While fans are currently building their own robot army in Fallout 4 thanks to this week’s launch of the title’s first DLC, Bethesda is still making good on their promise to continue to deliver free content updates to the game beyond the Automatron and other add-on packs.

As the developer revealed last month after announcing three of Fallout 4‘s upcoming DLC expansions, the team behind the popular post-apocalyptic franchise also has plans to create a full overhaul to Fallout 4 that gives users the option of trying out a more difficult version of the game thanks to a series of upcoming changes to Survival Mode.

The dangers of Fallout 4 will increase with the Survival Mode overhaul [Image via Bethesda.net]

Bethesda hasn’t gone into full details on exactly what Fallout 4 fans can expect to be introduced as part of the Survival Mode overhaul, but players will have to deal with a more realistic gameplay experience in the new mode as they have to contend with things like ammo weight as well as personal needs such as food and sleep.

“Beyond add-ons, we’ll continue to offer free updates to the game, including new features like the recent weapon debris for PC, and increased draw distances for consoles, as well as more optimizations to gameplay and quests. And something that we’re really excited about, a complete overhaul of Survival Mode that changes how you play the whole game: food, sleep, diseases, danger and more.”

Aside from confirming their intentions to release these Survival Mode changes to Fallout 4, Bethesda didn’t provide any indication on when the new features will be available in the game. This week, however, the studio’s official Twitter account gave fans a release window for an upcoming beta for the Survival Mode changes by announcing that there will be an upcoming open test for the overhaul offered on Steam next week.

While speaking to Game Informer at the end of February, Fallout 4 game director Todd Howard previously announced the team’s plans to hold a beta test for the new game mode. While the content will eventually be officially released across all current-gen platforms, Howard couldn’t provide a time frame for exactly when that might happen after the test had begun. The director remarked at the time that the beta could last as long as a month.

“Survival mode has a lot of changes that can be pretty dramatic. Once we get it honed where it’s working well enough, we’re going to put it on Steam beta for a while. ‘Here it is. Start playing it. Give us feedback.’ It’s far easier to update and iterate on [PC]. Once we settle on it, then we’ll release it for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. We want to get it up soon on Steam beta. It’s not going to be months and months off. If it’s not really working, and we need to iterate on it, it may stay in beta for a month, depending on what we are changing.”

In addition to free content updates for Fallout 4, the developer is also presently preparing for the release of more DLC packs for the game. After being asked about anticipated size of Fallout 4‘s upcoming story-based expansion, Bethesda’s Pete Hines confirmed on Twitter that the Far Harbor DLC will be larger than the Shivering Isles DLC for The Elder Scrolls IV : Oblivion.

@SirCabbage it’s bigger in size than Shivering Isles. I asked. — Pete Hines (@DCDeacon) March 22, 2016

The overhaul changes to Survival Mode, as well as many of the upcoming DLC features heading to Fallout 4, were inspired by Bethesda’s tradition of Game Jam. As the Inquisitr previously described, Game Jam is a week-long period in which the developer gives individual members of the team time to work on any content for the game that they wish. The creativity that comes from these extended sessions is often added to Bethesda titles through future updates and DLC.

Fallout 4 takes place in the apocalyptic ruins of Boston

Do you plan on trying out the new Survival Mode, or are you more interested in the paid DLC for Fallout 4?

[Image via Bethesda.net]