There's no such thing as straight-forward when it comes to Uncharted DLC. It's proven to be the peak of the series when it comes to delivering a genuine challenge to the player, and the free-to-play Survival Mode in Uncharted 4 is no exception to the rule.
Survival Mode is effectively a horde-based game mode for up to 3 players, taking place across 10 different stages. Each stage consists of 5 waves, and in order to beat a stage, you'll need to successively complete each wave by fulfilling the requirements set for it's completion.
Each stage can be tackled on 4 different difficulty variants. These include Easy, Normal, Hard and Crushing, but if you're familiar with the typical demands of Uncharted trophies, you won't be surprised to know that the primary focus within this DLC pack is towards the higher end of that difficulty scale, and you'll be competing within the Hard and Crushing difficulty levels if you want to grab all the trophies on offer here.
As far as horde-inspired game modes go, this is solid for the most part, and that's mainly down to the excellent combat Uncharted delivers, which has always been a strong point of the series. Great mechanics are essential to these kind of games modes that focus heavily on combat, otherwise it can make the product stale and dull, and despite being a frustrating experience at times when aiming for full completion, it's still a great game mode which I enjoyed through to the end.
There are 12 new trophies on offer, and the roadmap to full completion has very clear direction. You'll be awarded 10 of these trophies just for beating each of the 10 stages on any difficulty level to any star rating, which is measured on a scale of 1-3, and is based on how quickly you can clear the 5 waves on any given stage.
However, despite a plethora of trophies thrown at you for some very simple requirements, there is a standout trophy;
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| ...It - Earn three stars on all Survival stages on the Crushing setting. |
The "...It" trophy, awarded for earning three stars on all Survival stages on the Crushing setting, requires you to earn every star possible (30) across all 10 stages - and in typical Uncharted DLC fashion, this is not an easy feat.
Each of the 10 stages contains 5 waves to beat, and these will either be Survival, Siege, Marked Man, Treasure Hunt or Warlord. Warlords are bosses, and these occur every 10 waves, with the exception of Stage 10, where there are Warlord waves at 49 and 50 to end the game. To spice up the challenge, waves will also come with modifiers. Survival, but only headshot kills count or Siege, but enemies are revived by Saviours in the local area, for example.
There are a couple of important pre-requisites to point out before tackling this trophy in earnest. These are as follows;
- It is not compulsory, but is highly recommended, to be at least character level 40 before you attempt anything on Crushing difficulty. Each time you level up, your character will receive a 3% permanent boost to their HP and damage output, which will both significantly help on Crushing. You can level your character up through playing on Easy, Normal or Hard difficulty variants of the Survival stages.
- You will need to just beat each stage at least once on Hard difficulty in order to unlock Crushing, so you will be forced to cut your teeth on the preceding difficulty level before being able to jump into the same stages on Crushing.
- Collecting gun upgrades to reach level 5 is extremely useful when dealing with Crushing mode, and whilst also not compulsory, is highly recommended too. Defeated Warlords will drop an upgraded weapon, and a weapon to level 5 will give you more damage from that weapon, which is a great asset in Crushing difficulty. You can only obtain level 4 drops from Warlords on Hard, and you'll need to play Crushing to earn level 5 drops, but this is extremely useful for overall character development.
These things are all important to know, and should ultimately be where your focus lies in order to adequately prepare for Crushing difficulty, however, it is absolutely fundamental to success to have good teammates.
Some of these 10 stages are brutal on Crushing difficulty, and this is down to certain factors. 3 stars are awarded for beating the stage's 5 waves within a certain time limit, which gradually decreases the amount of stars you earn down to 0 depending on the amount of time you take to clear all waves.
You can somewhat cheese certain stages though, and you'll find that sitting in specific positions can create enemy spawn patterns that will lead them in a specific direction towards you, which also creates a chokepoint where you can pick them all off at will. This is sometimes complicated by wave modifiers, that force you to move, such as Treasure Hunts and Sieges, which will add an extra dimension of challenge, but on the whole, is a relatively assured tactic.
I did mostly play with random players, and you notice how chaotic things can get when you play with people who don't understand this tactic, and the importance of it to clearing certain stages within some fairly slim timescales. If you've got one player (and this mode is for only 3 players) running around doing their own thing, it creates a level of disorganisation you can't afford to have if you want to reach 3 stars on Crushing difficulty.
Stages 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 all include Warlord bosses. Stage 10 has 2 of them. This is where things really pick up because they have high HP, wield powerful weapons, spawn in tons of smaller enemies to assist them and use powerful attacks that can down you instantly. You'll need to be able to deal with these Warlords quickly and efficiently if you want to achieve a fast enough time to earn 3 stars on Crushing, and this is where the importance of good teammates will really come to the fore.
I was lucky enough to find a solid pairing to assist me, especially with stages 8 and 10, which both caused me problems when trying to earn 3 stars, and did require multiple attempts. Part of the issue is, if you all die and have to restart the round, the clock does not reset, so the margin for error is practically none-existent and failed attempts will just eat into the time limit.
The approach for dealing effectively with Warlords is to make sure you have the right offensive weapons and perks equipped. For me, the quick revive perk, in order to help revive downed teammates faster, is essential to success, as is the enhanced radar perk, which allows you to see all enemies on the map as red dots. I also pretty much exclusively used sniper rifles, alternating between the HDR and M14. If you play with good players, they'll probably have their guns ranked up to level 5, and will be familiar with the strategies to success outlined above, so when you combine it all together, and you're all on the same page, things will click and you do have a solid recipe for success.
I did spend some frustrating runs attempting to beat some of these stages with random players who just didn't know what was required for victory, and the stage would pass us by as the time limit ticked beyond the 3 star requirement, so I would definitely go as far to suggest that good quality teammates are imperative to unlocking this trophy. You'll need to do your bit too. There's no wiggle room for a carry here, so you'll have to bring something to the table yourself. It's a genuine collective team effort, and even then, it's still a tough challenge, so you will have to be prepated to fail along the way.
However, the important thing to note is, you will succeed, but only if you stick to the correct strategies. This won't be achieved through fluke, or being carried, or without the right approach, so it's important to understand that you'll have to work hard for this completion. It's a reasonable time-sink too - somewhere within the 20-25 hour mark, and some of these latter stages will take 20-25 minutes each time. It's a worthy completion to add to the collection, and maintains the high standards required by the player from Uncharted DLC content.
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