Metro Exodus ranger hardcore run. I was gonna do it with NG+. Give myself the advantage of having all of the weapons + kit but also give the game the advantage of bad weather, armored AND nade-spamming human enemies, tougher creatures... all of the difficulty-raising options. But I dialed it back thinking I should start a fresh game for the ultra mode. It's been a while since I played any of those on this difficulty. You still can't manual save.
The big thing to me is no screen reticle, hit indicators, or hud pop up. You have to stop and manually trigger it to see your ammo at all. The real masochist just uses the friggin magazine window and disables even that. I just ain't him
The only way to see as little as how much filter time you have is to fully stop and pull out your backpack.
I know the stakes are higher in combat too. Enemies will just waste you, nothing is a trifle in terms of damage. One shot in the wrong spot will easily kill you. Way fewer safehouses and workbenches too. And at the same time your gear degrades much faster.
But still... when you get no feedback on kills, it's really a different feeling. You have to use the lasers for hip fire (if you have it,) be using that to try and aim throwing knives (though IME it is the way to aim them anyway - the path of the knife tracks with weapon sway, which of course is clearly indicated by a mounted laser pointer.) You of course use more ammo to ensure the hits with less accurate weapons, too and to not take the one or two bops that are for sure gonna kill you. In some ways it is easier to get quicker hits because the indicator hides your target from you. You don't know if you're really on a good spot after the first hit. It really shows when they stagger. It really is far easier to hit a moving target when they don't have a hit reticle hiding all of the movement cues from you. Those things make you a dumb shooter, unable to react quickly to change or position subsequent shots precisely. You'll see that you stuck a hit only to have them move, and you miss - because you trusted the reticle, and even if you didn't, you didn't have the needed information on the screen anyway. But on the other hand, that manual confirmation in its absence takes that extra second you might not have, it brings in that hesitation. Also takes some of the dopa-bump from kills... it all feels more shambled and disconnected... in me this sets off an avoidance instinct, I don't want to engage but sometimes I must, and it brings this tension on... like the dumbest little scrap has weight.
Like, a good example comes right in the starting sequence, at the train depot. There are a couple of guys shooting through this thick fog. I couldn't see them at all, but I had an idea of where they were from their tracers so I chose to put ~7 rounds downrange in a slightly spread pattern sort of enveloping the outline traced in the tracers I saw. I got them. But I had no idea if they were dead or not for a moment. It was only after they stopped shooting for a little too long that I realized I had killed them instantly. And in the heat of combat with many monsters it REALLY changes things. Such a small thing, but it's jarring every time. You have to focus more on them, for longer. Not so good when you know for certain that things are moving beyond your FOV. It's either do that, or presume alive while you turn and deal with another threat, maybe move back... essentially counting on the half-spent knockback, which still necessitates the time investment to turn and check back immediately after - better pray that you succeeded either when you first shot them or when you turned because if not, one of those two is killing you there.
It's kinda oldschool in a lot of its base action mechanics but the combat loops are very creative in how they direct you and create opportunities. There's a gestalt that's built up in all of the little details and it's a pretty unique experience. I think it shines most with the ranger hardcore mode. It's like the game is designed for it. It IS significantly harder, but it's not like, say "Nintendo hard" levels of difficulty. It's a fairly robust challenge. But it makes the game significantly more engaging in this very lizard-brained sort of way.
That's the thing in games, when it comes to player agency. Most of them are basically god simulators. When you play as Artyom on ranger hardcore, you're a squishy human using literal junk tools with limited movement capacity due to kit needed to get around out there. Fighting is never, ever good for such beings. You just wanna do your thing, get your stuff, whatever needs to happen with minimal risk. It's a mortal risk every time Artyom engages in combat. No backup out there and plenty of things to go wrong. He might die if he doesn't pay attention and choose carefully. Very rarely does a game instill in me that "you might die" feeling so well. The power fantasy thing is cool, I totally get it. But it's rare for a conflict in a game to NOT be something to look forward to. Even in the story, that's not our guy here. He's just a guy with needs and dreams, and people who will die if he screws anything up. He's not antsy to maybe die in some skirmish out on the wastes. And you kind of get that perspective in the gameplay experience - it drives that into you on either of the two harder difficulties. You see more of what it
really feels like to be the hero, taking ridiculous risks and shit
It makes you really pay attention. Throws me off every time I've played a metro game like this. It's harder and easier, in significant ways. The way everything plays out is just different.
