Should Dark Souls Have an Easy Mode? (See Pinned Comment)

This is Game Maker's Toolkit, I'm Mark Brown. And I'm about to ask the most controversial question in all of gaming. Should Dark Souls have an easy mode? Dark Souls, and From Software's other action RPGs, are infamous for their brutal difficulty, which stems from the exacting combat, a punishing death system, endless traps, and titanic bosses who will kill you in seconds. It's enough to scare away some players before they've even tried one of the games.

So there are those who have asked for a more lenient difficulty setting, which would let them explore the gothic architecture of Bloodborne's Yharnam or the twisting lore of Dark Souls without having to see this screen several hundred times. At first, it seems like a fair request. Most games have difficulty settings, veterans can just ignore the easy mode, and - believe it or not, internet - but some players need more motivation than "Git Gud" to approach the unapproachable Dark Souls.

But, like Dark Souls itself, it isn't that easy. And first, we need to pin down why From Software made Dark Souls so difficult in the first place. A large part of game design is finding ways to nudge a player towards having a certain experience. This can be done through incentives and punishments. In Sunset Overdrive you're given combo points and special attacks if you bounce on car bonnets and grind on electricity cables, but you're quickly swarmed and killed by enemies if you try to fight from ground level. Insomniac is very clear about the way it wants you to play its game.

But almost every game is using its mechanics to encourage you to play in a certain way. Just Cause 3 lets you take dozens of bullets to the face so you'll have the confidence to act like a reckless action hero. While Hitman will kill you in a few shots because iO Interactive knows the game is more fun if you're encouraged to kill from the shadows. And this extends to every element of the game. Darkest Dungeon saves your game every few seconds so you'll have to live with your terrible decisions (and those painful random outcomes).

Designer Tyler Sigman says... TYLER SIGMAN: The way love to play games? I like permissive save systems, who are you to tell me how I should and shouldn't save my game, but when we talked about Darkest Dungeon we realised that would not work - it would rob the player of the experience that we intend them to have". So what experience does From Software intend the player to have in Dark Souls? Well, lead designer Hidetaka Miyazaki has been very clear on this. He says "Ever since Demon's Souls, I've really been pursuing making games that give players a sense of accomplishment by overcoming tremendous odds."

Tremendous odds indeed. In all five games, the player feels intimidated and underpowered because even the weakest enemies can topple a player who doesn't get the combat system. Pure dread runs through your veins as you tip-toe through Yharnam's streets, because you know that traps and ambushes are everywhere, and that the punishment for death is severe. And the bosses feel legitimately terrifying because their frantic attack patterns and screen-sized health bars make them seem impossible to take down during your first, extremely short encounter.

But those tough enemies just encourage you to fully engage with the combat system - so you go for parries and backstabs, and drop your shield for a second to regain stamina, and use those sweet, sweet i-frames to dodge through a dude's sword. The traps incentivise observant play and reward those who have learned the game's layout. And the ludicrously tough boss fights give you a genuine rush of satisfaction when you land the final blow.

Without the high level of challenge, the sense of accomplishment in every enemy killed, every shortcut found, every ambush survived, and every boss toppled would be much smaller - and the player wouldn't get Miyazaki's intended experience. Simply switching to an easier difficulty level in Dark Souls would be like taking Resident Evil 4 and letting you move while you aim, or store an infinite number of items in your briefcase, or save in any location. All of those choices were made because they give you the intended experience. And to change them, would be to fundamentally alter the game.

Then again, stranger things have happened - in Fire Emblem Awakening, Nintendo added a mode where allies who fall in battle are no longer lost forever - they simply sit on the sidelines until the next fight. That's despite the fact that permadeath is a core part of the Fire Emblem experience. So there are ways to include an easier mode, while clearly highlighting the way to get the true experience. You can't change the save system in Darkest Dungeon but Red Hook does let you turn off other contentious features like enemy corpses and failing combat retreats - while making it clear that this is not the way the game is meant to be played.

Other games restrict access to achievements or trophies while on easier settings, or put extra content or even "true" endings in those more challenging modes, to better explain the "right" way to play. But that still doesn't fix the fundamental problem that when offered choices - especially at the start of the game, when the player has no context for what the difficulty settings really mean - they might pick the easier option even though they could handle more challenge, and rob themselves of the best, and designer-intended experience.

A more elegant solution, then, is to weave the difficulty options into the game itself. And one game that does this magnificently is Spelunky. New players can focus on unlocking the tunnels which let you start the game from the jungle, the ice caves, or the temple and get a head start on taking down Olmec. But you'll soon realise that it's actually better to start from the beginning, as you'll be able to collect damsels, money, Kali points, and items that will pay off in later stages - and, more importantly, you'll need to hit every level to get the complete set of items needed to access the City of Gold and, from there, the secret, final world.

In his post-mortem book, creator Derek Yu said "things like the City of Gold aren’t in the game just to add thematic flavor, they also exist to guide players toward my vision of how it’s meant to be played, in a way that still allows them to gain a sense of genuine accomplishment and cleverness". There are lots of ways to do this - in Metal Gear Solid you can be sloppy and get spotted and just call in a helicopter to mess everyone up but if you want an S rank you're going to need to step up your game.

In Mario, it's one thing to finish the level but you'll need a keen eye and a good grasp on the controls to get all the stars and stamps. But Dark Souls is stuffed with features that let you set your own level of difficulty. Certain classes, like those that focus on spells that can be thrown from a distance, make many encounters easier - and you can change your class at any time just by assigning souls to different attributes.

The games also have a strong multiplayer aspect - the world is filled with messages written by other players that warn of you ambushes and bosses and traps (and players are incentivised to leave truthful, rather than trolling notes). Or you could literally summon in a few friends or strangers to help you take down a boss you've been struggling with. Plus, the game's complicated systems and unspoken rules lead you to discuss the game online or in real life, adding to the communal aspect. Dark Souls makes you suffer, but you never need to suffer alone.

Also, in Bloodborne, you can increase the game's difficulty by giving yourself more Insight - or you can keep the challenge at a more manageable level by spending those same points on items or summons. There are also super hard optional bosses that you don't need to kill if you want to just finish the game, you can grind for souls and items if you have the time, and you can also cheese tough monsters and bosses using the wonky level geometry and weird enemy AI.

So, yes, you could add in a mode where you get a few more Estus flasks from the beginning and bosses have shorter health bars and the enemies all wear party hats to lighten the mood and the world wouldn't come to an end. Just make it a cheat code or bury it in the settings or do whatever it takes to make sure players don't miss the point and spoil their first or perhaps only playthrough. But just don't forget that Dark Souls already has options for lowering the difficulty - they're just hidden within the game itself so you at least get to feel clever for figuring them out, or you get a sense on camaraderie when you stomp a hard boss with a friendly phantom.

And also don't devalue the role of challenge in game design. Dark Souls without the constant fear of death lingering over you isn't really Dark Souls at all. Dark Souls is difficult because it needs to be difficult to deliver Miyazaki's intended experience - to make you feel weak and insignificant, just to boost the sense of satisfaction when you overcome those tremendous odds and find a bonfire, or open a shortcut, or just destroy a massive boss monster.

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