Black Desert's non-permadeath Hardcore servers will only allow a handful of classes at launch

Black Desert’s developers recently revealed information about the upcoming non-permadeath Hardcore servers, and it sounds like they’re going to be stripped down pretty hard. These servers were initially very interesting, but after the recent developer video, there’s been some pushback as to how this is all going to work. The primary complaint is the amount of classes that will be available to players on the server — just four per season.

The developers spoke about their decision to restrict character classes in the video, and it came down to not overwhelming players. If you were expecting to play your favorite class on the upcoming non-permadeath Hardcore servers in BDO, you could be disappointed. This article explores more.

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Black Desert’s non-permadeath Hardcore server seasons will be designed around limited class availability

In the most recent Black Desert updates video, the developers spoke about the upcoming Hardcore servers, which are non-permadeath and very restricted in terms of class usage. The way it will work is each season will be a month long, and have its own available classes for players to access.

It all begins with the original four classes on Black Desert's Hardcore servers (Image via Pearl Abyss)

Each of these seasons is designed around a theme, and the first Black Desert Hardcore server season allows Warrior, Sorceress, Ranger, and Berserker. That means if you were hoping to play something like the incredibly fun Dosa, you’ll have to wait a while.

The reason behind this decision was explained by Wansu Yang, Head of Black Desert Game Design:

“Since this is a competitive, survival-based solo mode, we felt that having all classes available could be overwhelming at launch. Thus, we decided to design each season around certain themes, and limited available classes for each season.”

Another interesting thing about these servers is while they’ll be up 24 hours a day, you can only play for two hours a day to accrue as many Survival Points as possible. Defeating monsters and other players will grant these Survival Points. Here’s where the non-permadeath comes in — if you’re defeated, you lose 30% of your Survival Points instead of losing your character.

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It will be interesting to see how this all shapes up, once the servers officially kick off on March 13, 2025. On the forums, some players were left frustrated after not being able to play their main class. Only time will tell what happens from here on.