Just a thought I've always wondered about others. If ever prompted with a “Choose your difficulty” screen upon first boot, I always go with the hardest difficulty that isn’t a permadeath mode… even though my preference isn’t typically to play something that’ll test my patience. IDK why I am that way lol but always have been.

What about you?

I like my games like I like my eggs, over easy.

I play games to relax, unwind, and de-stress after a long hard day, I want to be able to kick back and enjoy them without being frustrated or having to sweat and struggle.

Normal or hard.

But I generally dislike when difficulty is optional because it’s most often poorly made.

I like difficult games that force me to come up with a strategy to make them easier.

That strategy also needs to be "classy" and genuinely interesting. If the game's strategy boils down to "don't get one-shotted > pause the game to chug endless healing items > brute-force your way through > repeat..." then the game has failed monumentally at creating a good challenge.

Unless there’s a requirement to playing on x difficulty to 100% the game then it’s being set to easy mode. Tho, Soulslike is my favourite genre so …