Professional Ashes: Hard Reset 

Just some random facts. Yes, the waitress in Violet's bar is Porcelain. And also, the people who wipe out the wall aren't The Roamers, they're The Empire, who will be more heavily featured in Episode 3 (and likely engaging in battle with the new guard) judging off some of the things said in the Ashes Fanbase Discord from Vostyok.

Walker did the smartest move ever, dipped and ended up with a cute mutant girl.

By the way the guy in prosperity's bar in afterglow is a survivor from walkers slaughter from the blackwater bandits checkpoint, if you offer the guy in the bar a drink he recollects his view of the slaughter

Ashes isn't just a great mod, it's a great game, my favorite FPS in quite a while a probably the best postapocalyptic game since the Metro series. The fact it's free is mindblowing. If they put a compilation on Steam or ported it to consoles, it would sell like hot cakes.

In case you missed it, i think the black water is mentioned by Varni to be full of the souls of the dead

Loved the video and the game! After completing the game a few times on Apocalypse, I came here to see what I had missed. Didn't know you could haggle to get the map cheaper. I have some other thoughts: An important piece of lore about Walker can be learned when you first enter Junction by talking to the slimy shopkeeper about stims. Apparently, Walker's wife was brutally killed before the DLC starts. If you go into the hotel the night you get back to Junction, you can find a locked door upstairs that Walker comments on, saying that he does not like going up their at night. When you go back up there the next day, after completing the Anderson's farm, you will find the room open. Inside you can find dresses hanging up on a clothes rack, a beauty magazine, and a hand drawn portrait of a beautiful brunette woman. I think this is Walker's wife's room and I suspect the woman in red and the voices he hears are his wife who he is hallucinating about or being haunted by. As others have noted, the game is NOT well balanced on Apocalypse. I find the Wendigo, Gladiator and Black Empties the most difficult aspect. That being said, the Wendigos can mostly be cheesed by moving to a place that they cannot reach you and holding the crowbar's light attack out of their range. The flamethrower is a good way of dealing with the Gladiators as you noted, but you can also get them to infight with other mutants by standing on the other side of a thin barrier and letting them "hit" you through the wall without taking damage (although in the version I played you DO get knocked back!). The Black Empties are bastards, but I don't hate them. It would be nice if you could see a visual indicator where their radioactive spots are so you could avoid them in combat though.

@Skel23 Cool playthrough! But you missed out on the pork steaks you can buy from the bartender in Sommerville station. For 50 scrap they can raise your health by 50 up to 200 way before you get the Black Water stim in a later mission. :)

Ashes is friggin’ kino man

Its interesting seeing other people‘d reaction to hard reset since the ASHES games are so freakin great. Regardless I do have to add a lot of stuff and drop my own take since I really liked the episode myself. I also have to correct you on something that i‘m suprised you may have forgotten about. For one lets start with the Ending cutscene. I those guys are not the roamers; They are ‚The Empire‘ or at least I THINK they are. For context in Afterglow some people near the end of the game will mention a group called ‚the empire‘; apperantly some third player in the conflict between the Mutant Army anf National Guard and one that is mention with ominous undertones. Roamers would not really make sense since they were a raider gang focused to taking prosperity and were all the way in the bad-lands. The Empire with a name like that is implied to be bigger and more organized. You can see that with the two guys; although raiders not just do they have patches and sort of uniformity but also the red cape their leader wears looks ‚regal‘; almost like a centurion looking more impressive to inspire his men. I could be entirely wrong but I find it suspicious that a faction is mentioned in Afterglow anf in Hard Reset we see some ‚mysterious‘ Raiders killing everyone… Anyway that was my ‚correction‘; might turn out to be a load of hoopla but I feel like thats way to coincidental to be. Anyway onto the rest; I found it interesting that you disliked the Glowing Empties because I did‘t have as many problems with them but liked the Gladiators which I hated. They were too fast for me and considering how tanky they are and that their main attack is basically getting mike-tyson‘d they were more annoying than fun for me to fight. However i‘ll try the protoflamer next time since I mostly tried pipe bombs and the AR. I also really liked the level variety; no location felt the same anf those that did were call backs anyway. My favorite wad Choka Cola‘d facorty mainly cause of the jokes there, with my facorite being the dig at fallout where the company got a mail by the US army telling to stop proposing ‚weaponized choka cola‘. Also speaking of dark liquids; i‘m suprised you didn‘t mention the fact that you can meet a blackwater bandit in Afterglow. He‘s in prosperity and mistakes Scav for Walker at first; he then tells you how Walker basically strode up to the place and just went full-‚stealth is optional‘ on the whole group, giving him PTSD. He also tells you about the black water and hyped up the boss which I found really cool foreshadowing. Anyway, great review! Always good to see more ashes content!

I'm genuinely surprised that Vostyok hasn't commented on this video, he is perhaps the most open to honest criticism game developer I have ever seen and heard. Also, my problems with Hard Reset: 1) Loved most of the new editions honestly, even the Wendigo (though they feel a little too bullet spongey even on Survival difficulty) and the crossbow. The enemy I DON'T like however is the Cannibal Gladiator. I get that giving you the proto blaster was supposed to be a clever game design hint to the player to let them know "hey, this new enemy is weak to fire", but the Cannibal Gladiator feels WAY to fast to an almost janky degree (and janky is a word I've never used regarding any Ashes game thus far, even Dead Man Walking), and the fact that you basically NEED to use the proto blaster to get rid of him efficiently or you're going to be wasting a ton of ammo kind of sucks... it's like there is a hard coded counter that you NEED to use or else you are screwed rather than letting the player take the fight to them in their own way which has always been one of Ashes high points, the fact that it DOESN'T pull a Doom Eternal on you and go "oh, better switch to your shotgun for this enemy. Uh oh, this guy is weak to your rocket launcher better switch weapons again. Woah watch out, this guy doesn't like plasma..." You were able to use the weapons because they were A) all fun to use and B) on Survival difficulty which is the intended difficulty, it felt like actually managing a meager supply of ammo between different weapons as you struggle to scavenge more. 2) I debated putting this here because I can't rightly put my finger on it but, while many of the levels are unique and interesting something about them feels... off... They don't feel like Vostyok levels where they were intricately crafted to an almost masterful degree. They are interesting don't get me wrong, but they just feel like... levels out of yet another Doom WAD. Again, I debated putting this here because I can't quite put my finger on WHY the levels feel off to me, and I don't like offering criticism without showing a valid point to what is wrong because in that scenario it's not even criticism if the dev doesn't know what to fix, it is more just complaining. I plan on doing another playthrough soon, maybe I'll understand what feels so different about these levels with a second playthrough. The levels are interesting don't get me wrong, it's just compared to the prior installations they feel bland and, almost empty (though I know that's not the right word I'm looking for, there's tons of shit to see in these levels. Maybe it's that things, items, and secrets felt far between each other).

Can't wait for Episode 3

Nice editing and mic quality! Its surprising that you dont have more attention, seeing as this video os hith quality and on par with other popular RU-vidrs

@StirlizZFapicon 0 секунд назад My best guess on guys shooting guard in the end is some hidden another faction, a future enemy. Varni drew a painting where eagle with General's Guard sign fights an enemy using same star-and-triangle mark. Also Varni said her paintings are some kind of depiction of a possible future, so she draws to think later about its true meaning. This one picture could be a foreshadow on upcoming episodes from Ashes series.

i dont blame you when i saw it was out, i was like is this info real? am i being punk'd then i went an downloaded it an played it through in a single sitting as well. Such a wonder and master piece. its my favorite mod as well skel and i have trouble finding anything to rival it. So love the video and your taste in game brother cant wait for more from both you an the ashes devs!!!!! P.S ashes is how i found your channel and been here ever since ;)

its honestly hard to overstate how great the trilogy been so far, ep 3 is probably atleast a year away

Plz upload more content g your channel is super underrated

Lyrics in the song "to dust" are : "Vincerà gloria sacra morte" which translated means " will win glory holy death"

I liked this one, I liked them all so far. Love me ashes, simple as

It's funny that DMW is always credited to an elusive "someone else". Who is this man of mystery? The world may never know. (It's me lol)

I couldn't get Doctor Murphy to appear in the boss room of the Cordon so I got the "bad" ending no mattar what I tried. I'll wait for a patch to come out before continuing. Apart from that I'm really enjoying Hard Reset

Love me some doom mods

More Ashes for me, that is always good :) I buy Doom just because I found a few years ago demo of first Ashes 2063 and I want to play it. This single game back then turned my interest into Doom mods and total conversions. I am waiting for Episode 3, I enjoyed Hard Reset even if the last map feels rushed in story and design.

You forget mention the Crossbow normal bolts are stealth weapon that one shot normal human enemies

YES

My hunch is that those goons from the end cutscene are from the empire. When you meet the general in Ep.2 he asks if the scav is from the empire but then remarks that they wouldnt send in just 1 guy. But thats just a theory... A GAME THEORY!

This has been glitchy af, deadass the peaceful option broke in that level with the blackwater boss.

Oh, you play on Survival. So you have no idea. In Ashes & Afterglow you could play on Apocalypse, no problem. In Hard Reset - Apocalypse may just be flat out impossible for many. It not only adds more enemies, but doubles their health. There is one spot where you have to deal with 6 vendigos at once, and each requires 6 shotgun blasts at the least. Even if you HAD the ammo to do it, to dodge 6 vendigos is a small area is a futile endeavor. Just go godmode. Or play on survival.

im dissapointed with this one tbh hopefully the 3rd chapter will be better

Sorry, no, this is a step back from Afterglow. Lack of polish is everywhere. Difficulty is not balanced properly. Mismatched textures aplenty. Cordon level is just bugged. AI followers are bugged. New enemies are just...unghh...