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Trial Mode is the boss-rush challenge in The Hidden Ones. It takes the bosses from the campaign and lines them up as a gauntlet, with each fight ramping up in difficulty to push how well you have learned the game.

A Boss Rush of the Story Bosses

Trial pulls its encounters from the Story Mode roster of bosses. You refight them back to back, and the challenge increases as you go, with selectable difficulty levels layered on top. Because the bosses cover a range of designs, clearing the harder Trials rewards mastery across multiple characters rather than leaning on a single favorite fighter.

Health Packs and Single-Life Variants

As shown in previews, Trial includes its own twists on the formula. Some runs offer health packs to help you survive longer, while single-life challenge variants strip that safety net away for players who want a harder test. Optional difficulty scaling sits alongside these, so the mode can be dialed from a manageable run up to a punishing one.

The Abyss of Tao

The pre-alpha test's Trial offering was called the Abyss of Tao. It featured four legendary bosses, each with four difficulty levels, giving a clear sense of how the mode stacks tougher and tougher versions of a fight on top of one another. The Abyss of Tao is the named example we have of how a Trial gauntlet is structured, captured from the test build.

Availability in Early Builds

Trial Mode was not playable in the earliest hands-on builds. Preview writers from those first sessions noted that the mode was present in concept but not available to test at the time, so its details firmed up in the later pre-alpha test rather than the initial demos.

Related Pages

• Bosses: the boss encounters Trial draws from.

• Story Mode: where these bosses first appear in the campaign.

• Characters: the fighters whose mastery Trial tests.