What Are Video Game Difficulty Settings? Definition, Origins and Examples

A difficulty setting is any option that changes how much challenge a video game presents to a player, whether that is a named preset chosen from a menu, a single toggle that eases one mechanic, or a hidden system that adjusts the game while it is being played.

Where Named Difficulty Presets Came From

Early arcade games did not have menus; the challenge was built into the code itself. According to Game Developer magazine, Space Invaders (1978) became harder as a round went on because of a microprocessor glitch: as players destroyed more of the alien sprites on screen, the game had fewer objects to render and sped up the animation of the remaining ones. This unintended effect established an increasing-difficulty model that later influenced arcade games such as Pac-Man and Galaga, and the title went on to sell more than 300,000 cabinets in Japan by 1980, according to Game Developer.

The idea of easing the game for a struggling player is even older. Wikipedia's entry on dynamic game difficulty balancing cites Midway's Gun Fight (1975) as an early example: the game placed helpful objects on the side of the screen belonging to whichever player appeared to be at a disadvantage.

Easy, Normal, Hard — and Why Guidelines Ask for More

The familiar Easy/Normal/Hard menu became standard once games moved from pay-per-play arcades to home consoles. Microsoft's Xbox Accessibility Guideline 108 describes difficulty as a subjective construct that depends on the balance between a player's abilities and the barriers a game sets up, so a fixed set of obstacles can feel impossible to one player and unexciting to another.

The same guideline recommends that games include four or more difficulty presets covering a wide range of skill levels, let players change difficulty at any time without losing progress, and offer both manual and automatic saving so players are not forced to replay long stretches after failing. It also asks developers to avoid names that mock the player, citing 'Wimp Mode' as an example of language to avoid.

Microsoft's guideline gives Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition (four presets ending in 'One Life') and Forza Horizon 4 (eight Drivatar difficulty levels, from New Racer to Unbeatable) as examples of titles offering a wide range of presets. It also notes that Minecraft's four Survival-mode levels (Peaceful, Easy, Normal, Hard) count toward this recommendation, but its separate Creative mode does not, because Creative changes the core gameplay and resources rather than just easing the existing challenge.

Difficulty vs. Accessibility: Not the Same Thing

Accessibility specialist Ian Hamilton, quoted by Kotaku, draws a distinction between making a game easier and making it accessible: removing an unnecessary barrier is not the same as removing challenge.

Kotaku describes accessibility options that work alongside, rather than instead of, difficulty levels: Forza Motorsport's Blind Drive Assist gives audio cues about a car's position on the track for blind players; Street Fighter 6 offers Dynamic, Modern and Classic control schemes, with the simplified Modern controls still eligible for tournament play; and Star Wars Jedi Survivor added a slower game-speed option for timing-based moves along with a new 'Jedi Padawan' difficulty mode after player feedback.

Microsoft's guideline makes the same point from a design perspective, recommending that studios let players adjust separate mechanics individually — such as puzzle difficulty versus combat difficulty — through explicit settings or discrete assists like auto-aim and braking assist, citing Forza Horizon 4 and Way of the Passive Fist as examples.

Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment (DDA)

Dynamic difficulty adjustment, also called dynamic game difficulty balancing, is a system that changes a game's challenge automatically while it is being played, based on how the player is performing, according to Wikipedia's entry on the topic.

Wikipedia lists several implementations: Left 4 Dead's 'AI Director' varies enemy spawns, item placement and pacing based on player stress during a run; Resident Evil 4 uses a hidden grading scale from 1 to 10 that adjusts enemy aggressiveness and numbers; and racing games such as Mario Kart use a technique known as 'rubber banding,' giving stronger power-up items to racers who are behind and weaker ones to those in the lead.

Does a 'Story' or 'Creative' Mode Count as a Difficulty Setting?

Not automatically. Microsoft's guideline treats a mode as a difficulty option only if it offers the same core gameplay, resources and opportunities as the main mode, just at a different level of challenge. The Outer Worlds' Story mode, where enemies have less health and deal less damage for players who prefer story over combat, qualifies under this definition, the guideline notes, while Minecraft's Creative mode — which removes resource management and combat entirely — does not.