Hello everybody.
The mission What It Takes To Survive is part of the I’m Never Giving Up story line and takes place in Hwy 97 region, it’s unlocked after you complete the mission You Don’t Want To Know.
To get this mission started meet with O’Brian just inside Hwy 97, with the mission selected you’ll have an onscreen guide and distance marker to follow. If you are traveling from Crater Lake and come through the tunnel you’ll be withing 400m of your destination. When you reach the stop sigh hang a left and ride in the general direction of the marker. When you get there a cut scene will play, O’Brien gives Deacon a biopsy kit and asks him to find a freaker that they placed tracking bracelet on. When the cut scene ends O’Brian calls Deacon and tells him that the tracking signal is coming from a cave around Mt. Scott, he also tells him that they sent a team in on foot that never came back and to look for them while he’s in the cave. Your object will say Ride Into The Ice Wind Lava Cave. Back track to the road that leads to the tunnel to Crater Lake, take the first left into the Ice Wind Lava Cave visitor center, ride past it and cross country a short distance and you’ll come to the road that leads to the cave. When you get to the cave another cut scene will play Deacon calls O’Brian and tells him he’s heading into the cave, when the cut scene ends enter the cave.
The Cave
As you are enter the cave the conversation with O’Brian continues, along with a lot of Nero technical jargon you’ll learn there are four men missing in the cave somewhere. The first part is pretty straight forward just follow the flares on the wooden walkway, eventually you’ll reach what looks like a portable light to search. The search yields foot prints, follow them further into the cave, when you get to a bridge on the right cross it and search the ground by the flare which will produce more foot prints. At the end of these foot prints there will be two areas to search. Search the ground first and you’ll see what happened to the Nero scientist, then search the scientist you’ll for some scrap and a Growler. Deacon will call O’Brian and tell him what he found. Moving on from here I stopped to listen to O’Brian and noticed an area ahead and below to search, I’m not sure if I was meant to go there the way I did but there weren’t any more flares or foot prints up above. Searching the Nero bag produces more foot prints to follow, they’ll lead you past two flare ending at a flare and another body with two areas to search, search the ground first like the last time and the body last, again Deacon will report his findings to O’Brian. There are no foot prints to follow this time but if you jump down and move ahead you’ll see the glow of another flare. When I jumped down I took a little bit of damage but it turned out to be less confusing than going around on the wooden walkways. There’s an area to search on the ground by the flare, this will produce more foot prints, this time they’ll lead you to a narrow space to squeeze through just down from the flare. On the other side there’s another flare and two areas to search, same deal here search the ground first and then the body. No foot prints this time just climb the hill and you’ll see the glow from the flare below. Go to the right and jump down the two ledges, as you are down you’ll see an attractor bomb on the ground, this will be useful later. To the left of that is a Nero generator with some loot on top and passed it on the right will be the last Nero scientist. When you get close a cut scene will play showing the conversation between Cooper , the last scientist, and Deacon. When Deacon asks what did this to him he says it was a Reacher, a new type of Freaker that’s now in the game. The conversation ends but the cut scene continues where you can see flashes of the Reacher, when the cut scene ends you’ll have to defeat the Reacher. Hopefully you have a good melee weapon, I’ve found that it’s the fastest way to take the Reacher down it took me 12 strikes without taking any damage. With the Reacher down a cut scene will play as Deacon takes a biopsy and blood sample, when he calls O’Brian to tell him he has the samples he’s told to get out of there, there’s a horde coming and the cut scene ends.
The Horde
I’m playing on the hardest difficulty so I don’t have the Survival Vision skill and because of that I don’t know where the horde is until I can see them. There were two groups of Freakers, the first group coming up the wooden walkway I was able to take out with attractor bombs and grenades. The second group came down from the left, I didn’t have time to do much of anything except run away from them down the wooden walkway where there is somewhat of a choke point. I didn’t quite get them all and had to run past them back up to where I was. When I got there they were right on top of me again so I ran back down to the walkway. This time I was able to shoot the rest of them. When the last one is down a cut scene will start and you’ll be outside. Deacon will call O’Brian to tell him he’s out and O’Brian will transmit coordinates where to meet. The cut scene continues as Deacon gives O’Brian the sample pack, they have a heated discussion and plan the rescue mission to get Sarah out of Wizard Island, when the cut scene ends the mission will be complete. The only thing you get from this mission is XP which I can no longer see, other than that the I’m Never Giving Up and Finding Nero story lines will be updated.
Thanks for watching, God Bless and happy gaming.