when to dodge… but victory isn’t assured.

However, there is a reward for this beyond just masochism. As explained, defeating the world bosses (the usual source of improved skills and weapons) will provide “new rings with powerful effects”, which will also act as a legacy mode – once unlocked, these new rings are promised to be available to all characters on that account, softcore or hardcore, meaning your doomed hardcore hero getting pasted still paves the way for a more prepared successor.

As someone who has played Diablo 3 exclusively in hardcore since I discovered the satisfaction in overcoming the risk, but also someone who’s first successful takedown of the Ent boss in Remnant was so tense I needed to step away and calm down afterwards… who am I kidding? Remnant is probably my favourite game released this year, and I cannot look at this hardcore mode as anything other than a challenge. The promise of new loot is merely the icing on top.

Yeah, I’m going to die. A lot.

Remnant: From the Ashes is due to release the patch including the hardcore game mode tomorrow.


Peter

 
Peter can be described as an old, hairy gamer, a survivor of the console wars of the 1990s, and a part-time MMO addict. He has an especial fondness for retro gaming and observing the progressions in long running gaming series. When scandalously not caught gaming, he can also be found reading comics and fantasy fiction, or practising terrible photography.