Assassin's Creed Origins gets new Nightmare difficulty and Horde mode in 1.1.0 patch

The latest patch for Assassin’s Creed Origins brings a new “Nightmare” difficulty setting, a horde mode to the Arena, and a slew of quality-of-life, bug and balancing fixes.

Announced at the start of the month, Nightmare difficulty makes all the game’s enemies “more resilient to damages and more dangerous”, upping the challenge for anyone that way inclined.

The horde mode arrives along with a new quest to introduce it.

“The event quest, Here Comes a New Challenger, will introduce you to horde mode to satisfy your warrior longings,” Ubisoft said on Assassin’s Creed’s official site.

“You can prove yourself in the Cyrene arena against unlimited waves of foes.”

The horde mode is recommended for players at level 32 and over.

The patch also rebalances the game’s economy by reducing the price of lion claws and leopard fur, fixes stuck trophies, achievements, and quests and squishes many audio and visual bugs.

A number of UI improvements have also been made, including hood, hair, and beard customisation options to the Gear menu, and an “Uncompleted Locations” filter for the world map to help with backtracking.

Finally, the patch also implemented a new “Enemy Auto-Level” feature which, when turned on, scales weak enemies up to the player’s current level so that they stay challenging for the entire game.

If you’re struggling with any of the new difficulty modifiers, but don’t want to turn them off, be sure to check out our comprehensive Assassin’s Creed Origins guide for tips and walkthroughs of everything in the game.

Full patch notes are below.

Patch Sizes 

• PS4: 3GB
• Xbox: 3GB
• PC: 2.7GB on Uplay | 1.2GB on Steam

Patch Highlights

• Added a new “Nightmare” difficulty mode
• Added an NPC scaling option, “Enemy Auto-Level”, that makes enemies’ level scale up to player’s level
  • Please note: Enemy levels will only scale up to player level, they will not scale down
• Added a new “Horde Mode” to the Arena
• [PC] Added support for HDR display

System

• Improved general game stability
• Adjusted the balance of the economy by reducing the price of Lion Claw and Leopard Fur
• Capped the number of Trinkets and Animal Goods to 999
• Fixed rare occurrence of world paused state due to a terrain node priority change
• [PC] Fixed stuttering on NVIDIA graphic cards when playing in borderless mode
• [PC] Improved Performance Tools functionality

Graphics & Audio

• Improved texture streaming selection to allow for more high-resolution texture
• Increased the distance at which we display the higher quality fake geometry of Alexandria
• Improved the view distance of the Siwa temple
• Improved the level of details of the Hemon Mastaba location
• Improved the quality of the Photo Mode picture taken while playing with HDR enabled
• Fixed loading grid setups for tall palm tree fields to improve their view distance
• Fixed far shadow popping transition issue when updated during the time of day cycle
• Fixed shadow culling issue in the great library of Alexandria during sunrise and sunset
• Fixed a visual issue on bows when switching them while out of combat
• Fixed a visual issue with quivers
• Fixed an issue which prevented music from playing again in the quest “Aya: Blade of the Goddess”
• Fixed missing voice-over during various cinematics
• Fixed a sound issue when using Overpower on certain NPCs
• Fixed various repeating voice and sound effects
• Fixed an issue that could cause multiple music tracks to overlap
• Fixed multiple out of place audio lines in the Arena
• [Xbox One X] Increased the texture memory budget to allow for more usage of higher resolution texture
• [Xbox One X] Increased the terrain memory budget to reduce terrain popping when the camera rotates
• [Xbox One] Fixed some trees not using high-resolution texture
• [PC] Fixed white squares appearing in windowed mode on 4K monitor
• [PC] Fixed an issue with the Reset graphic option

World

• Fixed several areas in the world where the player could encounter collision issues
• Fixed various issues with the level of details of world objects, NPCs, and vehicles

Gameplay

• Improved NPCs reactions
• Fixed the health regeneration that could stop working after gaining health from Health on Hit/Kill weapon attributes
• Fixed the unlock of the Old Habit achievement/trophy for player who have met the conditions
• Fixed various issues preventing the “Game Progression” statistic to reach 100%
• Fixed the "No Limits" Ubisoft Club Classic Challenge from not unlocking
• Fixed an issue with the Ubisoft Club Classic Challenges that were not showing as unlocked even if they had been completed
• Fixed an issue that could cause the controller to vibrate indefinitely in the score screen of the Hippodrome
• Fixed an issue where the playable character could lose its inventory when fast traveling from the Bathhouse
• Fixed an issue where Senu could pass through the world
• Fixed an issue that allowed thrown torches to inflict poison or bleed effect
• Fixed some loading issues while using Senu
• Fixed various issues with the spawning of NPCs
• Fixed various issues causing the player character to remain stuck
• Fixed various navigation and animation issues with the playable character

Quest

• Improved the navigation of the Rebels during the quest “A Rebel Alliance”
• Improved various cinematic transitions
• Fixed an issue where the playable character could remain stuck or fall through the world during the quest “The Battle of the Nile”
• Fixed an issue where the playable character could lose its equipped weapons during the quest “The False Oracle”
• Fixed an issue preventing the playable character from dealing damage to crocodiles during the quest “Blood in the Water”
• Fixed an issue preventing the quest objective marker to be displayed during the quest “Family Reunion”
• Fixed an issue that could cause the player to lose the prisoner during the quest “His Secret Service”
• Fixed an issue that could cause a gladiator to remain stuck with the playable character during the quest “The Crocodile Jaws”
• Fixed an issue causing Daily Quests from disappearing from the Quest Log
• Fixed an issue that could prevent the “Control Nuisance” Daily Quest from giving its reward"
• Fixed an issue that could prevent the dialogue scene from playing during the quest “Blood in the water”
• Fixed an issue that could prevent Hallucinations from ending during Taimhotep's Song
• Fixed an issue that could make the quest “Children of the Streets” impossible to complete
• Fixed an issue that could prevent the key for Eudoros’ chest to appear in the inventory in the quest “End of The Snake”
• Fixed an issue that could cause Cleopatra to die at the end of the quest “Way of the Gabiniani”
• Fixed an issue forcing Bayek to receive a spear instead of a bow during the chariot fight of the “The Battle of the Nile” quest
• Fixed an issue that could cause Aya to spawn as Bayek

Activities

• Increased the number of Drachmas rewarded by Hippodrome tournaments
• Tweaked controls sensitivity in Hippodrome
• Fixed an issue that could prevent the introduction cinematic of Seleucid from playing
• Fixed an issue that could prevent the use of bows in the Arena

User Interface

• Added Hood, Hair, and Beard customization options in the Gear menu
• Added an “Uncompleted Locations” filter to the World Map
• Added a “friends-only” pictures filter to the World Map
• Added the option to hide the Compass and the Enemy Proximity Feedback on the HUD
• Improved on-screen feedback with Friend Challenges in Arena
• Increased display time of the on-screen feedback when the playable character gets hit by an arrow
• Changed input button for the Compare Equipped action
• Fixed various icon issues in the World Map
• Fixed an issue with the Trial of the God reward being displayed incorrectly in the Quest Log
• Fixed an issue with the quest objective of Trial of the Gods appearing below the world
• [PC] Fixed the display of Photo Mode pictures captured on multi-monitor configuration
• [PC] Enabled Eye Tracking by default
• [PC] Added “Quit to Desktop” option to the pause menu