According to IGN, Valor Mortis game director Radosław Ratusznik says his team is considering just two difficulty modes for their upcoming first-person soulslike action game. The game, set in an alt-history Napoleonic era and launching next year on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series, currently has only one difficulty setting. Ratusznik explained that he doesn’t want “tens of difficulty options” because players should have “similar experiences” when playing these types of games. He believes what connects Soulslike players is that “they are all struggling” and can share that experience when they succeed. While open to adding an easy mode for story-focused players, he’s against numerous difficulty settings that would make each person’s experience completely different.
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The value of shared suffering
Here’s the thing about Soulslike games – the struggle is kind of the point. Ratusznik’s position echoes what FromSoftware’s Hidetaka Miyazaki has said about Elden Ring, that “hardship is what gives meaning to the experience.” When everyone’s fighting the same tough bosses with the same rules, there’s this weird camaraderie that forms. You beat that ridiculous boss after forty tries, and you can genuinely high-five someone else who went through the same torture.
But here’s where it gets tricky. Is preserving that shared experience worth excluding people who physically can’t handle the default difficulty? Ratusznik makes an important distinction between lowering difficulty and improving accessibility. He’s against mechanics that let you toggle off core gameplay elements like parries because players “lose something from this experience.” Yet he acknowledges “we can have a lot of things that can assist you without lowering the difficulty of the game.”
What Elden Ring got right
Elden Ring basically solved this problem without adding an easy mode button. You could wander off, level up, come back and stomp that boss who was wrecking you. Certain builds turned nightmare encounters into jokes. The game gave you tools to create your own difficulty setting through gameplay choices rather than menu options.
That’s the real sweet spot, isn’t it? Giving players agency to make the game easier through in-game systems rather than sliders. It preserves that “we all beat the same game” feeling while acknowledging that not everyone has the same reflexes, time, or patience.
The accessibility conversation continues
Look, the difficulty debate in Soulslikes isn’t going away. But we’re slowly moving past the simplistic “easy mode yes/no” binary. Games like Elden Ring and the upcoming Hollow Knight: Silksong show there are creative ways to make challenges surmountable without compromising the core experience.
Ratusznik seems to get this nuance. He’s thinking about it, which is more than you can say for some developers who just dig in their heels. The fact that he’s openly discussing it while the game is still in development suggests Valor Mortis might find its own clever solution rather than just copying what came before.
Ultimately, the best approach might be what Ratusznik is already considering – a focused set of options rather than overwhelming customization. Because when you have “tens of difficulty options,” are you even playing the same game anymore? Probably not. And for Soulslikes, that shared experience matters more than we sometimes admit.
