Not looking for much of a challenge from this game, so probably the default. I usually don't consider the easiest unless I really hate the gameplay (ahem, Last of Us).

I always go with the Developer recommended option, Normal if there isn't any recommendation.

When Halo 3 had Heroic as "Hey dude who beat Halo 1 & 2 use this option" I did and was glad I did it felt perfect but I have no desire to go into a new game with fucking permadeath on no thanks.

@sunbrozak: KVO from Gamespot suggests selecting a difficulty one above your usual, so perhaps I'll try that (mine in this case would be "hard" for the record, if the scale is the usual easy, medium, hard, extreme). Or perhaps even Death March since I also like the idea of reflecting the enemies' dangerous-looking design in the combat. Like others said, it'll depend on if it mostly affects my own character's mortality or if enemies turn into damage sponges like I'm playing Bloodborne NG+. One can be an interesting journey in digging up every bit of strategic oomph I have, the other is in almost every case, a slog. It literally makes all the difference. Also, if I like the game enough I'll probably eventually brave the perma-death mode if there's a trophy in it for me. As I'm typing this, I'm already doubting the validity of this claim.

Regardless, I'll probably take Van Ord's advice and at least play hard first time through. I found 2's combat to be methodical and generally manageable if one was careful. If 3 has in fact dumbed it down, I want that feel of needing to be careful and use Cats Eye and Hangman's Blood etc. when necessary. This probably all comes from being a fan of the books and wanting to roleplay.

Dark if they bring it back, good challenge and extra witcher swag >:D

So if I beat Witcher 2 on Dark Difficulty, what do I do? Hack the game to make it harder for myself like a total neckbeard?

I think I'll start with what's considered the normal difficulty, just to see how it plays. If I find that too easy I'll crank it up. I like a challenge, but I don't feel the need to make the game punishing right from the start. We'll see.

FYI the Quen sign people remember in Witcher 2 was nerfed to the ground in like the first major patch to remove it's complete ez-mode.

As always, i'll start on normal difficulty. Maybe I'll bump it up to hard for a second playthrough.

Hard.

Bump it above normal.
Witcher 2 was hard in the beginning but then a breeze endgame.

I usually play on normal, but if it's 200hrs as opposed to the 40 or so in the last game I may drop to easy. I haven't beaten a 200hr game since i was a kid, Skyrim and oblivion are still sitting at the 100hr mark waiting for me to go back to them lol.

The easiest to counter balance all the tough mfs on the internet who say they will play it on hard.

The second highest. Knowing from playing TW2, Dark difficulty requires a very deep knowledge of the combat and I'll do that on a playthrough 2.

Witchest

Normal, I'll bump it up if it becomes too easy from being overleveled like what the reviews have been saying

One level higher than the default setting for me, since Kevin Van Ord said the game is pretty easy.

This article is fantastic at discussing the difficulty and how we "should" be approaching the game;

http://www.vg247.com/2015/05/12/the-witcher-3-rewards-those-who-swallow-its-unpalatable-difficulty-curve/

I say "should" because I don't want to become part of the crowd of your playing it wrong which happens commonly with harder games.

I figured that was going to recommend that you play on the higher difficulties to get the "true" experience, but it's simply recommending you actually play the game and do some side-content, rather than blindly rushing through the story and banging your head against the wall trying to defeat enemies you're not prepared for, which I don't feel bad saying that is how you should play a game like this. Anyone who can't handle doing a bit of side-content in a massive open world RPG probably shouldn't play a game like The Witcher 3.

Good old normal mode. I am pretty bad at RPGs, so I'll just go the standard.

Reading this I was kinda floored that the game reviewer had only 1 save.

Yep I'm borderline obsessive with saving in games like this...every location change I will save incase the game didn't and after a lot of major fights.

I'm really debating this one. In most games I tend to gravitate towards Normal difficulty as I like to coast through and just enjoy the content and then move up on later playthroughs. That might change with this game; I've seen a few reviews that mentioned normal seemed a bit too easy.

I tend to play games on "hard" but not whatever the 4th "insane" option is. The first two Witcher games, and especially the 2nd, were off-puttingly difficult in the beginning. I might play The Witcher 3 on Normal.

Going to play it on normal unless there is some big incentive to play on harder settings, such as hard mode only loot like Witcher 2 or unqiue higher challenge quests.

I just about always go with "normal" or whatever weird equivalent the team uses, this is especially the case for games that I could wind up playing for a very long time. I like to have a bit of a challenge but I don't want combat to be tedious if I'm going to be playing for like 100+ hours.

As difficult as it allows. Single player games are easy.

I'll probably start on easy just to get the hang of the game's mechanics. If it turns out being anything like 2, I'll go berserk trying to get the hang of it on normal.