I love when a little extra effort goes into the AI and difficulty. The piss poor AI of Civ VI (difficulty only scales modifiers but doesn't change strategy or behavior) really ruined the game for me.

In alot of games higher difficulties just results in enemies haveing more HP, and hitting abit harder.
in God of War, the enemies are smarter, their attack paterns change ect.

Most games dont bother to have a "new" A.I created soley for the purpose of giveing better difficulty.
Most game companies are too lazy to go that extra mile, and just scale things artificially via more hp/dmg to enemies.

That's the type of difficulty settings that makes replaying a game interesting instead of the usual "enemies kill you in two hits now".

Also, I always read the creative director's name as Balrog instead of Barlog.