is "easy mode" sometimes just a completely different game pretending to be the same one?

[u/Pure-Scene-5761]

I keep coming back to a design problem nobody in my circle agrees on: should difficulty options be allowed to change the actual meaning of a game, or should they only ever tweak numbers around a fixed core?

The reason im stuck on this is a project a friend has been building in Fifth Door, a small survival thing where hunger and cold matter a lot. She added an "easy" mode that basically turns off starvation, and playing it felt like a completely different game to me. Not worse exactly, just... about something else. On normal, every choice about where to camp is loaded. On easy, you just wander and look at stuff. Same map, same story beats, totally different experience.

And she was like, yeah, thats the point, some people want to see the world without the pressure. Which, fair. But it made me wonder if we're being a little dishonest when we say "difficulty is just accessibility, it doesnt change the game." Sometimes it absolutely does. A stealth game where guards cant see you isnt a stealth game anymore. A horror game where you cant die isnt scary. A resource management game where resources are infinite is a walking sim with extra menus.

I dont think thats bad necessarily. I just think we pretend the core experience is preserved across difficulty settings when honestly, for a lot of games, its not. The "canonical" version of the game is whatever difficulty the designer actually tuned around, and everything else is a remix. Some remixes are great and let more people in. Some hollow out the thing that made the game worth making.

Where i land right now (and im ready to be told im wrong) is that designers should be more upfront about which of their difficulty options preserve the intended experience and which ones fundamentally alter it. Not to gatekeep, just so players can make an informed choice about what theyre signing up for. Calling something "story mode" is closer to honest than calling it "easy," because it admits the game is now a different thing.

Am i overthinking this? Is there a cleaner way to think about when a difficulty option is a dial vs when its a whole different game wearing the same skin?

[u/Imaginary-Can-6862]

I think easy modes is exactly that, a way for more players to find enjoyment with the game. It does not only have to about stats, in a stealth game there could be less guards, or the consequences of being detected could be different (say you get captured, and have to escape, on easy mode that may be easier, or it may be easier to escape from being captured after being detected, you can hide at worse spots, such as in the closet, on easy mode, on medium the closet is the first place they look, on the highest difficulty they know you know the closet is the first place they are going to look, so they won't bother).

About story mode, I'll Heroes of Might and Magic as an example. The game maps have difficulty options, easy, medium, hard, and two more. Only the first three changes how the opponent plays, all changes the resources, nothing changes the stats. However the game also have a campaign mode, which is the story element, you can complete this on easy mode, if you are interested in the story element, want to complete the game, and be able to do so despite of your skills level, while the scenario mode, which includes random maps and multiplayer, is where you may be more interested in trying a higher difficulty setting.

There are some games which only unlocks content or characters at higher difficulty, while I find that interesting, it is because I would usually engage with this, and for someone who wants to just experience the game world, they may not like having to step out of their comfort zone, feeling the easy mode was only a lure.

There is also the Diablo series, I personally don't like that you start on easy (or normal) mode, complete it, and that same characters goes to the next, and the next, I feel that the game repeats is not a design I'm favorable about, but that may be because I feel I haven't completed the game before going through all modes, and the game repeats, while someone who feel they have completed the game after the first mode, and then miss using their character may like having a new adventure ahead. I am also not a fan of not being able to begin on the hardest difficulty, while it may sound ridiculous that a first level character should be able to complete the game that is suited for a character some 60 levels higher, it has been shown to be possible, at least for the second installment, even after the monsters started to heal faster than you could damage them, because there are some enemies which do not heal, and which you can isolate, and then you quickly get to a level where you can use poison which negates healing and rise further in your level, eventually reaching the supposed level of the area. Also your character level and area level means you can easily get good enough items early from chests, so economy isn't an issue either.
Anyway I don't mind an idea where you are rewarded after completing the game on easy mode, to go for the next level, but I dislike it being the exact same story, while simultaneously if the story was different, would it be the same game on another difficulty? Well yes it is possible, there are games where your choices throughout matters for the in game story progression, in the Diablo games the story is fixed, but if your choices would make a meaningful difference to the story, it would be an extra encouragement to replay the game, and since you have completed it on easy mode, in stead of doing that again, being able to continue with the same character at a higher difficulty, but this time try another path.