What happens if you take a PvE extraction shooter that already respects your time and tell it to throw everything it has at you, alone, with no mates to revive you, is the question I actually wanted answered, so I dragged the difficulty sliders as far as they would go and walked into the worst day of my operator’s life. Incursion lets you fine-tune the AI at any point, which is rarer than it sounds, and in my runs I treat the enemy count and the enemy quality as two separate dials, because that distinction is the whole experiment. Crank the count and you get more bodies, and crank the AI, which got a proper rework in the 1.3 update, and the bodies start using cover, flanking, and punishing the moment you peek the same angle twice. I treated them as two different experiments on purpose, because conflating them is how people end up frustrated rather than challenged, and the receipts are in the videos.
What happens when I only crank the bodies
I started with raw numbers, and the result is exactly the glorious mess you would expect, because patrols stack on top of patrols, every gunshot pulls a fresh crowd, and the map stops feeling like a place you scavenge and starts feeling like a place you escape. I show the whole descent in I Maxed the Enemy Count… Here’s What Happened, and the honest takeaway is that more enemies is not harder in a clever way, it is harder in an exhausting way, because your ammo economy collapses long before your nerve does.
What happens when the AI starts thinking
Maxing the AI is the one that actually changed how I play, because with it pushed to the ceiling the army does not just appear, it thinks, and they suppress, they push when you reload, and they do not stand in doorways waiting to be shot. I took that fight on solo in I Maxed the AI and Fought an Entire Army Solo, and it is a different game from the crowd I had just survived. The count tests your stamina and the AI tests your decision making, which is why I stopped pretending they were the same slider with two names.
How I stayed alive once I had asked for the mess
A few things kept me alive, and I never hold an angle, because smart AI ranges you in fast, so I shoot and relocate every single time, and I treat sound as the enemy, since one loud fight summons the whole map and a suppressor is worth more than a scope here. I carry far more ammo and far less loot greed than I think I need, and I pick my fights at the edges of the map, never the middle, so I always have a quiet line back to extraction.
Maxed lobbies are worth doing, and they are not my daily driver, because they are a brilliant stress test for your fundamentals and a humbling reminder that this game has more depth than the chilled PvE label suggests. They are not where I would learn the game, though, and if you are newer you should build up first with the Incursion Red River beginner’s guide, then come back and turn the world against yourself when your habits are sharp. I take the game seriously and not myself, and these runs were me poking the bear to see what it could do, which it did, thoroughly.
The full campaign is over at WillyB’s Incursion Red River, so build your operator there first, then crank the sliders and find out what you are actually made of once nobody is coming to pick you up.
FAQ
How do you increase the enemy count in Incursion Red River?
The game lets you fine-tune the AI at any point, with enemy count and enemy quality as two separate dials, so you crank the count for more bodies and you crank the AI for smarter ones. That AI was reworked in the 1.3 update, and once it is up they flank and use cover instead of waiting in the doorway you already liked.
How do you survive a maxed-out solo run in Incursion Red River?
You survive it by never holding an angle, shooting and relocating every time, treating sound as the enemy and carrying a suppressor, and by bringing far more ammo and less loot greed than a normal run wants. I pick my fights at the edges of the map rather than the middle, so there is always a line back to extraction when the crowd arrives.
Is maxing the enemy count worth doing?
Yes, but not as your daily driver, because maxed lobbies are a brilliant stress test for your fundamentals and a poor place to learn the game from scratch. Newer players should build up with the beginner's guide first, and then turn the world against themselves once the habits are already sharp.
What is the difference between maxing the enemy count and maxing the AI?
They are two separate dials, and cranking the count just stacks more bodies until your ammo economy collapses in an exhausting way, while cranking the AI, reworked in the 1.3 update, makes the enemies think. They suppress, they flank, and they push when you reload, so the count tests your stamina and the AI tests your decision making.
Should beginners try a maxed-out lobby?
No, build up first, because maxed lobbies are a brilliant stress test for your fundamentals and a poor place to learn the game. Newer players should work through the beginner's guide before turning the world against themselves, and the habits need to be sharp before those dials go up.
Why is a suppressor so important in a maxed run?
A suppressor matters because sound is the enemy, and one loud fight summons the whole map, so the can is worth more than a scope once the dials are maxed. I treat the noise as a threat of its own and I shoot and relocate every single time, which is the only way the ammo lasts long enough to matter.
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