You’re not ready for Fallout 4’s new Survival difficulty, Vault dweller

For starters, a new wellness system means you have to stay hydrated, fed and rested to stay combat-ready. Don’t get enough sleep and your maximum action points will drop until you find a bed.

Eat uncooked meat or drink unpurified water and you’ll get sick, which can only be cured with antibiotics crafted at health stations.

Crippled limbs don’t auto-heal when you’re out of combat any more, and downed companions won’t get up until you heal them, which makes stimpaks even more precious.

Fast travel is disabled, so you’ll have to trek across the wasteland rather than warp across the map. You’ll practically have to be standing on top of locations before they’ll show up on the compass, and enemies won’t appear at all.

Locations take longer to repopulate with loot and enemies, too, which should put an end to gear farming.

Keeping an eye on your carry capacity will be even more important, because ammo will weigh you down. It’s based on caliber, so fusion cores and mini-nukes can really drag you down. Your endurance and agility stats will drop when you’re over encumbered, and you’ll start damaging your legs and health if you stay that way for too long.

You won’t even be able to save your game without finding a bed and sleeping for at least an hour. Sleeping bags will never give the well rested bonus, so you’ll need to hunt down a proper bed if you want the bonus effects.

Naturally every enemy gets a damage boost too, making things just that little bit harder. In case you thought it still sounded a bit too easy.

Bethesda has since confirmed the leak was correct, but that there would be even more to come before launch.

Basically, Fallout 4’s going to kick your ass – and we can’t wait.

There’s no word on a release date yet, but with DLC drops expected to start from March, there’s hopefully not too long to wait.