PS5 hit-maker rethinks game difficulty

Modernizing "Ratchet & Clank" meant making it easier, the game's creators said.

[Magog]

Good of them to give people choices. If you skip through puzzles you're cheating yourself of part of the experience though.

[neutralgamer1992]

Yes but at least give the option like they did. Some of those time puzzles in crack in time were awesome and difficult but it was peace of mind King of feeling knowing I can skip if I get stuck

as the game development cosy rises we will see more and more of these publishers who want to attract the biggest fan base possible to make as much money as possible

[deleted]

A Crack in Time had the pinnacle of Clank puzzles for sure! Loved them, as they really racked your brain.

I did feel as if the Rift Apart puzzles were a bit TOO easy. If something wasn't instantly obvious, it became clear within just a few minutes. I'd like to see puzzles return to A Crack in Time level, but leave skips or hints for those who want it. -Maybe link a trophy for not using skips or hints as a reward.

[jukins]

Eh i honestly felt the glitch parts were boring basically just going through blasting. Clanks puzzles were clever though

[neutralgamer1992]

We have sort of shed this conventional wisdom that games kind of need to be a hardass in order for you to get satisfaction out of it," "Rift Apart" game director Mike Daly told Axios, of his team's new approach to game challenge.

The bottom line: Daly says his team's work on making the new game more accessible transformed their mindset about making the game more approachable.

"We no longer think about, like, 'What will make the most elite players feel good about themselves?' And more like, 'What will enable everybody to have the experience they want to have?' Because that's sort of the most important thing to us."

[ArmorOfGod]

I’m no “elite” player, but unless a game is challenging *on some level*, it’s not worth playing. It doesn’t have to be Returnal or Souls-hard, just challenging enough to make me think. And this is why I won’t be playing Rift Apart. Catch-22 for them, eh? Open the door for players that typically find games too challenging, close the door for players who only play games to overcome their challenge.

[neutralgamer1992]

That's why there is normal and hard difficulties. It's best to have options

[ArmorOfGod]

@neutralgamer1992
If hard mode made the AI more intelligent or rebalanced enemy types so it mattered which weapon type you use, you’d have a point.

Sadly, in this case just turning enemies into bullet sponges does not make the player think or strategize, it just takes longer to kill them. Therefore, this “hard mode” is more accurately titled “long mode”.

[Aussiesummer]

Those time and virus puzzles started to wear thin, I skipped the last one. Glad they added that feature.

[gold_drake]

"We no longer think about, like, 'What will make the most elite players feel good about themselves?"

this line made me laugh cause its soo true haha.

[Retroman]

Soooooooooo, do this mean Clank parts can be skipped now
in Rift Apart?? if so I'm glad!!! hated clank part's in the 2016 reboot.

[brewin]

YES! You an skip them, as I am doing so in my 2nd playthrough. They are by far the worst parts of the game IMO.

[Retroman]

Thank you for sharing this....... now I can buy the game.

[boing1]

I'm calling this a 'Lifestyle' Game Design and I'm noticing this trend for a while now. It's not just Insomniac.

[brewin]

I find it hilarious that on one day Psychonauts 2, a Microsoft product, gets LAMBASTED for adding a feature to make the game easier for anyone who just wants to experience the game, then those people disappear when its their fave company adding the same kind of thing to their game. I, for one, think its great they are adding this kind of accessibility to these games. There will almost always be the option to ramp up the difficulty in games, but there should always be an option to tone it down as well. This whole "Git Gud" movement really is toxic and it pigeonholes certain games, limiting their potential fanbase.

There should ALWAYS be an option to make games easier for those that want to see everything a game has to offer. Not everyone has the time or patience to memorize every pattern and every layout of each and every enemy and map in a game. I went back and started playing Nioh 2 again recently, and the hardest part was memorizing enemy placement and their specific attacks. Id rather play it like Ninja Gaiden and let each battle unfold more naturally, where my ability dictates my success, not luck and mental stamina.

The gameplay is fun, but dying 10 times on the same boss because it has a life meter 20 x the size of mine is not fun, its annoying. Its why I stopped playing the 1st time around and it does not make me want to go back. I will probably never see the end of that game, even though I really enjoy the gameplay and the setting. Games like that should be more accessible. As it stands, that kind of difficulty does not make a game fun, it just merely pads out the gameplay hours as you can spend an hour on the same damn boss fight.

Sure, you feel accomplished when you finally beat it, but its not necessary to be that hard for you to feel accomplishment. Just seeing the amount of loot a boss drops feels good regardless of how hard it was or how long it took. a 1 hour boss fight is nothing more than an annoyance to many and most will never see it through. I have way too much going on and way too many other games to play to focus that much on a single thing within a single game. It all just feels so pointless at the end of the day.

[HankHill]

If you're dying to the same boss 10 times, you may need to think about changing your strategy. Whatever you were doing to die 10 times was obviously wrong.

[brewin]

yeah ok. People are always talking about how they die hundreds of times in those games. The boss life bar is just too damn big thats all. Get it halfway down and I just dont care to keep repeating the damn process for that long. I get bored and move on to a different game that is actually fun. Just tacking on a ginormous life bar so a boss fight takes forever is not fun.