*Spoiler Free*
Elden Ring isn't my cup of tea. But its difficulty is. My reasoning for not salivating over it is mostly due to what I consider to be slow gaming mechanics. This has been the case since I bought Demon's Souls on PS3 on the first day it came out.
What does this have to do with Horizon, you didnt ask? I'll tell you. Almost nothing. Except the theme of Challenging Difficulty.
You see, I happen to be one of those people that cannot play a game unless it's at least on Hard. Truthfully, if it were solely up to me, a Normal/Easy mode would not exist in any game whatsoever. At first, I assumed this was due to growing up in the unforgiveable NES era, where most games werent completed only enjoyed. At least by me. But, upon further introspection, I realized its entirely due to my unshakeable affinity for role-playing.
In a game like Horizon, where the foundation of the mythos is about ROBOTS vs TRIBAL HUNTERS essentially, I find it increasingly annoying and unbelievable that a woman named Aloy, as talented as she may be, can take down a herd of Snapmaws by herself and living to talk about it. One Snapmaw maybe. Okay, Ill even throw in her taking down two (I personally can defeat three on Very Hard at this point), but Easy mode renders these ferocious mechanical monstrosities, to sheep-like behavior. You dont want to know the anger I feel when I see a fellow gamer on my PSN have the same amount of trophies as me and yet he's skating through the game on anything less than Hard.
Hard difficulty helps make video games much more realistic to me--as odd as that sounds. And strangely, as punishing as FW is on Very Hard, I cannot at all imagine not playing it this way. I also imagine there's a similar sentiment with Soulsborne fans. Which is why I dont understand why most people dont play most games on their Hardest levels.
FW on Very Hard offers the perfect balance of difficulty and fun, something I cant seem to find in pairs in any Soulsborne game besides Sekiro--where the action is fast paced and requires you to master a system of mechanics to slay anything in your path.
Here's to Sekiro 2, and Very Hard modes forever.
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
The charity event will be streamed live from Gamescom in August.
Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.
***Easy mode renders these ferocious mechanical monstrosities, to sheep-like behavior. You dont want to know the anger I feel when I see a fellow gamer on my PSN have the same amount of trophies as me and yet he's skating through the game on anything less than Hard.***
No one should care about this. No one.
Thank God people like you are the minority.
Yikes
Self righteous gamer here. How dare someone not play a game like them. If you had magic power you would strike down easy mode with the snap of your fingers.
Who cares about young kids that need it easy. Who cares about parents who maybe only have 30 minutes a day to play games. Who cares about gamers who don't have a lot of skill. What right do they have to play video games.
I second the desire to play games on harder difficulties at the outset, and arguably for the same reason (being that I grew up in the unforgiving 8-bit/16-bit era as well).
That said, this is oddly giving me authoritarian vibes, which I didn't think was possible when discussing games.
Play it your way, lad. If you're enjoying the harder difficulty and your experience isn't watered down, it's a win all around.