Protocols and Policies — AVS03's Difficulty System Explained

The 5 protocols (difficulty folders)

The game’s five difficulty levels are presented as protocol folders — a fitting bit of theme for a game styled as an early-2000s antivirus suite. The count is official: 5 protocols. Their names, unlock order and per-protocol modifiers are pending verification; this table fills from direct play at launch.

Protocol structure matters for one big reason: it paces the whole game. With 30–40 minute runs and 18 meta upgrades, the intended loop is clear — clear a protocol, bank BeanZ, upgrade, push the next folder.

The 15 policies

15 policies ship at launch. Policies are the game’s run-modification layer — the officially confirmed count comes from the Steam store page, and their individual effects are the single largest pending-verification block in the difficulty system.

When full-release data lands, each policy gets documented here with:

1. Its effect (what it changes in your run).
2. Its risk/reward trade (what it pays vs. what it costs).
3. Which weapons and plugins it synergizes with — or punishes.

How protocols and policies interact

The exact stacking rules — whether policies are chosen per protocol, whether higher protocols lock or pay out more — are pending. What’s safe to say from the official structure: protocols set the difficulty ceiling, policies tune individual runs inside it.

FAQ

Are protocols like Ascensions in other survivor-likes? In shape, yes — 5 stacked difficulty tiers. In specifics, unverified. No official source says whether protocol 5 requires beating protocol 4, so we don’t claim it.

Do policies ever help you? Unknown. The count is official; the valence of each policy is not. Launch testing answers this within the first week — see the beginner guide for where difficulty fits your first runs.