The debate over whether video games should have easy difficulty settings has become one of the most passionate in gaming culture — triggered largely by FromSoftware games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring which deliberately offer no difficulty options. The pro-easy mode camp argues that games are a medium that should be accessible to everyone regardless of skill level or time availability, that the story and world of Elden Ring should be available to players who cannot master its combat, and that adding an easy mode costs nothing and takes nothing away from players who choose not to use it. The anti-easy mode camp argues that difficulty is intrinsic to the artistic vision of certain games, that the sense of achievement from overcoming a hard challenge is precisely the point, and that an easy mode fundamentally changes the experience the developer intended. Should all games have an easy mode?
