Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare has a new permadeath YOLO mode, because of course it has

News
By published

A new YOLO mode has been announced for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and takes the phrase You Only Live Once literally, introducing permadeath to the series. That means that if you die, you restart not at the beginning of the level, but at the beginning of the entire game.

This mode is pretty extreme, so it will only be unlocked after you beat the new “intensely realistic” Specialist mode, which is pretty hard by itself. It’s unlocked after you complete the game on any difficulty, and adds a few tweaks designed to improve your skill, as well as adding mechanics which make the game harder, and go beyond just eliminating health regeneration.

So with the new ‘intensely realistic’ mode, health regeneration is disabled, meaning you can only heal using Nano Shots. One of the key additions is that both Nano Shots and helmets take up equipment slots, so you’ll have to equip them before you start each level. If you want to avoid headshots you’ll have to wear a helmet (duh), but you’ll have to replace the helmet with ones from your loadout  every now and again as, funnily enough, it’ll take permanent damage from having bullets fired at it and will eventually look like you’re wearing a colander on your head. A bullet to the legs will impede your movement, if you get shot in the arm you won’t be able to use your equipment as effectively, and your weapon can also be shot out of your hands, which basically adds a mechanic I think should be called ‘butterfingers’. 

Zoe Delahunty-Light
Zoe Delahunty-Light

While here at GamesRadar, Zoe was a features writer and video presenter for us. She's since flown the coop and gone on to work at Eurogamer where she's a video producer, and also runs her own Twitch and YouTube channels. She specialises in huge open-world games, true crime, and lore deep-dives.