http://www.darksiders.com/blog-post/introducing-darksiders-ii-nightmare-mode

For those of you wanting additional challenge, Darksiders II will feature a Hardcore Difficulty which will unlock once you finish the main game. In this mode players have one life and if they lose it via a combat death they lose all saves associated with that playthrough and will have to start from scratch. This is a truly apocalyptic challenge for only the most skilled horsemen!

Keep in mind again that your save file is only reset if you die in combat, so things like falling deaths or getting killed by lava are not things that will reset your gameplay within Nightmare mode.

Interesting. I'm curious if playing through the game multiple times will result in better loot so you could eventually get through this more easily.

On the one hand, death is just a slap on the wrist (no pun intended) in most modern games which isn't helped by several of them being too easy. Even the first Darksiders on Apocalyptic has been pretty easy thus far.

On the other hand, sending someone packing all the way back to the beginning after ten hours of progress sounds like way too much of a punishment. I get it, this is not for someone like me who makes liberal use of save states on emulators, but... really? Dead Space 2 did a similar thing and I've long since decided that I'm not going to do that no matter how much I like the game. That's not so much difficult as it is far too punishing.

If you want to experiment with difficulty, do something like Fallout New Vegas did. You've gotta stay hydrated, ammo has weight, etc., those sorts of things are "hardcore". This just sounds stupidly insane to me.

@believer258 said:

On the one hand, death is just a slap on the wrist (no pun intended) in most modern games which isn't helped by several of them being too easy. Even the first Darksiders on Apocalyptic has been pretty easy thus far.

On the other hand, sending someone packing all the way back to the beginning after ten hours of progress sounds like way too much of a punishment. I get it, this is not for someone like me who makes liberal use of save states on emulators, but... really? Dead Space 2 did a similar thing and I've long since decided that I'm not going to do that no matter how much I like the game. That's not so much difficult as it is far too punishing.

If you want to experiment with difficulty, do something like Fallout New Vegas did. You've gotta stay hydrated, ammo has weight, etc., those sorts of things are "hardcore". This just sounds stupidly insane to me.

Even Deadspace 2 gave you 3 deaths right?

People are still bitching it will be too easy on Facebook.

Wait...

Death can die?

I do not know how to process this information. I need to think about this.

As for the difficulty mode, HOLY SHIT YES!

@Barrock said:

@believer258 said:

On the one hand, death is just a slap on the wrist (no pun intended) in most modern games which isn't helped by several of them being too easy. Even the first Darksiders on Apocalyptic has been pretty easy thus far.

On the other hand, sending someone packing all the way back to the beginning after ten hours of progress sounds like way too much of a punishment. I get it, this is not for someone like me who makes liberal use of save states on emulators, but... really? Dead Space 2 did a similar thing and I've long since decided that I'm not going to do that no matter how much I like the game. That's not so much difficult as it is far too punishing.

If you want to experiment with difficulty, do something like Fallout New Vegas did. You've gotta stay hydrated, ammo has weight, etc., those sorts of things are "hardcore". This just sounds stupidly insane to me.

Even Deadspace 2 gave you 3 deaths right?

People are still bitching it will be too easy on Facebook.

Three saves, actually. You could die as many times as you want and start back at your last save, but you could only have three of those saves. Strangely enough, four if you're on Xbox and you manage to finish the first disc, whereupon it saves as you insert the second disc.

I'm assuming you still have access to the "bottled fairy" consumable item from the first game.

@believer258: are you playing darksiders on Apocalyptic with the abyssal armor?? i hear it makes it a ton easier.

@Barrock said:

@believer258 said:

On the one hand, death is just a slap on the wrist (no pun intended) in most modern games which isn't helped by several of them being too easy. Even the first Darksiders on Apocalyptic has been pretty easy thus far.

On the other hand, sending someone packing all the way back to the beginning after ten hours of progress sounds like way too much of a punishment. I get it, this is not for someone like me who makes liberal use of save states on emulators, but... really? Dead Space 2 did a similar thing and I've long since decided that I'm not going to do that no matter how much I like the game. That's not so much difficult as it is far too punishing.

If you want to experiment with difficulty, do something like Fallout New Vegas did. You've gotta stay hydrated, ammo has weight, etc., those sorts of things are "hardcore". This just sounds stupidly insane to me.

Even Deadspace 2 gave you 3 deaths right?

People are still bitching it will be too easy on Facebook.

Plus Dead Space 2 is a relatively short game as well. Darksiders II is of course no doubt going to be significantly longer... but maybe with the added focus on side stuff and other such RPG trappings, sticking strictly to the critical path could considerably cut down the overall length. Can you also play this mode via NG+ I wonder, or do you start from scratch? I'm also curious to find out whether ''Nightmare'' is just, say, normal mode but with the added handicap of you losing your progress should you die in combat, or it's also the hardest difficulty setting regardless.

So I can forget about S-ranking this game, then? Because I'm guessing there's an achievement associated with this difficulty.

@jakob187 said:

Wait...

Death can die?

I do not know how to process this information. I need to think about this.

As for the difficulty mode, HOLY SHIT YES!

Death can die, War can be peaceful, Famine loves pizza and Pestilence is a hypochondriac.

That's insane, probably nothing I would ever attempt, but it's cool that it's there...don't let me down youtube!

This makes me all kinds of happy. Hardcore mode should be in more games.

@believer258 said:

On the one hand, death is just a slap on the wrist (no pun intended) in most modern games which isn't helped by several of them being too easy. Even the first Darksiders on Apocalyptic has been pretty easy thus far.

On the other hand, sending someone packing all the way back to the beginning after ten hours of progress sounds like way too much of a punishment. I get it, this is not for someone like me who makes liberal use of save states on emulators, but... really? Dead Space 2 did a similar thing and I've long since decided that I'm not going to do that no matter how much I like the game. That's not so much difficult as it is far too punishing.

If you want to experiment with difficulty, do something like Fallout New Vegas did. You've gotta stay hydrated, ammo has weight, etc., those sorts of things are "hardcore". This just sounds stupidly insane to me.

The thing with that kind of mentality though is you're really only limiting the difficulty because you don't want to take the chance. I love games that keep you on edge like that really get your heart-beating with every intense moment. I can see why it's a deterrent for many, but that is like saying "let's stop easy mode from being easy so that veterans can enjoy it, to."

Not my thing, but it's really cool that it's in there. The idea of making non-combat deaths safe is a really good one, too, because 3D platforming hasn't quite reached the level of precision you'd want, and losing all of your progress because of a missed jump would be awful.

@jakob187 said:

Wait...

Death can die?

I do not know how to process this information. I need to think about this.

As for the difficulty mode, HOLY SHIT YES!

That is not dead which can eternal lie/ And in strange aeons, even death may die.

Calling it! Last boss is either Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth or Azathoth!

people are gonna do this and then the achievement will glitch out calling it now

This sounds brutal in the best way. You don't like it? It's not a requirement but to mee this sounds like a lot of fun.

Sounds crazy! I'm into it.

I probably won't try it though since I basically always exhaust all enjoyment out of these kind of games before I finish them the first time. For this reason I'm also not that into locking certain difficulty levels to after you've completet a full playthrough, unless it's a new game plus sorta thing. In this case can see why they would do that though.

@living4theday258 said:

@believer258: are you playing darksiders on Apocalyptic with the abyssal armor?? i hear it makes it a ton easier.

I just beat DS1 on Apoc without the armor. Honestly, it didn't actually feel any harder until the very last area where even fodder enemies were hitting for an entire life sphere. But the game gives you so many dodging and blocking abilities, it felt like my own fault every time I got hit.

And the end boss is a joke. I literally had more difficulty on the first boss than any of the other bosses in the game. I still thoroughly enjoyed my playthrough, however :)

@Ravenlight said:

@living4theday258 said:

@believer258: are you playing darksiders on Apocalyptic with the abyssal armor?? i hear it makes it a ton easier.

I just beat DS1 on Apoc without the armor. Honestly, it didn't actually feel any harder until the very last area where even fodder enemies were hitting for an entire life sphere. But the game gives you so many dodging and blocking abilities, it felt like my own fault every time I got hit.

And the end boss is a joke. I literally had more difficulty on the first boss than any of the other bosses in the game. I still thoroughly enjoyed my playthrough, however :)

im having a good time with DS1 its just im not finding any lifeshards(the ones i have are from the bosses) I just herd that the abyssal armor makes it easier, and was wondering if it was worth hunting down.

@jakob187 said:

Wait...

Death can die?

I do not know how to process this information. I need to think about this.

As for the difficulty mode, HOLY SHIT YES!

Death can die, War can be peaceful, Famine loves pizza and Pestilence is a hypochondriac.

@Ravenlight said:

@living4theday258 said:

@believer258: are you playing darksiders on Apocalyptic with the abyssal armor?? i hear it makes it a ton easier.

I just beat DS1 on Apoc without the armor. Honestly, it didn't actually feel any harder until the very last area where even fodder enemies were hitting for an entire life sphere. But the game gives you so many dodging and blocking abilities, it felt like my own fault every time I got hit.

And the end boss is a joke. I literally had more difficulty on the first boss than any of the other bosses in the game. I still thoroughly enjoyed my playthrough, however :)

im having a good time with DS1 its just im not finding any lifeshards(the ones i have are from the bosses) I just herd that the abyssal armor makes it easier, and was wondering if it was worth hunting down.

@living4theday258 said:

im having a good time with DS1 its just im not finding any lifeshards(the ones i have are from the bosses) I just herd that the abyssal armor makes it easier, and was wondering if it was worth hunting down.

By the time you're able to collect the final piece, you're so close to the end of the game it really doesn't matter too much. I made liberal use of the Stoneskin ability paired with one of the passives that regens chaos/wrath/whatever the yellow bar is called. Even at level 1, Stoneskin does a great job of reducing incoming damage and you can turn it on and off even in the middle of attacks to conserve your juice.

That said, there's no real reason not to hunt down the armor pieces. You get an achievement for it, after all.

@Voxel said:

@living4theday258

@Ravenlight said:

@living4theday258 said:

@believer258: are you playing darksiders on Apocalyptic with the abyssal armor?? i hear it makes it a ton easier.

I just beat DS1 on Apoc without the armor. Honestly, it didn't actually feel any harder until the very last area where even fodder enemies were hitting for an entire life sphere. But the game gives you so many dodging and blocking abilities, it felt like my own fault every time I got hit.

And the end boss is a joke. I literally had more difficulty on the first boss than any of the other bosses in the game. I still thoroughly enjoyed my playthrough, however :)

im having a good time with DS1 its just im not finding any lifeshards(the ones i have are from the bosses) I just herd that the abyssal armor makes it easier, and was wondering if it was worth hunting down.

I completed the game on Apocalyptic with the Abyssal Armor. The amount of damage resistance it gives you basically makes the experience the same as Normal difficulty. I didn't die a single time.

The game isn't really easy because of damage resistance; it feels easy because I hardly ever actually get hit at all. Maybe it's because as far as fighting styles go I prioritize defense most of the time, meaning I dash away at the slightest hint of a counter of any sort, but the game feels easy.

Still a great game, and maybe it really is easy because I'm playing on Apocalyptic with the Abyssal armor.

I wish games that impliment these things gave more of a smoother jump between these and normal difficulties. Why not have a difficulty above the normal hard but below the one-life difficulty which punishes you when you die in others ways (like everytime you die your max health is halved like when you get cursed in Dark Souls)? And what about going even further and making a more skilled-based game where every hit is instant death for you and for enemies. So that there is some kind of tension between knowing "if I get hit once then I am dead" fighting against "if I only hit him once he's dead".

There are much better ways of creating tension than simply limiting lives and it is sort of a large generalisation to think that people who don't think your hard difficulty is hard enough must obviously want one with a one-life counter.

I like how these things are being included in games and props to them for giving the option for it and hopefully it makes some people really happy and they enjoy it; I just wish games stopped doing massive jumps in difficulty between the second highest difficulty and their hardest ones.

@mak_wikus said:

So I can forget about S-ranking this game, then? Because I'm guessing there's an achievement associated with this difficulty.

For sure.

This will actually be a challenge, which is always welcome. Any word on a New Game+ mode? And if it's there, does the stuff carry onto a Nightmare playthrough?

@mak_wikus said:

So I can forget about S-ranking this game, then? Because I'm guessing there's an achievement associated with this difficulty.

For sure.

This will actually be a challenge, which is always welcome. Any word on a New Game+ mode? And if it's there, does the stuff carry onto a Nightmare playthrough?

@believer258 said:

@Voxel said:

@living4theday258

@Ravenlight said:

@living4theday258 said:

@believer258: are you playing darksiders on Apocalyptic with the abyssal armor?? i hear it makes it a ton easier.

I just beat DS1 on Apoc without the armor. Honestly, it didn't actually feel any harder until the very last area where even fodder enemies were hitting for an entire life sphere. But the game gives you so many dodging and blocking abilities, it felt like my own fault every time I got hit.

And the end boss is a joke. I literally had more difficulty on the first boss than any of the other bosses in the game. I still thoroughly enjoyed my playthrough, however :)

im having a good time with DS1 its just im not finding any lifeshards(the ones i have are from the bosses) I just herd that the abyssal armor makes it easier, and was wondering if it was worth hunting down.

I completed the game on Apocalyptic with the Abyssal Armor. The amount of damage resistance it gives you basically makes the experience the same as Normal difficulty. I didn't die a single time.

The game isn't really easy because of damage resistance; it feels easy because I hardly ever actually get hit at all. Maybe it's because as far as fighting styles go I prioritize defense most of the time, meaning I dash away at the slightest hint of a counter of any sort, but the game feels easy.

Still a great game, and maybe it really is easy because I'm playing on Apocalyptic with the Abyssal armor.

I started the game straight from the Apocalyptic difficulty and even then I thought the game was a bit on the easy side. I was more frustrated with the annoying abundance of portal puzzles nearing the end more than anything to do with the combat. But yeah, great game regardless.

I'm thinking about buying the ps3 version just as an excuse to play through it again, and to also snag me those Darksiders II bonuses since I'm getting that on the ps3 as well.

So it's basically Hardcore mode from Diablo. Great, I'm all for it.

For the love of god, don't put an achievement on this! Or at least make it managable. Or just put cliffs everywhere that you can jump off of.

@Yummylee: theres a bonus in DS2 for having beat DS1 on the same console? I must get DS1 on ps3 as i play it on my bro's 360

@jakob187 said:

Wait...

Death can die?

I do not know how to process this information. I need to think about this.

As for the difficulty mode, HOLY SHIT YES!

That is not dead which can eternal lie/ And in strange aeons, even death may die.

Calling it! Last boss is either Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth or Azathoth!

@Svenzon said:

@Undeadpool

@jakob187 said:

Wait...

Death can die?

I do not know how to process this information. I need to think about this.

As for the difficulty mode, HOLY SHIT YES!

That is not dead which can eternal lie/ And in strange aeons, even death may die.

Calling it! Last boss is either Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth or Azathoth!

They should just call it Strange Aeons Mode. Or Lovely Crafted Mode?

Achievement Unlocked: Strange Aeons, Indeed

I love that this exists! I will never, ever play it on this difficulty though because I am not crazy!

The likelihood that I'll play this mode depends solely on if I'm able to bring through a leveled-up NG+ Death. I almost hope there isn't an achievement, but I find it impossible that they wouldn't put one in for it. I know I'll want to platinum this game, but if I can't bring in a suped up Death, then I may just have to abandon that hope.