Update log
Full Far Cry® 2 update
The complete published notes, normalized for clean reading and source attribution.
Extracted changes
- Gameplay
- Events
I love permadeath in games. (Also in reality, too, I guess, but one thing at a time.) Permadeath imbues every decision with consequence. It makes every HP loss a terrifying proposition. It can turn some games into dramatic, terrifying, exhilarating adventures. It can lead to soul-crushing defeat, or fist-pumping jubilation. It’s why XCOM, Spelunky, and Invisible, Inc. are three of my favorite games of all time.
There are many other games that don't use capital-P Permadeath as a core aspect of their design but still manage to create immensely satisfying experiences when played with self-imposed permadeath rules (and maybe a few other restrictions).
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
Self-imposed restrictions: Minimal upgrades. You can only purchase Execution, Impact, Strike from Above, Poison, Brutalize, Detonate, and Wraith Stun.
Shadow of Mordor is a fantastic game by any stretch, but at a certain point—say, about five or six hours in—you become an unstoppable juggernaut. The orc captains who once terrorized you no longer pose much of a problem. You check out their strengths and weaknesses more out of blind curiosity than strategic necessity.
As fun as the game is after you’ve reached this point, I missed that sense of disempowerment and forethought that defined the opening hours.
To that end, I highly recommend you try a permadeath, minimal-upgrades run: Don’t invest in any upgrades beyond the borderline-necessary ones (executing people from stealth, shooting barrels to make them explode) If you die, you have to delete your save file.
Suddenly, it really, really matters if an orc is immune to ranged attacks, because now you have to put yourself in harm’s way to kill him. Suddenly, the question of whether you should brand or kill an orc becomes drastically more difficult: The deadlier an orc is, the more you’ll want to recruit him, but recruiting him will be drastically more dangerous than killing him.
And you know those moments where you’re about to stealth kill an orc captain, only to be ambushed by a vengeful orc you thought you’d killed? Those bits are a hundred times more terrifying in a permadeath scenario.
Prey
Difficulty: Nightmare
Game options: Activate all “survival mode” options: weapon degradation, traumas, and oxygen scarcity.
Self-imposed restrictions: Don’t buy the slo-mo skill, because it makes things way too easy.
Prey really doesn’t get the credit it deserves. It’s probably the best Spooky Space Station game ever made after System Shock 2, and it’s so nonlinear that it makes permadeath runs an absolute joy.
Succeeding in a Prey permadeath run (on Nightmare difficulty—Normal is too easy, and Hard seems like it can’t be that hard because it’s not Nightmare, but it is that hard, so you’ll get complacent and die in stupid ways) is less about memorizing specific strategies for specific levels and much more about mastering Talos 1 as a whole.
Because the game’s mission objectives are sprinkled throughout the station, and because resources are so devilishly important to your survival, a Prey permadeath run requires you to make constant risk-versus-reward decisions about how you’re going to empower yourself. Do I head to Halden Graves’ office so I can unlock unlimited Neuromod fabrication and jab myself full of skill points? That could be a great plan, but his office is protected by a Nightmare—maybe I should go to Psychotronics first and get the Psychoscope so I can research some more typhon and get a bunch of cool psi
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