The First Berserker: Khazan’s developers have cooked up a free update that’s so brutally difficult, even one of the team’s most-seasoned designers is having trouble with it.
As a Soulslike, hard as nails boss fights are no surprise in The First Berserker, which got some stellar reactions when it released earlier this year, but launch wasn’t the end of the road for the dark fantasy game. Director Junho Lee recently penned a blog post breaking down everything coming in the game’s free update, due May 15.
The First Berserker’s forthcoming update lets you change your appearance during your first playthrough, but the real big change comes via two new boss rush modes that appear in the menu after you beat the game once. There’s the Great General’s Crucible mode, which groups together bosses “thematically” in sort-of playlists, and equips you with “designated specs.” Then there’s the Berserker’s Bloodshed mode, which dishes out rewards after consecutive fights until you defeat a final boss.
Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Well, apparently the new modes were tough enough to make some members of the team tap out.
“Khazan is a mission-orientated game,” Lee explained. “You can always go back and fight the bosses that you defeated again, and you’ll still earn rewards. Want a tougher challenge? Unequip your gear or limit your skills to raise the difficulty as much as you’d like. But for this new content, we wanted to create a special challenge—something different from the usual approach. We had a storm of ideas. Harder. Nastier. More punishing. The kind of challenge that not just anyone could take on.”
Khazan’s lead character designer – who apparently “plays games [for] over 4 hours a day, has earned platinum trophies in most action titles, and refuses to consider a game ‘complete’ without one” – even said they “probably wouldn’t play” the new update, hilariously.
With lots of loot and focused levels and missions, Soulslike RPG The First Berserker: Khazan is giving me all the right Nioh vibes: “Players aren’t required to grind to farm for decent items and make progress”
