Surviving Dark Mode


Dark Mode

Dark mode is a difficulty setting that takes hard and then kicks it up a notch. Every encounter is a challenge that requires forethought, patience, and awareness. You should save frequently and be prepared to die often. Geralt gets one extra tool to help survive this brutally dangerous version of his world: In each chapter, there is an extremely powerful set of cursed equipment that can be obtained if you’re willing to invest time and effort into crafting it.

The key to surviving Dark mode is to obtain each chapter’s set of equipment and to make sure you’re completely prepared for every encounter. Making these preparations is easiest if you have foreknowledge of the game’s challenges, so playing on Dark mode is not recommended for a player who is new to the game. Before tackling Dark mode, try beating the game on Hard difficulty at least once.

surviving Dark Mode

Dark mode is difficult, but with the right skills, preparations, and patience, it can be overcome. Keep the following tips in mind as you play through the game. While the story events are the same as they are on lower difficulty levels, all opponents have wildly inflated stats. Essentially, every monster in the game can easily one-shot you until you’ve assembled a chapter’s dark equipment set. Use these tips to survive longer in Dark mode:

• Save. Save constantly. Save after every fight, before you begin a quest, after you finish a quest, after you do anything you don’t especially want to do again. You cannot rely on the game’s autosave function on Dark mode—it simply won’t save your progress often enough. Danger lurks everywhere. Losing precious XP, orens, and progress because a random nekker you couldn't see hit you from behind is agony. Avoid situations like this by saving frequently.
• Be prepared. Never leave towns or other safe areas without a full complement of potion buffs andappropriate sword oils applied. This is especially true during Chapter 1, before you’ve gotten your first dark set.
• Quen is your best friend. Upgrade it early and always keep it up. While the other signs have their uses, they all pale in comparison to Quen.
• Situational awareness is key. Never let yourself get surrounded or backed into a corner. All the potions and Quens in the world won’t save you from an angry mob that you can’t roll away from. Walking is for chumps. In Dark mode, we roll. We roll all the time. They can’t hit you if they can’t catch you.
• Don't block. The problem with blocking is that when everything kills you in a single blow, blocking just makes it so you die in two blows. Don’t even bother with Parrying or related abilities. Hit once, then roll away. Roll back in. Hit once. Repeat. Only block when you have no other choice (and ideally, you always have another choice).
• If it isn’t nailed down, pick it up. If you are carrying too much weight and you get attacked, drop some things, kill the enemies, then loot it all again. Seriously. In this mode, you desperately need cash to afford the super-expensive dark sets. Every single oren you can scrape up by selling lousy swords, crafting materials you don’t need, or spare monster guts brings you one step closer to completing a chapter’s dark set.
• Adapt to the dark sets. Once you have a chapter’s dark set, you aren’t as reliant on potions and oils (but they don’t hurt). You may wish to use Cat potions to help offset the visual effects you experience when wearing a full dark set, which can make enemies difficult to see. While Cat does inflict a -10 percent damage penalty while in effect, you can offset this with the absurdly high stats of dark equipment and by oiling your blades with Falka’s blood. You may also wish to complement Cat with potions that increase your vitality regeneration, like Swallow, and that increase vigor regeneration, like Tawny Owl. Sell any alchemy ingredients you know you won’t use regularly for extra cash.
• Keep in mind that merchant lists are semi-randomized. Sometimes if you approach a merchant who usually sells a given crafting material, it may not be in stock. Just revisit the merchant again later to see if the material is back in stock.