Lately, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in games: pressuring the player to play on a certain difficulty level. Games like Halo and Gears of War might as well call their easy mode “pussy mode”, as they highlight the hardest modes and challenge you to play them. It’s as if you need to prove to the game that you’re hardcore enough to play it. 

Personally, I’ve never played a game on a difficulty mode higher than the equivalent of normal besides Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Many of my friends tend to prefer playing games on higher difficulty levels, even though they die a lot. I just can’t see how that is fun. It seems like they are giving into the pressure and playing games on hardcore modes just to say they can. Recent games that pressure you like this are examples of problems in the industry that need to be fixed if we want to attract the casual audience to some real games, instead of Cooking Mama and Imagine Babyz.

In my opinion, if a game meant to be hard, then just make one game, a hard game. The difficulty levels should not change the game so much that it becomes a different experience. Don’t get me wrong, I still want anyone to be able to play a game regardless of their ability, but I think if the developer thinks a game is meant to be experienced one way, they should not change the experience a lot by adding difficulty levels that make the game play completely differently. 

An example of this misstep is Bayonetta, a game that has a setting where all the player has to do is push a single button and the game will virtually play itself. First of all, how is this fun to anybody? Second of all, this mode essentially creates two different games, one that is like one of those games you find on DVD special features (don’t get me started on those), and one that is an actual game. I sort of doubt the developers want you to play this game on easy. 

An example of a game that does a good job of handling the difficulty issue is Demon’s Souls (I know one of you just spit out whatever you were drinking while reading this). Yes, Demon’s Souls is a good game in the sense that you know what you’re getting into. It’s not for me, but it doesn’t baby you. If you want a HARD game, here you go, have fun.

If more developers focused on making a single experience with less influence from difficulty levels, our industry would not have the problem of games pressuring players to play on certain difficulties. We would also end up with a lot less fake “100% Through the Fire and Flames Expert” videos. Thank God.