How hard is it?

[Hyperlynx]

I liked the Descent demo as a kid. I bought it about two years ago and had a blast with it, right up until one mission that was just SUPER DUPER punishingly difficult. The difficulty curve was a cliff, at that point, and I couldn't get past that level, so I stopped playing.

Does Overload have that problem too?

[X1-52a]

The original descent had cheats if you couldn't pass a level. So you're kind of asking a stupid question. Overload is a love letter to descent so its made in the exact same vein as descent 2.

[Hyperlynx]

Ok, let me rephrase: What's the difficulty curve of Overload like?

[Valden21]

It's hard, but not frustratingly so. You can upgrade your ship's capabilities between levels, and the devs gave us some tricks that the Descent games don't have, so it's slightly more balanced towards the player. The automap is also a lot more helpful than in the Descent games, so finding your way around is much easier. Be warned, though: the bots seem to be smarter.

[lustuccc]

I was in the same situation, got frustrated by the difficulty at certain levels, I played countless hours on Descent 1,2,3 Mercenary, but never got to finish one!
To answer your question, Overload is easier . I'm at level 12 ...

[lustuccc]

I put it aside but may go further. Hints on forums will help for the 3 remaining levels. I got bored a little because I hace more fun writing a custom level right now with the editor. :-)

[Miasmic]

To be very specific, there are two, what I would consider to be, major difficulty spikes in Overload. The rest progresses at a pretty comfortable pace.

[Nathan]

There are multiple difficulty level choices, I think you're allowed to change them during a campaign as well, don't feel bad by bumping it down, I think the easiest casual one is actually rather easy even for a person like myself who hasn't really played a 6DOF game before. Don't feel bad, it's a singleplayer videogame, just enjoy it on your own terms.

[Valkyrie Celes]

The game definitely gets harder in the later levels. And there are a few spikes that can take you by surprise, though where these spikes are and how hard they are for you depends a bit on your playstyle (guns blazing, slow & cautious, etc). That said, there are a few things that can help with rising difficulty:

1. Upgrades - as you play, you'll get upgrade points that you can spend to make your ship/guns better. If you get both Armor upgrades, for instance, you'll take about 1/3 less damage.
2. Minor, but there's a minimum Armor(Health) & Energy that you'll start a level at - if you finish a level with less than 100 Armor/Energy, both will be boosted to 100 at the start of the next mission (it'll stay higher than that if it had been higher - only benefit here).
3. You can reset the level at anytime (or just do it if/when you die) to start the level over at a higher/lower difficulty.
4. There are cheats. Some of them are more for fun, but there's also Invulnerability, etc if you just want to beat it.

Also, as an aside, we had some playtesters come in to try the game for difficulty balancing. They were moderate gamers, without any 6DoF experience (but at least some FPS experience). None of them played on the lowest difficulty, and they were able to play without hitting difficulty walls. They absolutely died (sometimes multiple times in the same place), but were able to change their tactics a bit and get past it (we also tweaked the game in response to their feedback, so the harder spots are a little easier than they were for them).

[lustuccc]

Totally worth the investment IMO!

[09]

It isn't FarCry 1. the most difficult game I've ever had...and played to completion.

Difficulty is a subjective judgement.
As in a joystick with a 'hat" for POV and as I first played a joystick with no 'hat' only a throttle and 2 axis function. Descent is two different games with a hat or without. [Subjective]

I've beaten Overload now and after going back to play D 1-3 for nostalgia, to me all 4 games are about as "difficult" as each other.
All four games took playing time to beat and had rough parts that killed me more than once but all have "gone down" eventually and with no cheats used.
After the games were defeated I increase the level of difficulty when I repeat playing as I do if the game is a good one. Ending at "insane" level.

Descent never did die in spite of being rendered unable to run in MSWindoZe after the bad egg "millenuim edition" [of junk os}.
Some folks wrote a front end for Descent 1 n 2 and it is FREE to use.
Patches made Descent 3 operable too.
FWIW
How hard is Overload? No cakewalk but not impossible to beat without cheatin'.
Worth the $ to me.

[Hyperlynx]

Great. Thanks for the answers, especially Valkyrie! I'll be grabbing it as VR fodder :)

[Lu2]

play on novice dificulity . hotshot (normal) is not for newcomers to genre .
its gets hard later . first boss is serious fight unless you ubuse invicibilty power up