Sometimes cranking the difficulty to "HARD MODE" or higher makes the game very interesting. Here are some examples. Subscribe for more: ru-vid.com?su...
Like halo 2 legendary difficulty? 🤣 they were pressed for time and couldn’t tweak it correctly so they just ramped up the bullcrap like damage and what not.
I tend to always choose the hardest or second hardest difficulty on my first playthrough depending on the game. These higher difficulties force me to interact more with the game's mechanics and encourage me to learn more about it. I personally find that very satisfying.
I really liked Ghost of Tsushima on Lethal/Lethal+. You can be killed so easily. You still have to master your technique to survive, but enemies can be killed just as easily, which feels more realistic than the bullet sponges you can get in other games' higher difficulty.
Playing The Last of Us on Grounded is genuinely an incredible experience. It's one of the few higher difficulties in games where the sharp increase in challenge did NOT feel cheap in any way, and significantly added to my enjoyment of the gameplay.
You missed out on a crucial detail of alien isolation. There is a setting that makes it where the alien can hear microphone inputs. If you cough, sneeze, gasp, have a nagging wife or a yappy dog the alien would hunt you down
I played the game with my wife beside me watching. I tried the feature out once, and she got scared and yelled, getting me killed just a few minutes after I turned it on. I turned that setting right back on off for the rest of the game after that. lol It was a pretty cool inclusion for the game though!
@@ShoulderUnderwear I remember my friend was playing this some years ago. We were in an Xbox party and he said it sounded like his sound was doubled and I said he probably had it coming out of his tv and headphones and didn't realize. For some reason he decided not to turn the tv down. When he said he was hiding in a locker, I said "It sure would be a shame if the alien could hear this" loud into my mic and it heard that and killed him. We still laugh about that
I’ll be honest I played it on the easiest difficulty for the first time last month (always been an Xbox guy) I was surprised at how hard the game was in general it’s not easy at all😂
Fallout 4 survival difficulty was almost perfect. It made you squishy but also made the enemies squishier too. It made every decision in terms of the perks you took really matter.
@@TrueOG205 and you came to appreciate the legendary weapon effects such as instigating, bloody and two shot so much more 🙌🙌. Explosive on survival had me riskin too much.
@@ChristopherCraven I haven't played Metro 2033 but I haven't found a better difficulty like Survival Fallout 4 other than the From Software Souls games.
I'm proud to say that I beat both The Last Of Us games on Grounded. It was pretty stressful and many encounters took me around 10+ attempts to complete.
Oh man the car park in part 2! I had to memorize where every bottle and bullet was and killed the last clicker with my very last piece of ammo. So satisfying
A game that should be up there is Ghost of Tsushima, just for Lethal Mode. What makes makes this worthwhile is that it doesn't feel like you have to chip away at an insane amount of enemy health while you have cut, parry and dodge with super low health. You and the enemy have same "realistic low" health and the same killing power of 2-3 strikes. It truly becomes a matter of the better swordsman and an enjoyable use of skill at that level.
I came here to see if they mentioned this and was disappointed they didnt! I just completed GoT and Iki Island on Lethal mode and it makes the game so much more fun. You have to master the combat and timing of the parries. Made for some extremely fun fights. 6 Blades Kojiro can eat a dick tho. That fight was insanely hard on Lethal. Everything else I was able to get through without too much issues
Honorable mention to Jedi: Fallen Order. Difficulty changes parry timing, enemy aggression, and damage. Jedi Master (Hard) felt like a better default because Jedi Knight (Normal) felt like enemies would just stand around and wait for you to do something.
Started on master but turned it down to knight after the first visit to Zeffo. I just wasn't having fun and couldn't get used to the parry timing. I really like Elden Ring (still nowhere near finished), Fallen Order just doesn't play as fluidly to deal with perfect timing. Knight difficulty feels perfect between some challenge but still a pretty cinematic experience. Very underrated game, can't believe I'd never heard of it till a few weeks ago and very excited about the sequel in a few months!
Standout high difficulty game for me was Metro: Last Light on ranger mode, no question. Ranger mode was the first and only time so far that I've encountered a game making ammunition realistically rare. So many hard difficulty games or mods claim that 'ammo is scarce' and yet realistically there's still several magazines of ammo to be easily found for every weapon, every few mins at worst. Ranger mode forcing you to play hard, linear, extended combat encounters against dozens of enemies; using nothing but 2 throwing knives, 3 low calibre pistol rounds and less than half a small mag of low calibre SMG ammo made it really feel like a simulation rather than a typical 'action hero shoots up the baddies' situation. Trying to take on 3-4 bullet sponge mutant-gorilla type creatures, in a small cave with only 2 shotgun shells and a few knives was a challenge thats stuck with me for years xD Honourable mention to Fallout 4 survival mode as well. All those hours of travel and caution, just to step on a goddamn landmine and start the whole journey again xD
One of my most memorable gaming experiences are Ranger Hardcore on Metro 2033 & Last Light. In Exodus I've felt the need to have a HUD because of how the game works.
Ranger-Hardcore is my default setting when I play the Metro franchise (I'm a big fan). I say that not to brag but only in the difficulty, I can experience the true atmosphere of the Metro setting. Those who like the Metro franchise and haven't tried out the Ranger-Hardcore mode, they're missing out in my opinion.
The new spiderman games work really well on higher difficulties. It forces you to actually extensively use your gadgets, but on normal it's extremely easy to just coast by on the arkham style of gameplay. I recently completed my third playthrough and this was the first time I went on a higher difficulty, and I fell in love with the game even more because of it.
Was going to be my comment too. Yeah it's a totally different game. Played it and all the DLC recently on new game plus on the hardest difficulty and oh man. What a blast
I think Doom Eternal fits into this list perfectly. All difficulties are fun and make you play very aggressively, but Nightmare kicks it up to another level. You need to move fast and learn how to use every tool effectively, and when it all finally clicks it's a feeling like no other.
I was looking for this comment. Nightmare is the way to play it. It takes some time to master but that's how it's meant to be played, according to Hugo Martin. I hated the game at first, but that's because I was approaching it the way I was conditioned by these new games with regenerating health. In DOOM you have to EARN health, armor, ammo, blood punch... It's incredibly satisfying when you master the combat loop. 🙂
I love Fallout 4 and after trying survival mode I never went back. Such a more complete game. You learn the maps every nook and cranny due to no fast travel. Learn the random event spawn points. Love it.
Yup, after survival you can't go back, makes you play smart and prepare, and get more immersed in the world with easier traveling becoming available through moving forward in the story instead of just being able to fast travel from the start. It's great.
It also made settlement building and npc recruiting really important if you wanted a clean route across the map. It also made the Glowing Sea terrifying with almost nowhere to save. Fucking loved it!
@@KirbyOnCronic was going to say this as well. A totally different game since a lot of preparation was important and the settlements did the preparation easier.
Same here. I though vanilla Fallout 4 was a bit 'meh' but I ended up sinking 100's of hours into Survival mode. Every confrontation becomes tense, the world feels a lot more dangerous, and you really need to use all the game's systems to get through it. Add a few 100 mods and it's superb.
Haven’t watched the video yet, but I’m gonna say it right now. DOOM Eternal. The game director has even stated that the game was meant to be played on nightmare. (No shame in playing lower difficulties though ofc.)
@@ssensei34 Doom Eternal’s combat is so amazing that the game can be replayed almost endlessly and as your skill and proficiency increase so should the difficulty. My first 2 playthroughs were on “Hurt me plenty” (normal) and the game kicked my ass, but nowadays I only play on nightmare it’s the only difficulty that feels right for me.
Should absolute add Shadow of War to this list. The nemesis system SHINES with the higher difficulty. Deaths are canonical, so it feels like a progression in your story instead of a failure, which adds to the experience.
Dragons dogma is pretty fun on the hardest difficulty. I love how much more rewards you get. I believe higher risk should give you better rewards instead of damage sponge enemies.
The Long Dark has this crazy challenge where you’re getting stocked by a bear that attacked you, you gotta make it to a safe house that’s miles away, there’s a blizzard happening usually, and your fighting off medical aliments, plus the bear jump scares you kinda. It’s fookin spooky for a survival game and it’s genuinely just a hard challenge.
I feel like Critical Mode on Kingdom Hearts games is top notch, giving you some useful abilities to start the playthrough a bit differently and set you up to an amazing challenge
Not to mention it decreases you health by half, and makes the ai of the enemies super aggressive, but what I like most is you actually do more damage which makes fights not feel like they drag on forever, and yet it's still the hardest mode
In my experience, higher difficulty is always better when the game is well made, because it forces you to engage fully with all the various systems of the game, making it a richer experience. But when those systems are not perfect in the first place, higher difficulty makes everything a chore.
I find that with so many games, increasing the difficulty just means enemy health and damage up, player damage and health down. This can very often lead to abandoning all of the interesting mechanics and slipping into whatever cheese tactic that works. Never am I better at learning the flaws of an ai's pathing than when it's a bullet sponge that can near instakill me.
Yep, like New Vegas. You can still cheese the game by jumping on the construction equipment in the quarry junction and easily wipe out every deathclaw over time without them even touching you at level 1 with enough explosives/ammunition. Hell, you could probably loot the minefield by Forlorn Hope and have enough mines to wipe out half from that alone. Once you injure the legs an enemy is boned in that game. Also, I like to turn my player into a ghoul via the console and it's hilarious how easy that makes the game with the right perks. That game is a masterpiece though, there will never be another game like it. It and Mafia 1 are two of my favorite games of all time.
Yeah, increasing difficulty should make both you and the enemies have less health but the same amount of damage, that way it really comes down to whether or not the player is skilled enough to beat the enemies.
I'm really hoping to see the Metro series mentioned in part 2 or 3! Those games the devs said they were meant to be played in Ranger mode (and its even better in Ranger Hardcore). Tougher enemies, no hud, scarce resources for crafting, it really almost forces you to go the stealth route which is a challenge to do without being spotted, because if you're spotted good luck surviving without using almost all your resources and ammo! And not to mention the scarcity of oxygen, I died multiple times in Exodus in the last level due to running out of oxygen!
@@simen30 literally th only game franchise that I 100%. Those games are amazing. And the ranger hardcore is worth playing. It's super immersive and just overall a crazy experience.
The mass effect series on insanity is great too, really forces you to make use of all of you and your squadmate’s abilities as well as the cover system
@@592Johno Sometimes that's all it takes to make the game play on it's full potential. If the game has a well made system for building and buffing characters but then gets ignored since enemies are too weak, then just making the enemies hard af is enough.
@@592Johno they're not if you use the right bombs/potions/oils and keep your equipement up to date which is exactly what the difficulty is trying to make you do: learn the different enemies and use the right tools instead of having 1/2 go-to equipement and spamming 1 attack
The Metro series, aside for maybe Exodus, is an absolute must play on the Hardest “ranger” difficulty. Sure you die in a couple hits but so do your enemies, making every weapon viable, especially the one with the name I can’t say in the comments. Stealth is also a must in this mode
I found playing exodus on the hardest difficulty was wayyy more interesting and fun than normal mode. But I haven't played the previous games yet so I have nothing to compare it to.
Disagree, one of the first two games has a bit where you're waiting for a cart thing to cross the water to you and you have to survive against a horde of enemies with limited ammo. On Ranger, this is just a ridiculous exercise in backpedaling and hoping to get a successful melee-dodge combo which seems to be determined by random luck. That one segment made me stop playing Ranger and go back to Normal, in which that section actually works as intended.
Kingdom come deliverance on hardcore mode has definetely has been one of my best gaming experiences. Having to learn how to navigate without knowing where you are on map or having markers to guide you definetely teaches a new way to play open world games. Being have to choose 2 negative perks in the beginning, or having only savior schnapps saves guides you to play more strategically... And everything you achieve gives you a much better feeling. I loved all of it.
I'd like to add 'Splinter Cell Blacklist' to the list as 'perfectionist' difficulty turned the game from a run and gun shooter into a legitimate, more classic stealth game with the number of tweaks added. It's a great Stealth game up there with the fabled Chaos theory when in Perfectionist difficulty.
Kingdom Hearts 2 Critical Mode completely changes the game into one of the finest action RPGs (gameplay wise), and those endgame bosses on Critical are especially worth doing. it's a shame the other games do not balance critical as well as 2.
YES! KH2 on Critical is one of the most balanced experiences I've ever come across for my play style. I also like that game give the player benefits for also playing on the Highest Difficulty where most games just subtract.
Especially since your health only goes up to half the max health on other difficulties. Making fights like xigbar, Demyx and roxas even more pains than they normally are.
I'm very slowly replaying the early KH games (if my motion sickness would take a chill pill, lol), but I did play Birth By Sleep on the PSP when it came out and got to Unkown (a character dressed in an Org XIII robe...I do know who he actually is, now) who utterly wrecked my shit 😅. I've heard that none of the developers had even beaten him with all 3 of the characters you get (Ventus, Terra and Aqua) when the gane was published. They weren't fully aware of just how hard he was. As such, the version of him in the PlayStation bundle (which is the one I have that has KH1FM, KH2FM, CoM, and BBS) is now easier than before. I don't feel upset at that as the original experience is still readily available. Not hard to get a used PSP and a copy of Birth By Sleep or to use a PSP emulator. But that was a character on max difficulty when you'd been playing on normal mode before...I'm scared to face him on hard!
I just couldn't play it on that difficulty. Not successfully anyway. I've been playing games for decades and my reflexes aren't as fast as they used to be! :)
@@visionhawk4403 Same here, after you hit 30+ gaming ability just goes down the drain. When I was a kid/teenager I could wipe the floor on Counter Strike, Sonic 1/2, Street Fighter 2, etc but these days I just stick to easy mode, more fun for me that way lol.
I'm really happy you guys included Thief in this list. As for favorite atypical difficulty system not on this list, I really like Final Fantasy X's expert sphere grid option.
regarding guitar hero: i always avoided expert level, but switching from normal to hard was a nice experience (the fifth note is only used on hard and expert, so its a totally new way to play)
I love Alien Isolation. There's a game with replay value, especially with the different game modes. My favorite parts is where I can pit enemies against enemies, like throwing a noisemaker in with the murderous survivors, just for them to be destroyed by the alien. Destroying the androids is also satisfying to me. I like the inventory management. A highly underrated gem.
One of my favourite games ever. I wished they had done a sequel, Amanda needs closure. Fun Fact: the team that developed the game are based in my town! 😛
Actually I had plenty of items in the end although playing on Nightmare Mode. I just basically slowly walked through the game. I didn't want the alien to know I'm there by using some item.
I liked when Metal Gear V had substance mode and other various modes. I thought the scavenging for items to complete your mission rather than a set loadout was tense and interesting. I just wish they had those modes for every mission. Sure you can rp it by dropping in with less of everything but it doesn’t feel quite the same as starting with nothing at all.
Man same! I loved those subsistence missions so much that I started going back through all the missions role playing it and deploying with nothing. Like just basic olive drab camo, default arm, and either no weapons or just basic un-silenced weapons (I cant remember if it was possible to deploy with no weapons). I have this great memory of doing that mission where there's 3 targets and they meet at a village. It'd take way too many words to describe why it was amazing but it was. I wish I continued that but I think other games came out n I moved on but man soo good.
Never played XCOM at all. Bought it on sale last week and immediately jumped into an Ironman campaign on hardest difficulty in War of the Chosen with 0 knowledge of anything. It's the most frustrating/rewarding thing I've done in a game all year. First time I got melee countered by a Muton, first time an enemy bombed the floor out from under my squad (which makes sense in retrospect, but I was not expecting the AI to DO SOMETHING I WOULD DO) and so many other things make this game so fun. Also the jank just makes me laugh when it does happen. I'm surely going to fail but it will be GLORIOUS.
@Dia de Treinamento I rarely heard that voice line on the first pass lmao. But I finally beat it! 4 tries later 😅 it was very rewarding 😁 Good job to you as well Commander 💯
When I was playing Grounded mode on The Last of Us back on PS4. I had an issue with the sewer level. I noticed if you changed the frame rate from 60fps to 30fps it makes it a little bit easier to get passed. I was able to complete the game on grounded because of this knowledge and get the trophy lol
I loved playing the CRUSHING mode in every Uncharted game. It made me feel like I was really in there. Starting the game on this mode (or even hard) instead of lower ones makes the game way more engaging.
I recently acquired a ps2 and a copy of silent hill 3. I love how you can increase both the combat difficulty (number of enemies plus health and damage buffs) as well as the puzzle difficulty which can get particularly tricky at times.
Very good list. My addition would be Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30 and Earned In Blood. They were very difficult but still very enjoyable. Such tense firefights, and you rely on your team mates so much. As standard in both games, you also have quite limited ammo, but can pick up enemy weapons. Earned In Blood allowed you to ask your squad for more ammo, but the levels were filled with more enemies, with even more challenging sequences.
RE7 on Madhouse was one of the best/most terrifying experiences of my life. Having Jack literally RIGHT behind for like half the game was s scary. And he was way more perceptive when searching for you.
It's funny, I agree with The Last of Us being better at higher difficulty, meanwhile I think Uncharted is better on an easy one. Let's you kick back and enjoy the ride a lot more. Would be fun to see a list of games that are better on easy mode.
I found Grounded in the Last of Us incredibly rewarding as it completely morphs the game from a narrative experience into a stealth survival horror whereas I just found Brutal in Uncharted absolutely bs and requiring a lot of luck 😅
@@Die-Angst While I like easy mode for its ability to let you "RP difficulty" in a way that avoids shortfalls in mechanics (Metro LL > Metro 2033 for me for that reason), for some games easy mode is so easy that everything interesting about the gameplay is rendered moot. Good example for easy - Dawn of War II. Bad example for easy - Dragon Age Inquisition.
yeah, many old games which always feel unbalanced on harder difficulty. Idk if there are newer games with also unfair hardmode etc. Besides special difficulties like the highest in DmC 5 etc.
So good to see Gameranx talk about the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games, they are the biggest nostalgia tanks for me and just seeing the fretboard from GH1 and 2 makes me feel warm and fuzzy.
I think the Mass Effect games deserve a mention, ME2 in particular. Difficulty is not just a health/damage increase. The fact that EVERY enemy becomes protected from CC forces the player to look at the game differently, make better tactical decisions, and make the most of game mechanics to prevail.
Ys: The Oath in Felghana. I'm quoting someone on GameFAQs: "Damage taken and given are the most notable differences from Very Easy to Normal modes. Every difficulty from Hard and up introduces new boss attack patterns, speed, attacks and/or capabilities both offensive and defensive in addition to the above. It also narrows the timing window for safely attacking bosses the harder the difficulty. The differences are greatly noticed on the later bosses, and especially on a particular humanoid boss."
@@ModestPavement Really? I've been playing Normal now & it's a cake walk. On Expert, unlike in lower difficulties it gives you no leverage when it comes to the shadows.
The Alien Isolation Nightmare completion is still one of the most satisfying to date. Like Jake touched on with the video, you have to keep moving to stay alive. I don't think I stood up the entire playthrough outside of cutscenes and saving. 10/10 love that game and I could play it over and over.
One game I've started playing recently in which the difficulty is literally out of this world is The Evil Within 1 & 2 Akumo difficulty. Every enemy is lethal and scary as hell, resources are very minimal, so you spend more time running away than actually pulling the trigger. A good scare and a good challenge.
I would recommend Dead Space 1 & 2 on the higher difficulty. So much more immersive, smarter AI, limited ammo/resources, but also fair. A complete survival horror game.
I beat impossible and zealot difficulty from fresh new game without dlc, i confirmed it's possible, for no upgrade run it's also possible, that's how you designed good difficulty, unlike village of shadows difficulty in re8 where enemy have abnormal amount of health and insane damage, also it's poorly designed for fresh new game, it's just bad from my experience lol
Sekiro Charmless and Demon Bell. It sounds crazy at first but it forces you to perfectly deflect and use the prosthetic tools properly. Once you master it you'll never want to go back.
I'm so glad TLOU was part of the list. Going to grounded/grounded+ is a whole new vulture to deal with. In other difficulty modes, ammo is pretty fair throughout. In grounded, those bricks and bottles become your best friend. And the enemies become much smarter and often work together. The difficulty change targets so many different aspects of the game, its brilliant and evokes a feeling of helplessness when you have a crowd of runners and clickers with two bullets and a brick to protect yourself with.
Dead Space 2 had one of the best difficulty ramp ups imo. You could take all your gear with you into harder difficulties and sure it could be made a bit easier that way but the enemies definitely became tougher and ammo more scarce making things feel much more a survival horror game when feel more on the back burner even with upgrades. I usually start off zealot difficulty first.
Agree on you pick 100%. But I have to elaborate on the fact that you can't get your stuff into Hard Core mode (hardest) - and this difficulty is where the true fun (horror) begins 😄
I beat TLOU in survival mode years ago. Thought that was intense. Played it on grounded mode and couldn’t get past the section with Joel falling down the elevator shaft, separated from Ellie. I’ll eventually go back to it, but survival mode is definitely worth it.
After you get the card go to the door and swipe the card and try the door before you start the generator. Once the power comes on run to the door and swipe the card and open the door as fast as you can. It might take a couple of tries but it will happen. Thus skipping fighting the bloater.
Veteran on Battlefield 3 was brutal. The flight mission took some time and “Between a rock and a hard place” had me take a break for a day to come back to it lol. Hardest part was remaining patient and not rushing the enemy. That patience starts to run thin when you repeatedly get killed for peaking above cover to 1 second too long.
Glad that FO4 is on the list - Survival difficulty feels like a complitely different experience and is a proper way to play the game, I can only imagine how big the game could be if they launched it with survival is primary mode
Something I find myself doing on my favourite games is play them 1 time on normal difficulty but after I've done everything in the game I take a couple of months off and then jump on NG+ at the hardest difficulty available. I did this on Far Cry 5, Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon Zero Dawn and now I'm planning on starting the NG+ on Horizon Forbidden West:)
That’s a great way to do it! I do it opposite myself 😅 I start the new game on hard and just throw myself to the wolves! It forces you to get good fast! Then I play it over again later on normal so I have the skills to do what I want and go where I want and really explore the game!
@@Danny___Riot Sounds fun but it's just a habit of mine to start whatever game I play on normal. THEN if I really liked it I just do NG+ because I'm too lazy getting everything I had previously. Plus I don't find myself good enough to start a complete new save on ultra hard (or whatever is available)😅
I think that's a great way to replay games. Giving yourself a few months break after beating a game allows you to forget just enough about it to be able to enjoy it on a second playthrough. Upping the difficulty may also freshen up the experience. I think I'll try this out if I ever am in the mood to replay a game.
Played Ghost of Tsushima for the first time and I highly recommend playing it on Hard 👍 It's an incredibly fun and interesting challenge and feels truly rewarding when you master the game mechanics. I'm currently playing a New Game + on Lethal and my playthrough on Hard has made it easier for sure
I also wanted to mention Ghost of Tsushima. Started my first playthrough on hard, then moving on to Lethal and the NG+ Lethal was a balanced curve for genuine challenge.
Ghost of Tsushima is so good on hard and above that I can't imagine myself playing it on easier difficulties, it made every battle a fair challenge that could destroy you if you underestimate it and whenever I thought it starts getting easier the game would bring in new enemy types to kick my ass. Shame it got robbed out of GOTY.
I am currently doing exactly this and it feels pretty balanced so far. I died a fair few times getting to grips with controls but that's what's supposed to happen, otherwise you'd just go through the whole thing mashing quick attack to beat everything and never do any of the cool stuff simply because there's no need to
@@KarolinenDragon I agree that it was game of the year.. however I don’t think it got robbed. Last of us 2 on the hardest mode dead feels like a zombie apocalypse simulator, it’s an amazing game fr! But ghost will age better because it’s just so fun going back to it
Beating The Last of Us on Grounded was one of my favorite video game experiences ever. Having to learn where every enemy was and knowing exactly where and when to lure them away, having to perfectly manage your resources because there are parts of the game where you need to use ammo and if you’ve shot anything on the way there you’ll die, having to know exactly which upgrades you want to give your guns and yourself because the upgrade currencies are almost nonexistent. It was truly incredible.
I love Alien: Isolation. It is by far my favorite survival horror game. But I felt Nightmare mode was stupid. Not for the ramping up the Alien's senses or AI. That I am totally down for. But artificially stripping away crafting items when there is working stuff all over the place that you theoretically could take apart, and making the motion tracker busted when you play an engineer who can fix and invent shit just seemed too cheap. I felt that it would have been just right if they cranked the enemy AI to 11 and had it more regularly look under and around, and increased how fast it moved when it did it, would have been perfect.
I played that level on TLOU 2 on grounded where you’re Ellie sneaking through the woods by the scars torturing the WLF and then up through that parking garage and then down into that’s shop where the brute busts down the door. Yeah that was like some of the hardest and funnest 4 hours of my life trying to get through that without dying, carefully managing ammo for the right opponents, etc. wild stuff man
Hades should be on this list! It's such a creative way to handle difficulty-- allowing the player to choose difficulty modifiers worth points that add up to new levels to continue earning rewards. There's a whole layer of strategy based on your choice of weapon and build, eg faster-moving enemies might be tougher for a slow and heavy player weapon.
I played through God of War recently on Give Me God of War, in preparation for Ragnarok. It was tough. Not only were the enemies more aggressive, but they also leveled up on you, if you weren't looking, which made me switch my tactics and change my build up to prioritize crowd control a bit more. I beat the game, but now I have to hunt down the Valkyries, then there's new game+ after that. This is a game that was meant to be played on the hardest difficulty.
Payday 2 on Mayhem or above. Not only are there general changes made for almost all the heists such as cameras that can't be destroyed, but there are also certain specific changes to most heists like ATMs not spawning in Four Stores which prevents immediate completion of the objective or having 3 SWAT Van Turrets spawn and have one of them crash into one of the houses in Counterfeit which makes it so you have less cover that you can use up top. You can destroy it so as to have one less threat targeting you, but that won't bring back the cover you lost.
Insanity mode on ME3 is the hardest of the three. The harvesters, Collectors and Swarmers are just hell. Especially the swarmers swamp you, and you are basically defenseless. It's also strange that Insanity is easier wen going as an glass canon engineer than as Infiltrator or Vanguard. If you play as Vanguard on hard mode you are almost a God on Insanity Vanguard is one the most difficult.
I always loved the ranger hardcore mode in metro exodus and it's counterparts from the earlier games, minimization the hud, making managing resources an actual worry cause you could end up with no ammo if you're not careful and overall somewhat simulating the stress of surviving in a post nuclear war world
Nice, I am replaying the classic thief games at the moment and thought of them when I read the title. The stealth is still so good for how old the games are, incredible. I think the hardest fight i ever had was the end fight of the Horizon Zero Dawn DLC, where you fight the hardest machine in a pretty small arena. I played that on hardest difficulty and it took many tries, i think the final run took around 30 minutes. That was a real workout but the frustration from before turned into such a big payoff.
State of Decay 2 is one for me. Specifically the Nightmare or Lethal zone as resource management, enemy difficulty and Blood plague management all take a significant difficulty jump and really forces you to be smart about what you're using while getting established. When typically you're able to get setup fairly quickly or go fight a horde like it's nothing, starting on a new Nightmare or Lethal zone game takes both of those away. It makes it so using a line of fireworks as a deterrent to lure a large plague horde off it's track that's headed straight to your base the better and smarter option as it would have a pretty high chance of wiping or at least infecting your entire community.
SoD2 is THAT one game I wished was on PS. Xbox has such a marvel of a franchise and they ignore it and don’t support it enough. I love playing that game on my PC.
Great shoutout to Guitar Hero Expert difficulty. It really was a different game when you had to play all of the notes instead of just a few, and there was nothing like pulling off insane riffs on guitar hero 2. Definitely the way to play.
The Metro series is only truly appreciated as the survival horror shooter it is when you play it on the highest difficulty. Ammo and resources are scarce, forcing you to carefully consider each enemy and monster engagement! The game also makes it easier for you to die while simultaneously making enemies have lower health as well! A truly incredible experience!
I love Ranger difficulty, it's just such a fair hard-mode, the enemies die from 1-2 bullets just like the player does. Really makes stealth essential. The only bullet-sponges are unusual non-human monstrosities, and most of those encounters have smart ways to deal with the threat without using lots of ammo.
Great mention of the early Ghost Recon games! Right up to GRAW2 they seemed to keep that. The big thing I remember noticing about the GRAW games on higher difficulties is that they really made you have to think and use all of you gear and gadgets at times. I really miss those games too, and I like Wildlands for what it was. Even Breakpoint became a decent (but only decent) game eventually, but Ubi skewed the wrong way on the realism/gameplay spectrum from what I think most of us OG Ghost Recon fans want and expect from that franchise.
Ghost Recon Future Soldier getting a mention, sure it wasn't built like it's predecessors, but it still has these amazing moments and achievements like dismantling a heavily patrolled area from 30-40 soldiers to 0 without making a sound on it's highest difficulty. It felt like a puzzle and it's one of those Xbox achievements I remember fondly.
Xcom Ironman as a party game was one of the best gaming experiences I’ve had, everyone made themselves in game and got really invested in every move. Just drinking and arguing and laughing and mourning each other for like 11 hours like it was a Super Bowl party
The timesplitters series for me was one of the first games that i religiously played for a long time that had a really good higher difficulty setting that introduced more of a campaign level that previously would be otherwise be locked out on lower difficulty settings and of course that introduced new enemies, items and objectives that enabled a lot of replayability i absolutely loved this game
As a textbook example of a casual gamer, I appreciate when you include (for me) obscure games that weren't necessarily blockbusters on a CoD/Battlefield level. Thank you for the research and good work. Keep it up! 😎👍🏻
I bought Watch Dogs Legion a couple of months ago and thought it'd be a good idea to start it off on the hardest mode since I played the first two games with no problem. Little did I know that the game is actually harder than the first two and you can't just headshot every enemy with a silenced pistol in every stealth encounter until you get a certain character (even then, some of the enemies have helmets). Took a couple of hours to get the hang of it after killing a few of my operators, but I'm glad I played it on that difficulty. It was very fun, highly encouraged playing the game steathily (which I do anyways when given the chance), and had me feeling confident in my ability to complete the game. I imagine if I bothered to lower the difficulty, it'd be insanely easy.
I like hard mode for the challenge. But if you think about it, it makes the protagonist seem so weak dying from one shot and the hostiles feel so strong after eating multiple magazines. Some food for thought.
Rock Band 4 actually has one more tier of difficulty called brutal mode and it cuts the notes off at the top of the track and makes it so you can only see them for a fraction of a second before disappearing. The note paths on brutal difficulty are the same as expert so you have to really know the song well in order to be able to play it. It definitely changes the game.
Honourable mention to Time Splitters 2. Hard mode literally involved new characters, gameplay, and whole areas of maps that you wouldn’t get to play if you just did medium or easy.
One thing about x-com difficulty that’s interesting is the skill levels in the 1994 original. It originally had 8 different skill levels with the lowest one being very difficult. It was about as hard as the second highest difficulty now (out of 4). It basically took a manufacturing glitch to play through the game the first time. If you download it now on steam it’ll have reworked skill levels that are like the new remake x-com difficulty levels. However, if you find an old bootleg download of the original x-com, which is easy to do, you can see how hard this game was. Especially with no booklets, tutorials, or internet help in 1994.
Death March in Witcher 3 is a must to get the most out of the potion/mutagen system. You don't even need potions except for Swallow on other difficulties.
The most important to me is mastering the combat, it turns into a souls game, as you can't just brute force the fighting anymore, and you're rewarded for learning about the enemies and fight smart and calculated like a Witcher would. It feels great.
@@cole9693 he mentioned rewards and i was solely asking about what that means. Rewarded in-game or just irl you feel "a sense of accomplishment" and that's it.
Best satisfaction is when you can take out entire army camp in the very south of Velen alone with the most OP mutagen, perks and potion at Deathmarch or the bandit camp in Toussaint where they just swarms you 1v100 lmao
I didn't expect to see it on the list but I personally enjoyed Akumu mode from The Evil Within. Literally anything 1 hit kills you in that difficulty, ammo is scarce and crafting components even rarer. Extreme ammo management was necessary & knowing what enemies to expect and where helped immensely.
The new Doom games on Ultra Nightmare are insane and are a real test of your reactions and skills, particularly with the weapons sandbox. I have yet to beat either of them on ultra nightmare but I'm slowly chipping away at it and man do you feel like a badass every time you survive each section.
Cult of the lamb does this brilliant thing where they tell you which difficulty setting is the "dev recommended". I wish all games would do that. Some games the enemies are too spongy at high difficulty and some games the enemies dont offer enough off a challenge on easy. Just tell me the correct difficulty or dont have those settings imo.
100% agree! I mean sometimes I do just want the hardest difficulty but a lot of times I just want to make sure I’m getting the full experience. We gotta get back to normal difficulty being the intended choice, ALOT of times now it’s really just easy (probably to keep from hurting peoples feelings)
I highly agree with Fallout 4 Survival Mode difficulty being on this list. When I first picked up the game, I goofed around with it but it just never really drew me into the game. It felt like *something* was missing. Some key element that the game was built around... but lacked. Not long after they released the survival mode update and I picked it up. Put hundreds of hours on a single save file after that. That game actually became super fun and enjoyable BECAUSE of survival mode. It gave a reason to a lot of the mechanics that otherwise just felt like fluff - such as settlements. Settlements are really important now. Legendary variants spawn more often so you'll find more interesting weapons. It gave you a pro vs con factor to using chems to heal, with the most extreme downside being radaway's "increased illness chance" and oh boy, the illnesses you could contract were an actual threat that you needed to be cautious of. Ammo having weight meant you couldn't just stockpile an entire armory in your backpocket. And on top of all of that, I think the most important part was that they adjusted how everyone takes damage - instead of enemies getting beefer and becoming bullet sponges... they got weaker but so did you. Every encounter was only a few lucky hits away from victory or defeat and it made the game so much more thrilling. I am convinced that Fallout 4 was designed originally with survival mode in mind from the very beginning, because it made that game truly what it should be.
Survival mode is the best way to play. They really should have nerfed Molotov initial damage though. The fact that raiders can track you with no vision and throw a Molotov blindly up a flight a stairs through a doorway into another room and hit you, and INSTANTLY killing you is not enjoyable. The entire premise of a Molotov is to set fire, not be a frag grenade. I've lost several hours due to getting insta-killed by that in survival.
2:00 The modifiers were from Goldeneye's "007" difficulty which allowed you to change enemy health, enemy accurancy, and your own health as well, if I remember correctly.
