After almost 900 hours of play time I decided to start a new game in Survival Mode.

The wiki details are pretty sparse (https://nomanssky.fandom.com/wiki/Game_mode#Survival_mode) , but basically what I’ve seen comes down to a few changes:

1. You die you lose your carried stuff
2. Your inventory stacks are severely limited
3. Planet resources are further apart
4. Enemies have more health
5. (anecdotal) Planets are set up to kill you

One – This is reasonable, especially if you die (like I did) early in the game in space.

Two – This also includes the amount you can place in refiners. This is just annoying and time consuming. Nothing about this is harder or “survival”, just gets in the way. It makes the game much more boring, as you end up feeding the refiners constantly rather than setting them and coming back a little later.

Three – Again, more annoying and time-consuming but not harder. You can still find the resources you need, but takes more hunting to find the resource you need near enough to a power hotspot. More boring.

Four – Good. No objection. They may have increased the number of enemies (for pirate raids or Sentinels), but I don’t think that’s actually happened. Seems about the same. I think more enemies is a much greater risk than greater health, as they have an easier time targeting you while you’re focused on picking them off.

Five – This SEEMS to be the case but I may just have bad luck. Every single planet I’ve been on has had weather or environmental damage at play. However, I’ve only encountered one seriously aggressive predator (a very fast bonecat) in about 30 hours of play though.

Summary: I think Survival could use some work. Adding difficulty doesn’t have to come along with making the game slower or less enjoyable. There’s a few tweaks I’ve hinted at above that could improve playability and fun.

Change my mind 🙂

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