The Problem with Video Game Difficulty Levels
In thinking about the finer details of my own game proposal, I’ve given a deeper consideration to a contentious issue in gaming: difficulty levels. I admit that as I get older and my available time for gaming gets tighter, I tend to play on easier modes more often. It fits with my ethos for why I play to begin with: I want to win! I play as an escape from reality, where I can be awesome in ways that are impossible in my reality. Real life is stressful enough, when I escape into a virtual world, I don’t want to find even more stress and tediousness there, I want to enjoy the experience. I want to dominate. I’m not so serious a gamer that the sense of accomplishment from achieving a goal increases the more redundantly I hack away at it. Less so actually. There are gamers out there who do feel this way about it, seeking a greater challenge. This includes friends of mine (the same friends who revel in poking fun at me for playing on easy modes), and I respect the attitude of seeking a hardcore challenge. But that’s not for me. The problem lies in the fact that difficulty levels tend to be one-size fits all for every situation, and don’t offer balanced experiences. It tends to be the same equation in all action games. As the difficulty goes up, two things happen: enemy health goes up, and your health goes down. I take issue with this since it’s a missed opportunity for customizing the experience. For instance, I would like an immersive experience where the enemy and I are on level ground. If their strength is too high, it’s frustrating, but if mine is too high, it’s boring. I would like for both of ours to be low, so that the stakes are high without the redundancy of bashing or shooting the same enemy over and over and over just to win. On the other hand, what if I want to bash away at super-strong enemies while not fearing a quick death all the while. The existing dichotomy I mentioned is not conducive to these scenarios. If it were, gamers in my school of thought might not be subjected to the jabs of more “serious” gamers. As a side note, games like God of War 4 are approaching it from a slightly different angle, giving clever names to their choices, such as “Give me a story” for the easiest mode, which allows players to navigate the game with enemies who are more or less props. It’s a neat approach, but still doesn’t do much for customization. I’m not a game developer, so I cannot say why difficulty levels are so rigid, but I can’t imagine innovating on that aspect of things is impossible.















