That depends on whether I'm familiar with the franchise. If I have no previous experience with it I'll go with normal. Though eventually beating it on the hardest difficulty is mandatory (as long as the game is enjoyable).



I never choose easy unless I want to explore the maps or fuck around.

Usually hard, but not hardest. I'd only going for hardest up front for series that I am familiar with.

I used to always do normal first, now it's hard from the get go and hopefully there's an even harder difficulty.

Normal mode because I don't want to rage and hate the game in first run through.

Normal 90% of the time (to experience the story, get a good feel for the game) no guides, don't go too much out of my way to get achievements.

On the second playthrough........... all bets are off, become for the most part an achievement savage.

hard if possible. normal is most of the time way too easy and no challenge but i want games to be a challenge.

i think having few problems to finish some areas is part of the experience and why i play games.

once i played far cry instincts on easy because you didn't get the achievement with a higher difficulty. it felt just wrong and stupid to run over the map without even the possibility to die.

I start on the hardest. If a game makes you me unlock difficulty levels I usually just play the hardest one i'm allowed and leave it at that

I always start in Normal.

I'm not into action games, so most of the time I'm not able to play hard mode.
And for RPGs it makes a harder second playthrough, playing on difficult would kill the replayability

I allways start on hardest possible difficulty, I love the challenge. Most games though are obviously made casual players in mind cause even the hardest difficulties feel kinda "meh" about being hard, or they're only hard if u don't play the game as it is meant to be played.

Usually on normal. I don't have the time to deal with most games on higher difficulty anymore.