Artificial Difficulty in Games: What Is It?

One day you decide to play Dark Souls. You've heard about things like artificial difficulty, making the game much harder than other role-playing games, but maybe that's an exaggeration. You're traversing a level when suddenly an enemy appears out of nowhere and attacks - a pretty standard situation.

However, this time the enemy kills you with one hit. One hit from a weaker enemy reduces your health to zero and sends you back to the beginning of the level. What happened? Is it a lack of gamer skill? Or something more?

While some might exclaim: "Get good!" For this, there is a specific term: artificial difficulty.

History

Artificial difficulty, also known as fake difficulty, occurs when a game's mechanics make it harder in various ways.

The Dark Souls series is infamous for this. While some people welcome the relentless game design, others rage at the unfair challenge. However, this did not start with the Souls series. The very first examples of difficult games and game modes appeared during the golden age of arcades.

Since arcade machines required players to insert a certain amount of money into the game, what could be better for a game developer than increasing the game's difficulty? Making the game harder allowed for greater profits and also encouraged gamers to try to beat one of the most challenging arcade games.

One can argue whether artificial difficulty is good or not. While successes can be sweeter, failures become even more painful.

There are two schools of thought. Some welcome the extra challenge, even if the game uses design techniques to dominate players. Others, possibly the majority of players, dislike this form of challenge. They play games to have fun, not to feel like the AI is cheating.

Different Types of Artificial Difficulty

There are several types of artificial difficulty in video games. For arcades, the profit motive was enough to turn games into a source of frustration for thousands of gamers.

Others enjoy having a difficult mode, testing their skills to the limit. Let's look at the kinds of artificial difficulty found in many games.

• Various difficulty modes where enemies simply deal more damage and the player is weaker.
• Clunky or awkward controls that intentionally make the player struggle with the controls, let alone complete a level without dying.
• Lack of checkpoints. Nothing hurts more than reaching the end of a level, dying, and returning to the very beginning. Especially in a cool game.
• Penalties for defeat, such as losing gold, permadeath, or other unfair game mechanics.

The Dividing Line

So what is the dividing line between artificial difficulty and a genuinely hard game? You can easily distinguish a truly hard game from one with artificial difficulty by a few signs.

A game with artificial difficulty will ignore all your efforts. No matter how much good gear you have or how many XP grinds you've done, it will always find a way to take you down at every opportunity.

However, a difficult game rewards you for the hard work and learning you invest in it. Even though games may have a steep learning curve, with high damage and dangerous quests around every corner, you can overcome them through skill and dedication.

So where do games like Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro stand? Well, it depends on whom you ask. Perhaps somewhere in the middle. By the end of these games, you know the mechanics and can spare yourself a lot of frustration.

Conclusion

Failures hurt. So when you try to relax with a good video game at the end of the day, the last thing you need is to be torn apart by Dark Souls' two nightmare bosses, Ornstein and Smough.

However, there is a difference between fake or artificial difficulty and a truly hard game. Mastering difficult games can indeed be an art and help you feel fulfilled as someone who learns something challenging and overcomes it.

Fortunately, there are reviews, guides, forums, blogs, and more to help you distinguish one from the other. Don't let artificial difficulty ruin your fun.