God of War creator (David Scott Jaffe) criticizes the high difficulty of games like Metroid Dread, Kena and Returnal

Considering my 13 year old son finished Metroid today and restarted it immeaditely on hard, I don't know if it really is too hard. I think it is more about patience and perseverance.

I'm all for options though but still it feels like Jaffe isn't using actually difficult games as an example.

I don't think you have to be able to "get" a game immeaditely - there should be a learning curve as long as it is smartly done.
 
Foorbits said:
People are playing God of War in large part because of the story.
Click to expand...

youre_serious_futurama.gif
 
There's a difference between hard difficulty and punishing.

Metroid Dread is a solid example of a game that requires some skill because it can be difficult, however the game is not punishing as it almost always restores you to a point just before you encountered the challenge that killed you. It encourages you to give it another try and test what you learned from defeat.

By comparison, I found Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze mildly punishing in addition to being difficult. This is because checkpoints are few, and you will find yourself replaying difficult parts of levels over and over again before encountering some bad luck that just happens to send you to your death. THAT is annoying in addition to being difficult.

Other times games can be painfully difficult for the sake of it, and that's when I would say that if a game is just not fun, then don't play it. Metroid Dread, on the other hand, is just too much fun!!
 
Honestly some of these games are getting quite tough for me to beat. I know I could do it given enough time, but nowadays I play less hours and the last thing I would want to do is stick to one game for weeks/months in order to "beat".

At least in Dark Souls you had your "difficulty" setting ingrained in the gameplay loop. If you wanted easier time you would go through previously visited areas, level up and become stronger. Returnal makes you do the same, with the difference that you are not getting stronger.

Still, I don't mind these games - when I realize I no longer am having fun to do the same thing repeatedly, I just quit. No hard feelings. And I don't fault the game either. It's just the reality of things that I simply can't devote enough time to git gud at one game.
 
Fuz said:
⁹I'm a PC guy. Why the fuck would I want a console?
And by the way, I can't stand controllers. I just can't use them.
I only have a DS (which I really liked).
Click to expand...
For the exclusives? But yeah i play 95% of games on pc.
Lol the opposite of me, i fucking hate wasd and barely tolerate the mouse...
 
Last edited:
Lol. People always add 'GOD OF WAR CREATOR' next to Jaffe's name to give more importance to his latest nonsense. Clown hasn't been part of the industry for ages and looks like he hasn't left his house for the last 20 years. Hell, the opinions of (some)people in here are actually more valuable than Jaffe's.

Lmao at the people acting like they are worried with dumb shit like: 'so many more people would have played x...' or 'they would have sold so many more copies of y...' as if the devs or publishers told them they weren't happy with their audience or numbers.

Considering the sea of braindead games that release each year it's downright pathetic to see some people in here basically advocating for every single game under the sun to be 'accessible' to every body. I'm sure they don't ask the same from other media though.

Not everything can be for everybody and that's perfectly fine
 
Holy shit, there's literally too many games. Let people enjoy, and games be made for all types of players. Not every game has to be some cinematic anyone can complete it for the story thing.

Some people prefer gameplay. Let them live.
 
Last edited:
He may not like high difficulty games but they are back to stay. It's a genre now, high difficulty/low checkpoint games that you have to practice and learn to play effectively. It's a niche that's not for everyone but they can be a great style of game if the balance is right. Maybe he's upset that they made a Metroid game this way and was expecting something in the Metroid wheelhouse, not this genre change.
 
I gotta tell you, I know next to nothing about Kena but I keep hearing about how difficult it is. It actually has me considering buying it blindly.
 
I don't agree with davidjaffe davidjaffe that these games are pushing gamers away. He simply doesn't like them. That's fine. I don't like "super challenging" games either. Just not my thing. My son loves the challenging games though. There is simply a large segment of gamers who love them and so game designers are making games for them. Why is that a problem?

ViolentP said:
I gotta tell you, I know next to nothing about Kena but I keep hearing about how difficult it is. It actually has me considering buying it blindly.
Click to expand...

Not sure why Kena is even mentioned when it has the option for lower difficulty settings.
 
Hugare said:
I'm not understanding your point

What content would have been changed by giving an Easy difficulty option?

Same areas, same enemies, same bosses

About your second paragraph: again, I'm not asking to change content. The best example within this context would be: giving you more life when you fail a platform if you suck at platformers.

Other players would still have the same fucking experience. Just giving a bigger healthbar would make the game playable for some.

About Returnal: Hades saves during your runs. You know, that game that is considered one of the best rogue likes ever and won GOTY.
And again, you could make it optional. And people would still have the "original" Returnal experience.
Click to expand...

The emotion of the player is changed. The dopamine reward from overcoming the challenge has been changed. I don't understand why you dense people don't get this. You view game design as "just make number different!", with zero consideration for how that actually impacts the player's engagement with it.

You view games like a zoo where you go to just gawk slack-jawed at all the funny animals, when it's more like an amusement park - and everyone knows that a good amusement park ride lives or dies by how it makes you feel.

Funnily enough, you get height requirements on rides.. and no one in history has said "I think the Turboraper 5000 should be designed a bit more inclusive so people who don't like scary things can enjoy it too!". Because everyone who enjoys them seems to instinctively understand that doing that would defeat the point.

Everyone else who doesn't like it just steers clear, like the whiners about game difficulty ought to just do.
 
Last edited:
Maybe these games should implement a god mode so detractors can quickly beat the game and then claim it was nothing special.
 
ViolentP said:
It's literally the only thing I know about it and the fact that the protagonist is a woman.
Click to expand...

I will say that the gap between normal and hard is pretty significant so if you are looking for a challenge then that's a good one, imo.
 
This thread will go well.

I don't really see the problem with easy modes existing. I'd probably never use it unless a game somehow managed to be impossibly hard or annoying but then it would definitely help people who just aren't that great at videogames or lack the time/dedication required.

TLOU2 is a good example of a game that already has a very hard mode in it but also lets you scale the difficulty as you please so that it's piss easy.

What's wrong with options?
 
I don't think Metroid Dread fits this description, it's only hard until you solve the puzzle of each boss. It's essentially old school game design. And I love the game for it. GOTY
 
justiceiro said:
Nah, literally all the games he mentioned have one thing in common: done in a budget. And what is the easiest way to inflate the amount of content you have? That's right, make it damn hard.
Click to expand...
I'm going off on a tangent here but your post made me realize that if a game is trying to have its length padded, then I vastly prefer it be done with a higher difficulty rather than a bunch of filler content.
 
Kena? of all games hard?! is there perhaps a different game also called Kena? cause I fail to see how that game is supposed to be difficult.

Metroid Dread, is IMO easier than it's predecessors. Dread and Other M are the only Metroid games were I got 100% item completion.
Also Samus controls the best she's ever been and bosses/enemies telegraph their attacks so well, so you don't keep making the same mistakes over and over. The game is still challenging but fair.
 
Again, the guy is not reading the room. How on Earth can he suggest games like Returnal, Metroid, and Kena are pushing gamers away, when it seems like by almost all accounts, people love these games?

He is completely projecting. How does he not see that? Returnal and Metroid Dread are actually my two favorite games of the year (I thought Kena was a bit boring and stopped playing, but it looked great), and they are hardly as difficult as some classic NES games. Hardly. If the games were easier they wouldn't have had ANY challenge, and wouldn't have been as fun.

Also thinking that all games should appeal to you is kind of insane, not to mention bizarrely self centered. There are tons of games that I have no interest in playing, and that's awesome. Because they aren't made for my preferences. So leave the ones that do appeal to my preferences alone.
 
Metroid Dread is not hard it just requires the player to pay attention to boss and enemy attacks, they are well designed but not too punishing on normal mode.

Most of the difficulty i had with the game came from the tedious and annoying stealth EMMI sections, but that doesn't have much to do with the combat
 
I think in single player games the player should be given as many difficulty options available as possible including infinite HP etc and super easy modes.

I personally don't care too much because I'm able to beat all games I play on whatever difficulty I choose. I don't think the challenge should be taken away from the core of these games, but easier options are certainly welcome so more people can enjoy the experience.
 
Last edited:
Tiago Rodrigues said:
Wait...why is Kena being mentioned alongside Returnal?
I know Returnal is not for me because i'm not in the mood to be playing a game where i'm dying every second right now...but is Kena like that too?

If so it might be the type of game i'm not buying any time soon. Weird because i didn't get that vibe from it and i was really interested in buying the game.
Click to expand...

Kena has some really tough bosses!! But the difference is it had a lower difficulty level to pick from. I'm fine with games that do that. That's how I'm playing it and will actually finish what is a great game!
 
Metroid Dread was challenging but fair, the bosses are like puzzles and once you find their patterns they become much simpler. Kena on the other hand had some ridiculous difficulty spikes, even dropping to normal the bosses were unfairly tricky with what seemed to be auto locked attacks when they launched towards you.
 
I can't have fun and enjoy a game if I have to keep playing the SAME sequence OVER AND OVER again. It's just not fun for me. I'd rather put the game on easy and just have fun instead of having to work my ass off during the limited amount of time I can play games these days.

My friend refuses to put any game on easy... it's like a pride thing. He feels like less of a man if he can't do it on medium. He sticks with his word though and he'll completely give up on playing a game instead of putting it on easy. SMH. I don't care what people think of me. I played Kena on easy because I wanted to enjoy myself, not throw my controller across the room.

He still hasn't beaten Doom Eternal and he returned Returnal due to their insane difficulty and the fact that you lose everything if you die in Returnal.
 
Look, I am 49 years old and Metroid is my favorite series, but I love Metroid Dread. I think that exploration is secondary to the action, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. This series needed some shaking up similar to the BOTW series and with Mercury Steam working hand in hand with Nintendo there was probably give and take on the whole design process with Nintendo.

The game has plenty of difficulty that is frustrating, but not to the detriment of the series. The frustration came from me fighting certain control options in the game. I believe that if you are willing to learn the controls and don't fight the design choices you will enjoy the game.

I found my brain fighting the controls at first, and wasn't sure if I liked it, but everything is there in the game and in the control design to make it possible to beat even for average gamers. Every time I have failed in this game I realize that it was my fault, and had to strive to get better.

I will give an example. I was choosing not to use this laser aiming ability on a certain boss and found I couldn't aim properly or shoot fast enough without it, so I decided to stop fighting it and learn to use it to the best of my abilities. After I stopped fighting this design choice I defeated the boss. For the most part the controls are fluid and they just work.

Same thing with countering. I initially hated it, but I stopped fighting it and am slowly getting better at it. I am racking up some serious time in this game mostly due to Emmi encounters and boss fights, but I'm ok with this and I am enjoying the game as a whole far more than any other game in the series. From graphics design, control design, to storyline I am enjoying this game immensely.
 
Last edited:
Fredrik said:
I don't think Metroid Dread fits this description, it's only hard until you solve the puzzle of each boss. It's essentially old school game design. And I love the game for it. GOTY
Click to expand...

Completely agree, on all points. Classic gameplay, learn the patterns of each boss. Also, GOTY.
 
Last edited:
People like Jaffe are why super easy games like Psychonauts 2 have invincibility modes and hand-holding shit constantly telling players what to do and how to do it.

Games used to be hard, arcade games were designed to eat quarters. New games are designed to coddle snowflakes that can't stomach the idea that they need to get better to proceed and are made so that anyone can get through the game without issue. The balance would ideally be somewhere between the two but it's way more skewed to the easy side making some games so simple I can play them in my sleep. Why do people expect to make their way through games without ever dying or having to figure out their next step now? Just watch a movie if you don't like actually playing games.
 
BusierDonkey said:
People like Jaffe are why super easy games like Psychonauts 2 have invincibility modes and hand-holding shit constantly telling players what to do and how to do it.
Click to expand...
And those games have a right to exist, just like the hard ones do.

I don't think game makers should be shamed for making their games too easy or too hard.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

"Atreus is a Terrible Character", Says David Jaffe, God of War Creator
Opinion  2 3 4 5
215
19K
Arachnid replied
Metroid Dread lttp kindda disappointed
LTTP  2
76
3K
gunstarhero replied
Jeff Grubb: Greek God of War game internally delayed to 2026
Rumor  2
61
653
Bond007 replied
God of War 20th Anniversary - Cast Reunion Panel
5
174
qbxwhi replied
‘Gears of War’ Movie Landing David Leitch as Director (Exclusive)
0
99
EverydayBeast replied
Top Bottom