As The Outer Worlds inches closer to its October release date, developer Obsidian Entertainment is releasing more information as to what to expect for the upcoming RPG. The Supernova difficulty was originally talked about in an interview, but now there's more information on the mode and it's bound to be a challenging time.
The Supernova difficulty will offer several tweaks to The Outer Worlds that will make it a truly challenging experience. First, there is permadeath, though not for the player character themselves. Instead, companions can permanently die, leaving the player without valuable firepower and locks you out of their questlines. Supernova also limits auto-saves and only allows saving inside the ship. Other tweaks will generally make the playthrough more dangerous, including the requirement of needing to eat, drink, and sleep to survive.
The Supernova difficulty is for RPG veterans that want a true challenge. The difficulty can only be selected at the beginning of the game and can't be switched to if a lower difficulty is selected at any time. If a player wants the challenge of Supernova, they'll have to be ready to go all-in from the very beginning.
The Supernova difficulty isn't too out of line with what Obsidian already offers in its games. Pillars of Eternity has the Path of the Damned difficulty, which buffs up enemy stats and limits the ability to camp, and the Trial of Iron which offers a true permadeath experience. The Outer World's Supernova feels like a mix of these two other modes, feeling both a bit more fair in not completely deleting saves on death, but also more challenging in other aspects.
If the Supernova difficulty is too much, there are other difficulty modes to choose from. The Story difficulty cuts down enemy health and damage, allowing players to focus on just The Outer Worlds' story. If a player wants a bit of extra difficulty but doesn't want to deal with everything Supernova offers Hard mode ups enemy damage and health but doesn't have the other tweaks.
The Outer Worlds will release October 25, 2019 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. The Switch version is confirmed but does not currently have a release date.
Source: IGN