The Banner Saga 2 gets free Survival mode, out now

Developer Stoic has released a new mode for The Banner Saga 2, and the best part is it's entirely free. Well, OK, you'll need to own the game, but that's a reasonable requirement, I'm sure you'll agree. Available from whatever store you used to buy the game, Survival mode ditches the story to focus purely on combat, offering 40 waves of battles for you to play through and probably die at some point along the way.

Here's a bit more about it, from the press release:

"In survival mode players have to assemble a ‘combat’ team from a wide range of existing Banner Saga heroes. Once their team is complete, combat begins, but beware, perma-death in battle is real and once lost, a hero can not be brought back.  Each victory grants ‘Renown’ (one of the major currencies in the Banner Saga), which can be used to unlock more Heroes to replace ones that have fallen.  Items now drop in combat, or can be purchased with Renown,  so that you can constantly improve your combat team.  A 30-second timer keeps the action moving and leaderboards track how each player ranks against others. All three difficulty levels are included in survival mode, so the hard core challenge is available to those who think they can make it all the way through."

Do you like the combat in Banner Saga 2? Then oh my god do I have the mode for you.

Hang on a minute, is The Banner Saga 2 actually any good? It's exactly 86% good, according to Chris Schilling.

Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.