Discrete, not a part of the storyline campaign.
Correct, but they do use the storyline content for scoring modes and timed runs. But, yes, these all stand apart from the story mode proper.
-Tom
This has had its free Survival release today, with lots of new options for those who want a more hardcore / realistic experience. I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet, and probably wont this weekend either, but thankfully I have next friday off!
So do the sabertooth cats maul you and rip your throat out now instead of magically becoming domesticated when you give them some meat, walk up to them and say “shhh?” ;-)
Some of them has to be wounded in combat before they submit to you now (In survival mode, that is) - also, if it dies, its dead.
Nice!
I have been waiting for this to land before I started playing. I prefer my Far Crys as difficult as possible.
-Todd
Then you should have said that!
As the sun was lazily climbing the mountainous treetops, I strode cautiously down the valley, towards the winding river where the Green Leaves was to be found. I had to, or the woman would die, and she would also show me how to make a healing poultice from the leaves.
I started down the path, enjoying the brilliant sunshine, and the tall, swaying grass, when a sudden yelling ahead of me caused me to drop low. An Udam warrior stood over a corpse, clubbing it repeatedly. I stalked close, and killed him silently.
Enjoying my first victory in the valley, I started searching him for loot, when a high-pitched feline growl startled me. I looked up, knowing if I didn’t find its owner soon, I would be dead. seconds later, a streak of lightning in the form a large cat streaked past me, and jumped my back. Seconds later, I fell over, unconscious.
Fortunately, something most have spooked the cat, because I came too a little later, resuming my quest for the Green Leaves. I quickly found two, all the while scanning nervously around me for more surprises like the cat, and soon came upon no less than three Uldam warriors. This was going to get tricky!
Sneaking closer, I drew a bead on the first warrior, shooting him twice, dropping him dead instantly. The others reacted far quicker than I liked, and one charged me, head low, while the other circled around me, firing deadly arrows all the while.
Frantically switching to me club, I clumsily bashed in the charging warriors head - I got him quickly, but not before I was hit by an arrow, almost instantly killing me. I started weaving from side to side, advancing as fast as I could while dodging arrows, clinging to life by a thread, the world gone red around me, and managed to get close enough to kill the third, and final warrior.
Resting a bit, and getting my head in order a bit again, I gathered up whatever loot they had dropped, and the final Green Leaves. By now, I was getting rather tired, but thankfully it was a short road back to the camp.
I strode happily as fast as I could back towards the camp, running up a small hill, and bursting upon another two warriors standing over a dead goat. I quickly dropped one with my bow again, running out of arrows. Cursing, I drew my club, and rushed the remaining warrior. As I got closer, something hit me, and the world swam red, and I almost died. I clubbed the warrior in, and bravely ran away, back down the hill, towards safety, where I could get my breath back.
Hiding behind a tree, I waited a bit until the red tinge of the world receeded, and charged back up, knowing full well I could die if even ONE arrow hit me.
Where was he? I couldnt see him! THERE! Hiding to my left, in the bushes, he almost had me I noticed, as the arrow swished past my head, barely missing me. Moments later, he lay dead at my feet, and I rushed back the final few hundred yards and give the poor woman the Green Leaves, saving her life. In return, she taught me how to heal myself in battle, getting a precious few more seconds of life to win the battle.
The above was my initial experience with Survivor Mode, the first harrowing 20 minutes of gameplay with no minimap, permadeath, Expert difficulty, less room in my backpack, and far, far deadlier.
Normally, this would somewhat dull, an intro to how to use healing and club in a few heads on the way. This way , it was an intense life and death struggle for me, every single second.
It was incredibly intense, and far more fun. Survivor mode has the added enhancement of less roaming wildlife, making it more meaningful. I must admit, even though I play with Permadeath Second Chance, meaning once in a while, when I get far enough in the far, the game grants me ONE extra life. I don
t like the possibility of losing due to not knowing the games mechanic, and this option has saved me twice already (The Cheetah attack and one other time), but there is quite far between the grating of the life.
Anyways - I REALLY enjoy the game like this, even though playing on expert means its rather deadly. Thankfully, the enemies arent bul…eh, arrow-sponges either, but die quickly, realistically.
Basically, thats the word you can use about this experience - a lot more realistic, and I cannot recommend it enough!
Great to hear. This is just what I was hoping for and can’t wait to start with the new Survival options.
-Todd
Dammit - After 6 glorious hours, I ended my caveman live, ironically, in a cave, where a pack of wild wolves was too much for both me and my (ironically) Cave Lion.
Im a bit leery on starting a third permadeath run. This is the farthest Ive come in the game, so there may be ugly surprises for me along the way, boss fights and the like, but who can play without the thrill of death looming, once youve tried it? Sneaking becomes so much mandatory, and I forgot, and rushed into the damn cave.
Probably similar to what gets most players. Start out super vigilant while slowly making way through the he world. Then after awhile your internal gamer mindset starts to come back where death just usually means going back to the checkpoint. Then the one mistake happens and it’s like…“fuck!”
Having a good time with this. Reminds me a little of Mad Max in that it’s a relatively homogeneous setting and a limited set of gameplay systems, but that just seems like intelligent focus so far. Took me a while to winnow the HUD down to the essentials, but that aspect works well too. I’d like to go back and see how my village is using all these new recruits but it’s bloody miles away :/
Not sure if this is considered spamming or shameless self-promotion (if so, I do apologize), but I really enjoyed Far Cry Primal and wrote a series of blog posts on my personal website in March. I also attended a meeting on Far Cry Primal by a research group at Leiden University that was interesting (you can find it on the linked page, I think).
As an archaeologist, I look at Far Cry Primal not just as a game, but also as something that could perhaps be used as an educational tool, despite the many errors. If nothing else, games like this might help in furthering interest in a topic that most people probably don’t think about very often.
Anyway, perhaps you’ll find the blog posts of interest.
Hey, thanks for that. The VALUE article was especially interesting to read.
I enjoyed those article, Joshob as well - thanks for linking to them.
Can’t believe how good this setting looks. A real achievement, especially once you’re out of the red clay starting areas.
Aye - Im on my 4th Survival permadeath try, and really enjoying it. I do have one major issue though - sometimes, my hardwon animals just disappear. I, through incredible luck, got a Sabertooth tiger early on. After going down to help the warrior to join my village, it was just gone. Not dead, or anything - just poof vanished. I think it has to do with pathfinding. If the animal is stuck somehow, it just vanishes. In survival mode though, this means that the animal is dead, and gone, which is rather horrifying. Especially with the unique animals I imagine.
Ha. I didn’t try survival mode, just turned off as much HUD as possible and avoided fast travel.
I wonder if there’ll be another FC. Not sure I’m up for another permutation of the formula. It’s my own fault. I don’t have to play every single Ubi game. But I do :)
I ended up getting this and took a first try on survival mode with second chance enabled. I didn’t make it too far (returning from green leaves collection).
I like what survival mode does and it definitely adds to the experience of not just rushing around. I’m not sure how I feel about perma death though. Again, I like the tension but it seems like it is too easy to just get blindsided by a roaming wolf from behind. The world is pretty cool, but like other Far Crys I don’t think the overall play would keep me invested for a huge amount of time. If I have to replay the same beginning content over and over I may go nuts, but I do like having consequences - catch 22 I guess.
Its the sneaking animals, you have to be careful off. Oh, and bears. Screw bears! One way to handle that kind of animals though, is to use fire arrows. You haven’t till you hit a charging bear with a fire arrow during night time, and then having it scream and take off, like a nightmare beast from hell, flaming and roaring and setting the entire forest on fire at the same time…so much fun, and since fire hurts, so damn scary!