Uncharted 4's survival mode offers five objectives and 10 stages

Uncharted 4 is about to get a rather large addition by way of a new survival mode. Arriving later this month, Uncharted 4's survival mode will seem familiar to anyone who has ever played a wave-based shooter, but with this implementation, Naughty Dog is looking to make it accessible to all players. This means, among other things, an offline mode for folks who don't have PlayStation Plus and the ability to save your progress and return to your run later.

Being able to save your progress will likely be necessary if you want to make it to end of survival mode. In a new PlayStation Experience video, Naughty Dog's Vinit Agarwal gives an in-depth explanation of Uncharted 4's survival mode. This includes the five different objectives players can participate in: survival, siege, treasure race, marked man, and boss waves.

With survival, you'll get the typical horde mode experience: defeat all the waves to complete the stage. In siege, you'll be defending an area of the map from waves of attackers, while treasure race will have you running through the map to collect different treasures. Marked man adds a few marked targets to take out before the stage is completed, while boss waves will feature the pirate bosses from Uncharted 4's campaign.

All five of these objectives will be present in survival mode's 10 stages. Each stage will feature five waves of enemies, with Agarwal saying that it should take players 10 to 20 minutes per stage. You'll be able to play through survival mode with two other players or – if you're playing alone – a single AI companion.

Agarwal says that all of the waves have a set composition, allowing you to replay survival mode and eventually master the strategy for each wave. There'll be good reason to master survival mode too, as you'll receive a star rating for your performance in each stage. Special unlocks are tied to that star rating, and it seems safe to assume that you won't get all of the unlocks until you can earn a three-star rating on each stage.

All in all, it sounds like a pretty neat addition to Uncharted 4's multiplayer component. Survival mode will be free for everyone once it launches, and it's arriving later this month. We'll keep an ear to the ground for a specific release date, so stay tuned.