"All games should have easy mode"

Date: 2025-12-27

This is the dumbest idea I have ever heard. Most games have difficulty settings, and when you sit down playing no one will jump in front of the screen or TV, "hey don't be chicken, play this game on hard".

Doom and Doom II is one of my favorite examples of balancing. Depending on the difficulty, you have different number of monsters, and different type of monsters too. The creators made their goal is to players able to finish each map with pistol start on Ultra Violance difficulty, which is the hard difficulty. However no body forces you to play on UV. In the past I mostly played on Hurt Me Plenty, which is normal. Depending on level creators even HMP can be a pain in the ass.

Thief series is another good example for balancing. The AI behaves the same on each, however you might have less health on harder difficulties, and most importantly, we have different mission objectives. Sometimes a map opens up on Expert difficulty for additional objectives, places you visit that previously was blocked.

Of course there are games which doesn't have difficulty settings, in that case you are free to experiment with different gameplay styles. You will eventually got better by repetition. Or you will get frustrated and just give up. Unlike in life, in games, it's OK to give up. Not every game is for you. I dislike most of the soulslike games (maybe Lies of Pi, and Blasphemous is an exception), but I love stealth, and I like FPS games. Some people hate stealth, and that's OK.

When my younger nephew got into gaming, I told him: always start on harder difficulty, and if you doesn't like it, you can always lower it. The other way around is much harder to start.

Difficulty setting is there to find challenge, or simple just enjoy the game. I love Arkham Origins. It plays on Christmas, and I thought about playing on hard for the holidays, but I realized, that I just want to enjoy the story. The last time I played it on hard, and normal looks really easy at times, barely died on my current playthrough. Hard is challenging, though, in fact many people say that Origins is the hardest of the series.

Not every hard difficulty is equal. Alien: Isolation on hard I think it's pretty much the normal difficulty, but Nightmare - which was added later on - went to the extremes, with barely any resources around, forces you on pure stealth.

So yeah, plenty of games and difficulties are around for everyone, but not every game is for everyone (thank god and the devs).