The PlayStation Blog has posted an interview with Taylor Kurosaki, the level's designer and one of the original game's developers at Naughty Dog, and N.Sane Trilogy director Dan Tanguay of Vicarious Visions. Kurosaki said he still didn't have "a great understanding of a difficulty curve" back then, so it ended up becoming insanely difficult and around four times longer than any other level. Tanguay said they decided to release Stormy Ascent anyway after the best player in his team fell in love with it even after having to use up 60 lives to get through it.

It certainly sounds like playing Stormy Ascent is a trial in patience and perseverance. If you'd like to take on the challenge, you won't need cheats this time around -- the DLC is free to download until August 19th.