I never expected post-launch survival updates to become an area of fierce competition, but I'm not complaining. Ubisoft has released the third big patch for Far Cry Primal, adding Survivor Mode to the game for folks who want to add a little more weight to their prehistoric role play - and officially beating Fallout 4 Survival Mode to the punch (even if it is a bit less intricate).
The biggest change of Survivor Mode is the addition of a stamina bar, which depletes slowly over time. It drains more quickly when you're fighting or sprinting or otherwise having fun, and you'll be both slower and unable to use manual heals or fast travel when your stamina runs out. You'll need to sleep and/or eat regularly to keep the bar topped off.
The mode also makes your animal companions much more vulnerable, and your tamed friends will be dead for good if you don't treat their injuries in time. That goes for one-of-a-kind legendary creatures as well. Starting a game in Survivor Mode will mean finding fewer resources out in the world, and you'll even encounter darker nights full of meaner predators. The minimap is also disabled, while a previous update gave you the option to shut off the HUD completely.
You can play Survivor Mode at any difficulty setting. For the true "get busy not dying" experience you'll want to set it on Expert and enable permadeath, giving you the chance to unlock the appropriately titled "Survival of the Fittest" achievement. Here's an infographic from Ubisoft running down the rest of Survivor Mode's tweaks.
I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar.
