UPDATE: Miyazaki says that the statement about him considering an Easy Mode was actually a mistranslation. It seems making the Souls games easier was never actually something he had in mind. The proper translation of what he said is as follows:
“This fact is really sad to me and I am thinking about how to make everyone complete the game while maintaining the current difficulty and carefully send all gamers the messages behind it.’”
The original article is below in unedited form, but keep the mistranslation in mind.
Dark Souls Director Hidetaka Miyazaki is strongly considering adding an “Easy Mode” to the game in the future.
In an interview with Metro he discussed the game’s reputation of high difficulty and how he’d like to move forward with the series:
“I personally want my games to be described as satisfying rather than difficult. As a matter of fact, I am aiming at giving players sense of accomplishment in the use of difficulty.
Having said that, however, it is true that Dark Souls is rather difficult and a number of people may hesitate to play. This fact is really sad to me and I am thinking about whether I should prepare another difficulty that everyone can complete or carefully send all gamers the messages behind our difficult games.
However, I suppose gamers do not particularly prefer easy games. What they want is interesting and worthwhile games to play, so I think it is natural that hindrance or stress that does not attribute to such interesting and worthwhile elements will be removed in the end.
If the number of easy games is increasing nowadays, I guess it is because difficulty is not related to interesting and worthwhile game elements in many games among players.”
Some of you are probably panicking right about now. That might be a little premature. What Miyazaki said here is pretty clear: he’s thinking about adding the option of playing the game on an easier difficulty mode, not doing away with difficulty altogether.
Still, would a game like Dark Souls have the same appeal if you took away those elements of caution and extreme challenge? If enemies posed little danger and boss fights were easy enough to win on the first shot, would the customization, atmosphere and subtle storytelling be enough to keep players interested?
What do you think?
For me it depends on the design of the future games. I think that the current design of the Demon Souls, Dark Souls games will lose their appeal because they depend a lot on player skill to get by in the game. If there was an easier difficulty, I would brush off death and just go around killing everything on site as if I’m in a sandbox game. I’m actually more afraid of the idea that a difficult game would be off-putting to gamers when one of the main reasons a game like Dark Souls is popular is because of how difficult it was. I think Hidetaka Miyazaki doesn’t realize that all the talk about the difficulty of Dark Souls is what’s satisfying about the game.
As long as they make the same old difficulty into the game first and an easy mode second, I see no problem here.
A part of Dark Souls is dying, and I can see why some veterans of the game would be upset over having an easy difficulty setting.
However having an easy difficulty setting isn’t necessarily a bad thing. For some people who haven’t played the game before, but want to test out a specific build, it might help them get a better grasp of the combat and see what does and doesn’t work.
It probably won’t happen, but it would be interesting if they allowed access to the easy difficulty setting only if a player had beaten the game once on the regular difficulty setting.
It’s a stupid idea, if anyone wants to beat the game but can’t, they shouldn’t play that game anymore. If anyone is interested in the story or something, they can watch a playthrough on Youtube. Video games aren’t supposed to be simple and beaten by everyone, it’s a terrible logic and anyone supporting it shouldn’t be playing or especially making video games.
Sorry, what I meant to say in the beginning was: if anyone wants to beat the game, they should either put more effort into it, either quit.
For my personal perspective, this doesn’t affect me at all, as long as the easy moders have their oun multiplayer system, so they are not OP. On the market perspective, this is a terrible desition. One of the main points of interest in both dark and demon’s souls has allwais been the difficulty. Hell, Dark Soul’s slogan was “Prepare to Die”, wasn’t it? Besides the game already has non conventional difficulty settings integrated into it’s gameplay, like summoning phantoms, choosing to get or not to get a special weapon by cutting the tail from a boss, farming, etc. This is called Organic Difficulty, and EpicNameBro, a guy from youtube that you may know if you’re into Dark Souls lore or the Souls series in general, makes a pretty interesting statement about how it works.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upH5UfKbi0c
By the way sorry for my horrible horrible english.
I don’t care that they want to add one to Dark Souls, since it’s already been so long after its release, but what do these thoughts he’s having mean for future installments?
These games are designed around their difficulty. More often than not, when it comes to difficulty options, it’s a simple matter of turning dials (more health, more damage, more enemies). I think developing a game with an easy mode in mind will hurt the difficulty balance in my much prefered “hard” difficulty.
Forcing the player to learn, adapt, and get acquainted with the mechanics is what the Souls games do best. An easy mode would take all of that away.
Here’s how I think that easy mode could be implemented:
A set of really effective armour and weapons is acquirable right at the beginning of the game. This armour minimises damage by a large amount, and the weapons do ridiculous amounts of damage compared to the other weapons while being light and easy to swing.
The downside is that equipping any of the armour or weapons prevents the player from playing online, and that the set resembles a chicken suit, and makes chicken noises whenever the player is hit.
There should be one difficulty, one world
I can understand why someone would want an easy mode, but I feel that the Souls games are very unique for their difficulty. Without difficulty, I don’t know how they could add that satisfaction that comes with defeating a difficult opponent. When I killed my first Black Knight, it was after dozens of attempts, all of which ended in the same way until I devised a winning strategy, and I felt absolutely fantastic. The difficulty gives it that sense of satisfaction that other, easier games simply lack.
It’s an error in translation. The developer is not pondering adding an easy mode.