Play at an Easier or Nightmarish Difficulty in Alien: Isolation

[roseofbattle]

Play at an Easier or Nightmarish Difficulty in Alien: Isolation

You can take it easy and explore in Alien: Isolation or severely limit your information in new difficulty modes starting now.

An update to Alien: Isolation [http://escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/alien%20isolation] adds two difficulty modes at opposing sides. "Novice" and "Nightmare" will make the game much easier or much harder for any new or returning players.

People who want a truly punishing experience can play the game in "Nightmare" difficulty mode and deal with an even deadlier alien, a hostile environment, and reduced game feedback. Nightmare mode removes the health bar, ammo counter, and flashlight indicator. In addition, the motion tracker is broken, causing a distorted signal and unreliable information. The flamethrower is more realistic; fuel will burn faster, and fuel will be hard to find. Players will find fewer items, and survivors will not drop ammo. The alien will be faster and more adaptive.

If that feels too real for you, the novice mode is accessible to players who struggle in the game. The alien will be less adaptive, slower, and less aware. Other enemies are also weaker, and Ripley can take more hits. Ammo will also be plentiful, so there's less to worry about. Players who would prefer to explore than fight will definitely appreciate this mode.

[gallery=3620]

Creative Assembly and Sega also included two images with a breakdown of the two modes with a cool art style.

Sometimes there are ways to please almost everyone. There's no shame in playing easy modes.

Source: Alien: Isolation (official site) [http://www.alienisolation.com/news/2014/12/09/new-nightmare-and-novice-difficulty-modes]


Permalink

 

[Trishbot]

As someone who loves to explore and just soak in the Aliens atmosphere... this is great news. "Novice" for me, and no regrets!

 

[ritchards]

ObWhine1: It's not the way the game is meant to be played. whine whine

ObWhine2: This took away development time from other extra features. whinge whine

ObWhine3: Anyone who plays in casual mode is a scrub. Elitist whine

Yeah... no.

(And no, I'm not saying anyone is saying this, just that these are the complaints we've come to expect.)

 

[erbkaiser]

Looking forward to a replay on Novice. I missed some logs on my first (Hard) playthrough.

Nightmare I'll save for the next time I want a heart-attack ^_^

 

[Valkrex]

And I finally finished cleaning all of my pants...


Whelp time to buy extra pants for nightmare mode!

 

[The_Darkness]

Nightmare mode really should not be making me cackle with glee... But it is.
Fortunately, I know I'll be screaming in terror soon enough!

 

[tzimize]

I might need to look into this. I got the game in the first week of launch and I'm still cowering under a desk in chapter 2. It's not even a difficulty thing, I'm just a gigantic wuss.

Love the environments though. Everything is gorgeous and cool looking.

haha, this is my problem too. I bought it, and I've not met a living soul yet....and its in my steam library taunting me :|

 

[Opanak]

"There's no shame in playing easy modes." Said no one ever.

 

[Jennifer Valentine]

I loved the game. Hard was pretty hard but manageable. I want to give the nightmare difficulty a spin. They say there won't be any of that Alien shoulder check action when you light him up with the flamethrower. Nope, he just bowls into you and then eats you. Having trouble getting this update on the 360 though... hmmmm

 

[Metalrocks]

half way through now and playing on normal. died several times in the med bay. so far im proceeding well and didnt really stop me from exploring much. but there are some occasions i didnt bother to explore every corner due some scary obstacle. but i sure will give it a go on novice just to explore much more without getting chased away.

 

[Raggedstar]

While part of me is wanting to leap at that novice difficulty, I do feel a certain amount of shame in doing so (despite me being a colossal coward and not playing it after all these weeks. It's collecting dust in my Steam library, haunting me). My big-girl pants seem to require at least easy.

As for nightmare, I say good night to you sir as I NOPE away from that.

 

[FoolKiller]

The only thing to turn me off of nightmare mode is "no ammo dropped by survivors" bullshit. I haven't gotten around to playing it yet, but it sounds like the same garbage that was in The Last of Us. They can shoot all they want at me but I kill them and they give me one bullet. That's not a challenge, that's just a boring grind.

 

[laggyteabag]

Extra options are always nice.

Sure, I guess that "Normal" or "Nightmare" is the way that the game is "meant to be played", but not everybody wants a challenge, and they might just want to breeze through the game and suck up the amazing atmosphere without having to constantly worry about being attacked by the Alien. Good on the devs.

 

[RicoADF]

The only thing to turn me off of nightmare mode is "no ammo dropped by survivors" bullshit. I haven't gotten around to playing it yet, but it sounds like the same garbage that was in The Last of Us. They can shoot all they want at me but I kill them and they give me one bullet. That's not a challenge, that's just a boring grind.

This is a game where your not really meant to be shooting the place up...

 

[The_Darkness]

The only thing to turn me off of nightmare mode is "no ammo dropped by survivors" bullshit. I haven't gotten around to playing it yet, but it sounds like the same garbage that was in The Last of Us. They can shoot all they want at me but I kill them and they give me one bullet. That's not a challenge, that's just a boring grind.

Unrealistic? Yes, it is. On the flip side of the coin, using the gun is a very good way to turn yourself into the Alien's lunch, so you probably won't miss the ammo that much. There's only really one section in the game where shooting is a necessity - and by then, if you've been raiding everything, you'll probably have built up a good ammo supply. The rest of the time, there's probably a better option than firing your gun.