Playing On Easy Difficulty

I like playing on Easy Difficulty. There, I said it. I like easy mode. It’s fun. It’s relaxing. No, I’m not a coward. No, I shouldn’t be mocked for it. There’s nothing wrong with playing any difficulty if a game gives you difficulty options. But WHY do I like playing on easy mode? Well, I’m about to tell you.

A lot of my gaming is to do with stress levels. I work and I study and at the end of the day, I’m generally pretty tired, especially these days now that I sleep a lot worse than I used to. I’m pooped. The last thing I want is to be stressed out while doing a thing that’s supposed to be relaxing. I know that sounds idiotic, but that’s why I play games, to escape from reality and be a super awesome god-like killing machine. You can see why I like Skyrim, Warframe Garry’s Mod and the Saints Row series. Playing on hard mode can sometimes be way more stressful than it’s worth, especially when the only difficulty change is how much health and damage the enemies all have.

Patience is a part of it too. I am a very stubborn, impatient person. I don’t seem like it, especially when I’m sitting in the Tenno of Anarchy Dojo trying to build a robot out of random stuff or waiting for some person to finally find that Redirection mod to trade for an Ignis Wraith blueprint, but I’m stubborn and impatient beyond belief. You know that saying “walk before you run?” I’m the sort of person who will stubbornly not share my problems walking and only appear in public when I’m capable of running. In fact that’s apparently what I did as a baby, I refused to properly walk until I had the confidence to be able to run around.

So when it comes to games? I don’t have the patience to spend a billion years trying and failing to complete tasks.. I just want to get the thing done, so I can continue enjoying myself. Repeating things annoys me. Especially if it’s some mundane shit that everyone else can do just fine.

The main reason though? I like looking around. I like reading things and watching cutscenes and stuff like that. I like taking a moment to admire the scenery and the rest of the game outside of gameplay and combat. There’s so much to see but you often can’t see it because you’re on the defense and trying not to die, or you’re too busy fighting in general. Of course, playing on hard mode means you appreciate the breaks between combat more, but that time could be spent looking for secrets or looting everything that isn’t nailed down. And honestly, looking for secrets is one of my favourite things in video games.

You see, if you jump into hard mode straight away, you don’t always have time for that. There’s no time to stop and sniff the roses. I find that I spend so much time looking for health and ammo or wondering if I can make it to the next checkpoint. Partly because I can’t, partly because I’m not great at games in general and partly because I’m a weird person who starts to obsess when things hit specific numbers – there’s a reason why I always strive to have over 20 million credits in Warframe, or over 300 carry capacity in Skyrim.

The worst case scenario is that I never finish the game because I get stuck and can’t progress any further. The game could be really good but what’s the point if I’m stuck? On the flip side, if I enjoy a game but find it too easy, I can always play it again on a harder difficulty.

That’s the beauty of most games. You can play them again. You can play a game as many times as you like to uncover every secret, every nook and cranny. If anything, we should do that, assuming these are enjoyable games. The best games after all are the games you can spend hours in, playing over and over again.

Except for games that you can’t play again. But those are generally few and far between. And generally there’s a reason for that.

But yeah, that’s why I play on easy difficulty, mainly on the first playthrough, or the first hour or so while I get used to things.