Games that handle difficulty well

Is it just me, or have games become more challenging (but fair) recently? I've been playing Doom Eternal and this game kicks my ass even on the 'normal difficulty'. But I love it, and I feel like the game makes me get better and improve my strategies. A couple games also come to mind are Hades and Crash 4. In Hades, you lose, but the game does a great job of incentivizing you to keep playing, with the upgrade system. And Crash 4 can be a bit brutal, especially if you're aiming for 100% the levels, but I always come back for more. And I like that games have evolved to give players a proper challenge.

What do you think, SW? Have we come a long way when it comes to difficulty / difficulty options, or is there still more room for improvement?

Bloodborne does it best. Either you make your way to kill father gascoigne and enjoy the game or rage quit.

I always felt that most Nintendo games especially in the Mario and Zelda franchises did difficulty pretty well.

A bunch of them, and have been doing it for years. Most shit people call unfair, cheap, "artificial difficulty" is a glorified excuse for them being a scrub. If there is a consistent response to the problem being presented, then the sequence isn't exactly unfair, and you aren't being asked to deal with something unreliable.

The most neat little challenge shit recently is the follow up runs of Hades, that at least on paper is a cool gimmick.

Control added difficulty tweaks in its settings post launch. I think that's a very nice touch. I only just started playing it so I haven't looked at them.

No, i wouldn't say that they're getting more challenging. Doom Eternal was very sweaty on Nightmare, especially the first half of the game. But then again, that's not normal mode so its supposed to be difficult. Crash is made just like the OG games from the series, and back then that was the standard difficulty.

I find that Fromsoft does it best when it comes to difficulty. Everyone is on the same level playing field. The dev tailors all the encounters for the same difficulty.

I think Last of Us 2 added all kinds of difficulty options post launch.

haha I did the latter!

Bayonetta, normally game difficulty is just cheap adjustment of damage values, players deal less and enemies deal more and take more ad you go up. For Bayonetta at least (and other games do this too) difficulty instead relies more on changing how the encounters are scripted, maybe offer a different arrangement of enemies at certain encounters and not just rely on a lazy damage value solution. Furthermore a game like this scores your gameplay, so there too, surviving a level or scenario isn't the entire challenge, but doing so with a degree of refinement.

For online PvE MP some stat focused RPG games do horrible job scaling difficulty between party members with different stats. Avengers was horrible at this which killed my post game grind. Original Division too, you just had to meet up with friends after hitting the level cap. Division 2 did a much better job scaling though.

Doom Eternal.

@SolidGame_basic: Grounded mode and permadeath. Haven't tried either yet. TLOU on new game grounded mode was a blast, but this one might kick my ass.

@ghosts4ever: Didn't you save 75 times to finish RE2 on easy?

Nier Automata and both Nioh games felt well balanced.

Damn the last 2 levels in Crash 4 really pissed me off.

Souls series, with some exceptions in Sekiro and the defiled dungeon bosses in Bloodborne. Once you learn to 'get gud', all other action rpgs in general are too easy.

Doom Eternal, The souls series, Cuphead

Doom Eternal

Like NG+ whenever possible.

I think Doom Eternal does it perfectly. It’s really good at teaching you how to play and then give you enough challenge to check if you have learned. It feels extremely fair, even though it is tough.

The Witness is another example, from a completely different genre. Learning is fun.

In general I think AAA games are a bit harder this gen than the last. And they also are mechanically much better. Take a game like God of War for example. Tough and fair!

@Ibacai: I disagree on Nioh. That Hino Emma boss fight made me cheese the whole game with sloth talisman.

Most games that I play.

Love the Souls games for its difficulty. Harsh, but still fair. No weird difficulty spikes.

Love roguelikes where they're usually really hard, but make you feel like you progress even though you die often.

Love hard FPSs, like DOOM Eternal on Nightmare. If you die, it's because you made a mistake, and you always know what that mistake was, making you able to fix it for the next try.

Love Nintendo games where you can play more casually and relaxed in the beginning, slowly ramping up the difficulty as you go, and when you get all the mechanics right, there are harder challenges to tackle later in the games for those who got gud.

I usually like my games a bit on the harder side, but just as long as the progression is good and steady it's aight.

Some games are just too easy to get me invested. Ubisoft's games can be played on autopilot. No fun. Platformers where you can't die (like some Kirby games), not my jam.

I’d say most modern games are easier now compared to ps1/ps2 days. A lot of games have you press a button just to follow along with a cutscene or in game animations to make it feel like you are doing something. The most recent God of War game is one that impressed me with a good level of difficulty and problem solving.

I always thought the Halo games do difficulty really well, with the Call of Duty campaigns doing it the worst.

I cheesed the Tower Knight in Demon's Souls in both the original and the remake. I feel like crap for doing so lol.

He's not a gamer, just a ban dodger/troll.

I think things just started to circle back around this past gen. Hard-but-fair was always a thing, but challenge fell off a cliff with a lot of AAA titles in gen 7. Went through this phase where it seemed like designers were afraid to hurt gamers feelings, was a weird gen. Like look at how Souls games were able to cement themselves as "omg soooo hard!" when realistically, they're not all that on the challenge. Just relative to the direction the rest of the industry was going at the time, they seemed that way.

In general, seems we're back to a point where designers realize that gamers need to feel engaged, but don't necessarily want the masacore experience. A good balance overall, and plenty of games are still made to appeal to either end of the extremes.

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Individual games handling difficulty settings, think the first time I was really impressed was with NGB. They'd remix encounter compositions. Introduce new enemies. Make pre-existing enemies more aggressive and less susceptible to certain moves. Give some enemies new attacks. Meaningful changes rather than simple HP adjustments and/or enemies in greater numbers.

Echoing Lamprey, but yeah Bayonetta and just Platinum stuff in general. Adding to what he said, I also liked how Bayo 1 weans you off of Witch Time. Then you get to Nonstop Infinite Climax difficulty and the gloves are completely off.

Probably the most impressive game I've experienced in terms of difficulty settings is TW101. Builds off everything that's great about stuff like Ninja Gaiden and Bayonetta. But then is able to take it to another level with its continual drip feed of new options, incredibly unique enemy designs, and an unwavering consistency in rules. Feels like this ever expanding action gamers playground, still learn something new each time I play.

The Ori games and Cuphead does it well. Hell, most platforming games on how to handle difficulty does a good job at it.

@sakaixx: Nah lol **** Bloodborne.

Games that handle difficulty well are games that are difficult without making enemies health sponges. Sekiro, Dark/Demon's Souls, Bloodborne, every Call of Duty, Ghost of Tsushima handle this very well.

one bullet to the head on Veteran/realism still kills them and 1-3 slashes of the blade kills even on Lethal in Ghost.

Playing GOW on GMG or DMC5 on DMD were both atrocious experiences that I gave up on.

Then again, games that have long ass loading times between each death don't handle difficulty very well. Here Sony exclusives are absolutely unrivalled. Uncharted 2 I completed on Crushing or Brutal, whatever the hardest is. I died 300 times but it didn't matter because of fast loading. Same with COD games, I die hundreds of times on Realism, but it loads quickly so I don't mind.

The Last of Us 2 has the best difficulty settings of any game though.

I played on Survivor for all settings except for resources on normal, and then Survivor+ for all but resources that was easy+

I might give Grounded a go, but two 45 hour runs of this game put me off for a while.

Any game that has easy, normal, hard, very hard etc. is good in my book. I like the idea of people of all skill levels being able to enjoy gaming.

Company of Heroes pops to mind.

It does feel like there's been a renaissance when it comes to challenging games. Like you said, Dark Souls seemed to be considered niche at the time because of its difficulty, but after its success, it led to the Dark Souls-ization of games lol.

Dark Souls series

Evil Within

Sekiro

Dead Cells

Fire Emblem games (Though Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn are all I've enjoyed)

I think Platinum's games in general handle difficulty well.

Huntdown. Anyone that hasn't played it should give it a try. It's a hidden gem for sure. Very challenging but fair.

Soulsborne come to mind