What difficulty do you start at without knowledge of the game your playing (a new game)?

I usually prefer to play on medium mode to start with.

@gtxforza: So default? I agree. Usually unless it's badly reviewed, and I have no interest and just wanna finish it…I won't go too easy. That said I love the option to move to easy and back. Sometimes the game dev didn't adjust everything right. Some parts are too hard for your current level of expertise. I feel like people who say only default or hard forget that they make mistakes while making these huge games. That said, sometimes default over the years turned too easy. And easy is a cakewalk. So you never know. Plus pc configurations, mouse is easy to aim with in fps. Hence, my question. Thanks for answering.

I went with default, because that's usually the one the devs have balanced their game around, and other difficulties are not always handled well. E.g., sometimes on higher difficulties enemies will just become needlessly damage spongy, etc.

However, it really does depend greatly on the game and what I'm hoping to get out of it. There have been times when I've gone with the highest difficulty, and others when I've gone with the lowest--fairly recently, even. To give an example of each:

• For God of War Ragnarök, they had that system in place where you could only play the highest difficulty from the start, and if you lowered it mid-game, you couldn't switch back to it. So I figured I would start with that highest setting rather than locking myself out of it, and see how it felt. Turns out that it was tough, but rewarding, and I'm happy I went with that difficulty and stuck with it.
  
  
• For Dying Light 2, on the other hand, I looked up what the effects of the various difficulty levels were, and discovered that higher settings not only made enemies tougher, but gave you fewer crafting materials and made everything in the vendors' shops more expensive. That sounded bad to me since I'd heard that the game was quite grindy already, plus I really wasn't playing the game for its combat. So I played on easy.

Default, default, default. If I like a game enough to play a second time, I'll up the difficulty. The only instance I can recall going the easiest difficulty was when I played Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus because it was close to GOTY discussions I wanted to see the story as soon as possible before listening to the deliberations.

I'll go with "default" or medium in almost all cases. Notable exceptions were inFamous, which has a tutorial that then suggested "hey, you should do this on hard", so I did (it gets kinda spammy with your powers at that point...) , and Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius where I went with the "this is how it's meant to be played difficulty" for like half the game and then the difficulty spiked way the hell up because I hadn't been doing good enough and I gradually lowered it until I finally said "screw it" and went with the mode where you basically steamroll everything just to get through it.

As a side note, the Halo games going "Heroic is how it's meant to be played!" but defaulting to "medium" or whatever is pretty ridiculous. Also, I actually find them challenging enough on default.

Default unless the game says it’s challenging. I have limited time to play anything, so sometimes I pick Easy. Everspace 2 is my most recent example, and it still provides enough of a challenge to keep it there. I’ll also bump to harder difficulties if there’s an XP reward or something, but default is my anchor and first choice.

I always assume medium or normal is the intended experience, i'm not necessarily looking for a challenge but i don't mind if some parts of the game are designed to test my skill.

If it's a game i know is going to be harder or an older game that i just want to see through without difficulty i don't mind picking easy, i haven't played it yet but i'm glad they added an easy mode to Sifu, i love martial arts and brawlers but i'm not getting any younger.

I may also pick easy to help enhance gameplay, i lower the difficulty in Elder Scrolls to the point where i can one hit kill with an arrow in stealth because that's fun, i don't like the gunplay in the RE2 and 3 remakes and it feels much more rewarding on "assisted" mode with auto aim turned off, heads explode more often, there's more ammo, though in RE3 they went way overboard if you need that much ammo you've got a problem.

To quote the SNK Neo-Geo language: Level 4. (Default)

Even though this was a lie. The difficulty for their arcade games was never on Level 4.

I usually go with default, but there are some caveats. If the difficulty can be changed back and forth freely, I will choose default and see it from there. If not, I will pay more attention to what changes it introduces. Also, if I am not familiar with the genre, I tend to gravitate toward easier difficulty settings until I get used to the mechanics. While I understand there is an "intended" way to play them, I am not ashamed of trying lower difficulties.

My point is that I like games that are rewarding, but not frustrating. I have few hours a week I can dedicate to gaming to get stuck with a difficulty spike for too long.

Depends on the situation. Normally, I'm default normal. If it's a game that's been on my backlog forever, I bump it down to easy to get it done. If it's a game I'm reviewing and the timescale's not great, easy. If it's a genre I'm not familiar with, easy. Allows me to see the most of it with (potentially) the least amount of setbacks.

Just got to be careful with the latter that I don't settle into a dumb, reductive way of playing.

@shindig: Yeah, that sounds unfortunate, but I fall for that too. The game can be not even bad, but I put it on the backlog for no reason but life...then to keep up with new releases ill say I liked this game lets finish it. Then ruin my time by making it so easy. Coming back mode should be a thing aka you haven't played for a while here is a summary of the plot and retutorialization of controls. Gamers get flack but before unionization of controls we used to memorize all formats and jump between them without patting ourselves on the back. I also think it's a thing that too many good games come out and hence the bar being so high that 6 or 7 out of 10 is bad but those 9 and 10 game we still play for an hour and back burner it. Not sure if devs should just focus on short 5 hour experiences and put out games more often (though that would burn out their creativity) at a low price or just continue making games where 70% don't see the last half they created. I used to remember game had amazing endings now they're kinda half-hearted after thoughts and to be fair I'm the 30% that see them. Excusing the say jrpgs where they don't make it just for profit they love that SH@t and I mean that in a good way. Still gotta finish xenogears 3 hope giantbomb goes back to it. Opening was ruff but charming. (2 hours in)

Default or "Normal" difficulty is usually what I start with since most games tend to be balanced around that. I'd rank myself as a slightly below average to average skilled player, so that difficulty mostly works for me.

There are a few exceptions. I tend to read up on a game before I buy, and if a lot of players comment on finding a game to be a bit too easy, I might start on Hard from the get-go. Notable examples have been Torchlight 1, where Normal difficulty really is a cakewalk, or Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, which on Hard is a little challenging during the first dozen hours or so but gets a lot easier the further in you are.

To go slightly off-topic and back to my earlier point of me being a player of below-average skill:

I hate having to switch a game to Easy settings to advance, to the point where I'll rather stop playing the game at all than lower the difficulty. This is especially the case if a game has achievements connected to finishing it on certain difficulties. Ruiner, for example, has achievements for finishing the game on Easy/Normal/Hard settings, and I found the game's difficulty so frustrating on Normal that I just stopped playing and never got back to it rather than finishing the game and embarrassing myself in front of the whole world by only having gotten the Easy achievement. This is an extremely stupid issue and a total Me-problem, but I cannot kick it and wish developers would stop tying achievements for story completion to difficulty.

(To go even more off-topic, in a perfect world games would not lock out players from earning story completion achievements when the player uses any kind of assist mode either. If an in any way disabled/handicapped player, or even just an unskilled one, made it all the way through your game with the help of assist features, they earned the cheevo as much as any other player.)

Most games have done away with difficulty achievements, so most allow for changing difficulty mid-game. I see little reason to start on any mode besides "Normal," unless it's a series I'm already familiar with the trappings of.

@bulllee: I think more games are starting to realize the last point and not tying achievement to ableist concept, which of course causes a backlash from bad-faith actors who need to prove something to no one in-particular.

@undeadpool Yeah, reading Steam discussions regarding that topic makes my brain hurt. People looove to swing their capital-G Gamer dicks around.

Anyway, this topic doesn't really belong here. I didn't want to derail, apologies. <3

I voted Default Difficulty!

Usually default, but it depends. If its a story driven game or grindy rpg, I'll play those on easy.

I rarely play anything but normal/default. I'm long past the time when I cared about being hardcore about difficulty. I'm in this for fun, not frustration. Besides, almost no game gets more creative with harder difficulties other than boosting enemy life and damage or nerfing yours.

The one exception that I can think of right now is Hitman. Professional level is a significantly different and more challenging experience. It tests your knowledge of the levels and systems, forcing you to rethink your approach, adapt, and improvise. It's an approach I wish more developers would take.

Its interesting how people are talking about lowering the difficulty to easy during certain situations, because I did that recently in Jedi Survivor. I was playing most of the game on the default option which is Jedi Knight. But around the time I fought Darth Vader as Cere, the game's combat got pretty brutal, for me at least, so I lowered it to story mode to get past it, then I notched it back up to Jedi Recruit to finish the game which was still challenging enough for me to enjoy it. The difficulty is actually similar to the default mode in Jedi Fallen Order. They actually made the game harder in Survivor at default. So yeah, I do this quite a lot myself, and I don't have any regrets. I don't have the time to try and master a difficult game, unless I go in knowing this is what I'm in for, like a Souls game, or a Soul-like, like Lies of P which will be coming out soon. I know its going to be brutal, but I'm ready for it because I liked the demo a lot.

Default for me. I'll adjust the difficulty up for Bethesda games, sometimes too easy or for trophy reasons. Also, if I play any sports games I'll usually use the custom option to adjust it granularly as some aspects can be too easy and others too hard.

i pretty much always go for the default /medium . usually thats how something is 'ment' to be played and balanced around it . if i have a hard time i have no qualms about dropping it down to easy if i just care about the story or something , i'm there to have fun with a game so i don't need to get frustrated unless its just That type of game in the first place ...that said i don't usually bother with overly difficult games, only game i bumped up in recent memory was one of the yakuza entries i was replaying a few months back for throphy reasons